Latest / Next Act with Jeff Ornstein / Mike Enright - SAG-AFTRA Actor, TV & Film Performer

Transcript

Mike Enright - SAG-AFTRA Actor, TV & Film Performer · Next Act with Jeff Ornstein

• 0:02
  Jeff Ornstein: Hi everyone and welcome to Next Act with Jeff Orenstein.
• 0:05
  Jeff Ornstein: I am Jeff, and on this show we celebrate people on the cusp of greatness.
• 0:09
  Jeff Ornstein: Those building on past successes in some of the curious and inventive and sometimes unexpected ways they have achieved those and stepping into moments that could define their legacy.
• 0:20
  Jeff Ornstein: We'll talk about current projects, lessons learned, and the extraordinary opportunities ahead.
• 0:26
  Jeff Ornstein: So the best is yet to come.
• 0:28
  Jeff Ornstein: Today's guest is Mike Enright, SAG AFTER actor and former media and telecom executive who made the leap into film and television in his mid-60s after retiring from a 30-year corporate career.
• 0:41
  Jeff Ornstein: From founding employees at CNN to sharing the screen with stars on The Walking Dead, A24 Films, and Apple TV projects, Mike proves that breaking into Hollywood has no expiration day.
• 0:54
  Jeff Ornstein: Welcome, Mike.
• 0:56
  Mike Enright: Hey, thank you very much, Jeff.
• 0:57
  Mike Enright: It's a pleasure to meet you.
• 0:59
  Jeff Ornstein: Well, I'm delighted to have you because Next Act is about people who are making transitions or combining the different skill sets that different professional opportunities may have presented themselves along the way.
• 1:12
  Jeff Ornstein: But you, my friend, are a mirror image of what I'm in the process of trying to do, which is I've had a career for 42 years as a designer.
• 1:21
  Jeff Ornstein: I was gifted with acting lessons when I was 61.
• 1:25
  Jeff Ornstein: And I've had some good fortune, some roles, or you know, featured extra roles on the succession and just like that.
• 1:32
  Jeff Ornstein: And I just finished my first feature film.
• 1:34
  Jeff Ornstein: But you are way ahead of the game.
• 1:36
  Jeff Ornstein: And so other people, you are an inspiration to the listeners that we're catering to.
• 1:41
  Jeff Ornstein: Can I?
• 1:42
  Jeff Ornstein: Should I?
• 1:42
  Jeff Ornstein: Is it even possible?
• 1:44
  Jeff Ornstein: And you're living proof that it's possible.
• 1:46
  Jeff Ornstein: So you were a former radio DJ and TV news reporter, and then found an employee at CNN.
• 1:53
  Jeff Ornstein: So that's pretty corporate world.
• 1:56
  Jeff Ornstein: For 30 years, you were in telecom and IT sales and PR communications.
• 2:01
  Jeff Ornstein: Did you then retire, or was it a choice to say I'm gonna close this chapter of my life and think about something new?
• 2:10
  Mike Enright: Yeah, it's just I decided that I was in a position where I could retire a little bit early.
• 2:16
  Mike Enright: Wanted to give myself a couple years just in case, just to experience the other side without the responsibilities.
• 2:22
  Mike Enright: And that came about, and I worked in a couple of post-retirement jobs, one of which I'm kind of proud of.
• 2:30
  Mike Enright: I was substitute teacher, and then um Hollywood came rolling in the door.
• 2:37
  Jeff Ornstein: I love it.
• 2:38
  Jeff Ornstein: Well, how did that happen?
• 2:39
  Jeff Ornstein: Did a friend say, Hey, come with me to this audition, or how'd it go down?
• 2:44
  Mike Enright: How it happened is I was working at a big wholesaler giving out samples.
• 2:48
  Mike Enright: It's my first post-retirement job.
• 2:51
  Mike Enright: And I was just having a blast, and I just met a guy that I got along with real well.
• 2:57
  Mike Enright: We're friends, and about four months later, I found out that he was an actor.
• 3:02
  Mike Enright: His name is Dennis Hurley, he's from Weymouth, Massachusetts.
• 3:05
  Mike Enright: And you know, he just started to share stories with me, and that's how I first developed my interest.
• 3:12
  Mike Enright: How how I actually found out about it from a neighbor, she said she heard on the radio that they were casting zombies in this TV show that was coming around, and I thought, well, that that might be fun.
• 3:25
  Mike Enright: I'll just give that a try and see what happens.
• 3:28
  Jeff Ornstein: So just so we're clear, did you act as a kid or were you in the high school plays, or was this the first time you got on the proscenium arch, so to speak?
• 3:38
  Mike Enright: It was really legitimately the first time.
• 3:41
  Mike Enright: I did have a buddy, I was a hockey player in high school, but a buddy of mine was uh one of the actor guys who was running around doing film all the time, and you know, he just kind of get kept after me until I wound up with a couple of lines in a high school play, but that was pretty much it.
• 3:57
  Mike Enright: That ultimately, though, did lead to my radio career, which in fact kind of led to my TV career, and maybe or maybe not has something to do with this acting that I'm doing now.
• 4:09
  Jeff Ornstein: I think that's phenomenal.
• 4:11
  Jeff Ornstein: So, not for nothing, but your hockey fan.
• 4:13
  Jeff Ornstein: He there's probably a couple of roles that are ripe for him right now.
• 4:16
  Jeff Ornstein: Hockey on film seems to be a hot topic.
• 4:19
  Jeff Ornstein: So when you decided you were gonna, it wasn't just a one-off, not just as the attraction of being a zombie for a day, but they were gonna kind of keep doing it.
• 4:28
  Jeff Ornstein: What'd your friends, what'd your family say?
• 4:31
  Mike Enright: I didn't really decide to keep on doing it until I was down the road a ways.
• 4:36
  Mike Enright: Um, I just thought it was a kind of a one-time thing that happened in my life.
• 4:41
  Mike Enright: I got struck by lightning, I got favored, and something remarkable happened, but I didn't expect that it would continue.
• 4:50
  Mike Enright: So while I was on the set of The Walking Dead, Dead City season two, I was just really honestly, my focus was just on doing that.
• 4:57
  Mike Enright: And it was a joke between my wife and I.
• 4:59
  Mike Enright: In the very beginning, I'm like, well, if you take these pictures out in the backyard, maybe I I can get an audition.
• 5:06
  Mike Enright: And then I got an audition, and I was like, Well, maybe I can get one day on a major Hollywood set.
• 5:13
  Mike Enright: That would be just fascinating for me.
• 5:16
  Mike Enright: So, you know, one day came along and I survived it somehow, and it didn't kick me off the lot.
• 5:22
  Mike Enright: So, you know, I just kept on wishing for another day.
• 5:26
  Jeff Ornstein: Wishing is great, keeps your hopes up.
• 5:28
  Jeff Ornstein: It's a wonderful way to pass the time, but it's a lot of work going on calls or sending your reels in.
• 5:34
  Jeff Ornstein: You obviously did a good job at marketing yourself too, and were received well.
• 5:39
  Jeff Ornstein: Have you found that typecasting has played into your keeping busy, or are you all over the place?
• 5:47
  Mike Enright: Yeah, my wife and I we had a little marketing sit-down when all this started, and we decided well, what are my characteristics, what are my assets, whatever.
• 5:57
  Mike Enright: And the only thing we could really come up with is that I had a decent head of hair.
• 6:00
  Mike Enright: So that's about what we started with.
• 6:04
  Mike Enright: And then it was just really just one step at a time trying to get an audition, trying to get one day on a set.
• 6:10
  Mike Enright: And then when it concluded, I took about a month off to to think about if that was something I wanted to try to pursue.
• 6:18
  Mike Enright: And when I decided I want to try to pursue it, I knew it was gonna not gonna be easy, and it was there was a huge path ahead of me, and I didn't really know what it was, but I knew it would take some work.
• 6:30
  Mike Enright: But yes, it's gotten me a little bit of cash in my family, friends.
• 6:34
  Jeff Ornstein: They're like, yeah, like well, it's a bold move because most people are coming from the professional arena, they go to work in an office, they have a desk, they have there's support staff and there's supervisors and so on and so forth, and then all of a sudden you're crossing that path into Hollywood in such a big mystery and such a big enigma to the public.
• 6:55
  Jeff Ornstein: What a lot of our listeners that are considering this, one of the number one hesitations is fear of rejection.
• 7:03
  Jeff Ornstein: And we've had other people like yourself on, and they talk about well, how did you deal with the fear of rejection?
• 7:08
  Jeff Ornstein: Or it doesn't sound like you got many rejections, but Oh, that's thank you, but that's not quite true.
• 7:14
  Jeff Ornstein: So, was that a deterrent or was that a source of strength for you when people said you this isn't the right role for you, or something?
• 7:23
  Jeff Ornstein: How did that go down?
• 7:24
  Mike Enright: Yeah, so after I just tried to get into it, I just asked around and just tried to find out how you get started.
• 7:30
  Mike Enright: And a typical path, we've got some great colleges here in this area, and was able to do a couple of student films.
• 7:37
  Mike Enright: Um, I got a big break with a production company called Elizon Productions.
• 7:43
  Mike Enright: They put me in a kind of a decent role in The Rewind, which is a short film, and that was my first thing I did outside of the student films once I had left Dead City.
• 7:55
  Mike Enright: So that just was a huge step up for me.
• 7:58
  Mike Enright: And then when I got cast in the drama with Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, I actually said, Hey, maybe uh, you know, I'm doing okay.
• 8:08
  Jeff Ornstein: Tell me this.
• 8:09
  Jeff Ornstein: Were you studying?
• 8:10
  Jeff Ornstein: You were in it said, I've got notes here about your first acting class that you said was embarrassingly bad, which I find hard to believe with your tracking class.
• 8:17
  Jeff Ornstein: My class wasn't bad, I was bad.
• 8:19
  Jeff Ornstein: So were you have you been taking classes all along?
• 8:24
  Mike Enright: I have.
• 8:24
  Mike Enright: It's great.
• 8:25
  Mike Enright: The first thing I wanted to do when I took that very first class was to find out what is an actor, what makes an actor.
• 8:31
  Mike Enright: And then from that I could figure out maybe do I have that?
• 8:35
  Mike Enright: When I came out of that class knowing or feeling, and I think every actor will probably answer this a little bit differently, but I felt like the two important things were could I create a character and could I make it believable?
• 8:50
  Mike Enright: Right.
• 8:51
  Mike Enright: And I felt coming out of that class, I felt with some hard work and some time and some effort, that's something I think I can do.
• 9:01
  Jeff Ornstein: Right.
• 9:01
  Jeff Ornstein: That's excellent.
• 9:02
  Jeff Ornstein: Like I mentioned, I started my acting journey at 61, and after a lengthy career, which is still going on as a designer, but I felt you have the same questions.
• 9:14
  Jeff Ornstein: Can I inhabit this character?
• 9:15
  Jeff Ornstein: Am I a pig farmer?
• 9:16
  Jeff Ornstein: Am I an alcoholic writer?
• 9:18
  Jeff Ornstein: Am I a ghost that's coming back to haunt my children?
• 9:21
  Jeff Ornstein: Whatever it is.
• 9:22
  Jeff Ornstein: And it's really important to lose yourself and be able to say, the Jeffrey that woke up this morning is not here because now I am Chuck or whoever.
• 9:32
  Jeff Ornstein: So I think in some instances, I felt very comfortable saying, I got nothing to prove.
• 9:40
  Jeff Ornstein: I've already proved something before.
• 9:41
  Jeff Ornstein: So now I'm proving this to myself.
• 9:43
  Jeff Ornstein: Can I be the born-again dad living in Utah?
• 9:48
  Jeff Ornstein: Because you just have to let yourself go.
• 9:50
  Jeff Ornstein: And I think also people our age, I think there's a little bit, maybe I'm wrong, we're a little bit more at ease at letting ourselves go because we know who we are, as opposed to a younger person.
• 10:02
  Jeff Ornstein: And I'm in awe of younger people who are so dedicated and are working four jobs in order to pay for their acting classes and go on calls.
• 10:08
  Jeff Ornstein: But I think that being able to inhabit the character quickly and easily, seamlessly and convincingly, is the way you jump ahead.
• 10:17
  Jeff Ornstein: Where are you located?
• 10:18
  Jeff Ornstein: Forgive me.
• 10:18
  Jeff Ornstein: I didn't catch that in your.
• 10:20
  Mike Enright: Oh, I live in the southeast part of Massachusetts.
• 10:23
  Jeff Ornstein: Oh, hi, neighbor.
• 10:24
  Jeff Ornstein: Go spot.
• 10:24
  Jeff Ornstein: Yeah.
• 10:25
  Jeff Ornstein: I'm in Boston.
• 10:26
  Jeff Ornstein: Yeah.
• 10:27
  Jeff Ornstein: All right.
• 10:27
  Jeff Ornstein: So educate me a little bit.
• 10:29
  Jeff Ornstein: Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
• 10:31
  Jeff Ornstein: Who is this name in this fellow?
• 10:34
  Mike Enright: Oh, this guy is the star of one of the many stars of the Walking Dead series.
• 10:40
  Mike Enright: And then he got his own spin-off three or four years ago.
• 10:45
  Mike Enright: And they brought the second season to Boston tissue.
• 10:48
  Mike Enright: Oh, wow.
• 10:49
  Mike Enright: And that's where that's where I got involved.
• 10:51
  Jeff Ornstein: When you were a zombie, were you like rotting flesh and limbs missing, or were you the handsome good-looking zombie?
• 11:00
  Mike Enright: No, I was not a good-looking zombie.
• 11:02
  Mike Enright: Okay.
• 11:05
  Mike Enright: And initially I had a different role called uh Bloodshirt.
• 11:10
  Mike Enright: And what we were a group, a gang of about 21 guys, and we were always being solicited by Jeffrey Dean Morgan's character, Negan, to join up with him and do nefarious things, and we were always not having any part of it at all.
• 11:25
  Mike Enright: So you actually see my own face, it but I have a beard, and I'll just flick it to you right here.
• 11:32
  Mike Enright: You kind of feel like I look like not too pretty.
• 11:36
  Mike Enright: But I was actually able to be like a a-character, a role, and then toward the end of the series, after I had met my demise, it's already aired, so I can tell you that.
• 11:47
  Mike Enright: They did call me in to be a walker or a zombie, yeah.
• 11:50
  Mike Enright: So I got a couple days on set doing that.
• 11:52
  Jeff Ornstein: That's very cool.
• 11:53
  Jeff Ornstein: So looking back, it sounds like you're just loving the theater and being a part of this community.
• 12:00
  Jeff Ornstein: Do you miss your corporate life, or is there anything about your corporate life you wish you could incorporate into your theater life?
• 12:06
  Mike Enright: I loved my career in business.
• 12:08
  Mike Enright: It was really varied.
• 12:09
  Mike Enright: I got to do a lot of different things, so I got to travel, which was really cool.
• 12:12
  Mike Enright: Yeah, I've been away from it for about four years, and I'm okay with that.
• 12:16
  Jeff Ornstein: Okay, good.
• 12:17
  Jeff Ornstein: This is something also that people in our stage of life that are thinking of this next act, I think it's really important that they hear it straight from you because the hesitation, the fear, the the confidence issue, the money issue.
• 12:30
  Jeff Ornstein: So I've met people on the streaming shows that are professional extras, or what are they called?
• 12:37
  Jeff Ornstein: They're not called extras anymore.
• 12:38
  Jeff Ornstein: They're called background.
• 12:39
  Jeff Ornstein: Background, yeah.
• 12:40
  Jeff Ornstein: Background actors.
• 12:41
  Jeff Ornstein: They actually make a living and they work five days a week.
• 12:44
  Jeff Ornstein: I don't know if I don't know if that's rewarding for someone who's really want to be an artist because they're the guy with the shopping bag or there's a woman with the walker or whatever they are, but you can actually go out and do that.
• 12:56
  Jeff Ornstein: So you live in Massachusetts.
• 12:59
  Jeff Ornstein: Is there ample opportunities that are coming your way in Massachusetts?
• 13:04
  Jeff Ornstein: Do you have to go to New York or Chicago or how does that go down?
• 13:08
  Mike Enright: Well, I haven't made it to the point where I'm a known speaking actor yet.
• 13:12
  Mike Enright: So I do a lot of background, and a lot of people have a lot of different opinions about doing background, and I think it's a great start.
• 13:22
  Mike Enright: Now I've been on sets, probably 14 different sets at this point.
• 13:27
  Mike Enright: Um, probably 100, 150 days on set.
• 13:31
  Mike Enright: So I'm very I'm starting to get pretty comfortable being there, and I think that's a lot of it.
• 13:37
  Jeff Ornstein: Well, the other thing that I found when I was in background for these well-known shows, the camaraderie is amazing.
• 13:44
  Jeff Ornstein: It is amazing, and I think that's a fallacy that's in the back of people's minds.
• 13:48
  Jeff Ornstein: Oh, Hollywood's cutthroat, people are out to promote themselves.
• 13:52
  Jeff Ornstein: And in between the shoots, when us background folks are hanging around, you never stop talking to people.
• 13:58
  Jeff Ornstein: Everybody wants to share the story, and I found it a really encouraging environment.
• 14:03
  Mike Enright: That is a great observation, and that's one of my favorite things about doing it.
• 14:06
  Mike Enright: Is I find actors to be very exciting people, very interesting, adventurous people with a lot of different experiences in life and willing to share.
• 14:16
  Mike Enright: So yeah, so one of my favorite things is the time that we spend in holding and waiting to get to the set.
• 14:24
  Mike Enright: I I just love meeting new actors, and I've learned an awful lot.
• 14:28
  Mike Enright: And they've helped me in so many different ways.
• 14:31
  Mike Enright: One of them, one time I met these folks on a set.
• 14:34
  Mike Enright: This is back when I was a non-union actor, and when they were like looking for somebody, they like, Mike, you'd be perfect, and they pushed me into the spotlight.
• 14:44
  Mike Enright: I won the that little segment, so to speak.
• 14:49
  Mike Enright: And as a result, I got a letter three days later from the union, and that that kind of was the final necessary ingredient.
• 14:58
  Mike Enright: Right then, I could join the union and really excited and scared to do so.
• 15:04
  Jeff Ornstein: Now, I have I live half the week in New York, so I've gone to a bunch of SAG events in Manhattan, but not here.
• 15:10
  Jeff Ornstein: Do we have them here in Massachusetts?
• 15:12
  Mike Enright: Oh, they're great.
• 15:12
  Mike Enright: I've been to three at this point.
• 15:14
  Mike Enright: They've always got something going on.
• 15:16
  Mike Enright: They have actors' workshops from time to time that are of very small cost.
• 15:22
  Mike Enright: And I went to one of those, it's great.
• 15:25
  Mike Enright: You can check out one of my pictures on Instagram, Mike Enright17, all of us actors now.
• 15:32
  Mike Enright: We also have to be social media people as well.
• 15:36
  Jeff Ornstein: So tell me this.
• 15:37
  Jeff Ornstein: So you're keeping yourself busy, you're doing the background work and the highlighted extra or whatever the names are, I forgot.
• 15:43
  Jeff Ornstein: But is there a role that you're like when you go to bed at night, put your head on your pillow that you're dreaming of?
• 15:48
  Jeff Ornstein: Like, boy, would I like to be that dad ass.
• 15:51
  Jeff Ornstein: I want to be that superhero.
• 15:53
  Jeff Ornstein: I don't know.
• 15:54
  Jeff Ornstein: Is there something that Yeah, there is.
• 15:56
  Mike Enright: And actually, I almost got it last a couple weeks ago.
• 16:00
  Mike Enright: I almost got that that role that I always feel like I should have.
• 16:04
  Mike Enright: So, as you know, I was a TV news reporter, and there was some casting for that recently in Boston a couple weeks ago, and I did my uh auditions, which I thought I was happy sending them in.
• 16:15
  Mike Enright: I thought I did as best I could, and thought I had a really good chance, and it just didn't roll my way.
• 16:21
  Mike Enright: But I would love to be a TV news reporter again, even if it's just it's like going back to your roots, right?
• 16:27
  Mike Enright: Even if it's just on screen, I'd love to be a DJ, I would love to be in a music video.
• 16:32
  Mike Enright: Part of me plays these villainous kind of weirdo guys, and then sometimes I play quirky, kind of funny guys too, and I enjoyed all of it.
• 16:40
  Jeff Ornstein: Isn't that good?
• 16:41
  Jeff Ornstein: Yeah, that when I started my studies in Stella, I was 61, the next youngest guy was 51, the next youngest gal was 42, and everyone else was in their 20s.
• 16:50
  Jeff Ornstein: So I was the dad, you know, I was always cast as the dad, and I really wanted to be a bad dude once.
• 16:58
  Jeff Ornstein: And I asked my coach, whom I absolutely really loved, and he made me better and better.
• 17:03
  Jeff Ornstein: Can I be like a badass dude, like maybe streetcar or something?
• 17:06
  Jeff Ornstein: And he's like, You'll be what I'll tell you'll be.
• 17:09
  Jeff Ornstein: And that was the end of that discussion.
• 17:11
  Jeff Ornstein: And he said it with love to be honest with you, I got a role for you.
• 17:15
  Mike Enright: Something I've been thinking about.
• 17:16
  Mike Enright: You should you should be.
• 17:17
  Mike Enright: What's that?
• 17:18
  Mike Enright: I see you as one of those guys on like all my children, like the older, really wealthy, sophisticated guy who you know is surrounded by beautiful women and drama.
• 17:30
  Mike Enright: Maybe that's your life now.
• 17:32
  Jeff Ornstein: I don't know, but in class, I was always the dad, every kind of dad.
• 17:36
  Jeff Ornstein: And then I've done a bunch of independent little films, but one feature, and I've been crashed three times as the devilishly handsome, rich, powerful, likely murderer.
• 17:48
  Jeff Ornstein: Ooh.
• 17:49
  Jeff Ornstein: So yeah, they're fun roles to play.
• 17:52
  Jeff Ornstein: And so my friends are saying, Yeah, you're gonna be typecast as the rich murderer who can't be trusted.
• 17:58
  Jeff Ornstein: So, you know, my wife was 30 years younger than me, this absolute beautiful actress.
• 18:02
  Jeff Ornstein: So, and I had a friend of mine who became a very well-known and respected casting agent in LA, and she said to me, Don't fight tight, you're not gonna.
• 18:12
  Jeff Ornstein: I had this great monologue I wanted to put on tape.
• 18:14
  Jeff Ornstein: It was a pig farmer.
• 18:15
  Jeff Ornstein: I think I might have mentioned that earlier.
• 18:16
  Jeff Ornstein: And the guy was like, We're not doing it.
• 18:19
  Jeff Ornstein: You're not gonna be ever cast as a pig farmer.
• 18:21
  Jeff Ornstein: So forget it.
• 18:22
  Jeff Ornstein: If they want a pig farmer, they know what they're looking for, and you ain't it, buddy.
• 18:25
  Jeff Ornstein: So don't she's like, I could cast you as a pilot all day long.
• 18:31
  Jeff Ornstein: So I could be a pilot, perhaps.
• 18:33
  Jeff Ornstein: So um, I had a monologue once where the guy's wife dies, surprise death, and there was some tears and everything, and it was so the roller coaster of emotions in this monologue were amazing, and it's just this is what I want.
• 18:47
  Jeff Ornstein: I don't want to be the caricature of the neighborly dad.
• 18:50
  Jeff Ornstein: So I would like to ask actors like that because I can't imagine there's not a role burning in the back of everybody's brain.
• 18:57
  Jeff Ornstein: If I could get my hands on that, the real talent would emerge and the public would see me.
• 19:02
  Mike Enright: Oh, yeah.
• 19:03
  Mike Enright: Okay, yeah.
• 19:04
  Jeff Ornstein: Yeah.
• 19:04
  Jeff Ornstein: Here it says you've had unforgettable moments, including a cheering crowd in Worcester on DC2, being introduced by name on the drama and being wrapped on Super Troopers 3 to applause from the entire casting crew.
• 19:17
  Jeff Ornstein: Okay, so what's the story behind that?
• 19:20
  Jeff Ornstein: That sounds terrific.
• 19:21
  Mike Enright: I'll never forget them.
• 19:22
  Mike Enright: They're incredible experiences.
• 19:23
  Mike Enright: If I had to pick a winner out of the three, they're all winners.
• 19:27
  Mike Enright: But after we had been costumed, when I was with the bloodshirts and Dead City and Walking Dead, we had a brief look at what kind of what we all looked like.
• 19:35
  Mike Enright: And they just had us march out.
• 19:37
  Mike Enright: It was in the summer, it was six o'clock at night, and we marched out on the street, and there was like 200 fans on one side of the street, and there were 200 fans on the other side of the street, and they were just absolutely going nuts.
• 19:53
  Mike Enright: Wow, and and I tell you, the fans of that show are worldwide, and they are fervent.
• 20:00
  Mike Enright: They went nuts, and we just but going out with my little gang of 20, I would have to say that because it's a group effort.
• 20:07
  Jeff Ornstein: Yeah, yeah, I gotta say, you're lighting up like a Christmas tree, you look so happy, and I think that's really I'm that's why I was so excited when we booked you because this is for people at our age in life to say, should I have hesitations?
• 20:20
  Jeff Ornstein: Will I be good enough?
• 20:21
  Jeff Ornstein: How will I support myself?
• 20:23
  Jeff Ornstein: What will my family think?
• 20:24
  Jeff Ornstein: And you've had the best of all those worlds, it's really worked out for you, and that's great because it'll give other people the impetus to say, I've heard someone on Next Stack with Jeff Ornstein, you can do it, you can do it.
• 20:38
  Mike Enright: If there's one thing I can say, is it's never too late.
• 20:40
  Jeff Ornstein: That's fantastic.
• 20:42
  Mike Enright: It's just never too late, and that's a little bit of a stepping stone from what my grandfather taught me when I was 15.
• 20:47
  Mike Enright: He said, Mike, when an opportunity comes along in life, take it.
• 20:52
  Jeff Ornstein: That's that's great advice.
• 20:53
  Jeff Ornstein: And you know what?
• 20:54
  Jeff Ornstein: It's the risk takers in life that make a difference.
• 20:57
  Jeff Ornstein: We've gone horribly over, as I always do, because I'm a chatterbox, you're a chatterbox, and your story is inspirational, which is really terrific.
• 21:05
  Jeff Ornstein: But I wanted just to talk to you about one more thing because you're marketing yourselves and you're trying to get into all these different things.
• 21:11
  Jeff Ornstein: It talks about you showed it a little bit, experimenting with your looks, facial hair, hairstyle, wardrobe.
• 21:17
  Jeff Ornstein: Tell me a little bit about that.
• 21:18
  Jeff Ornstein: Is that like if you change your looks, does that help you master the character?
• 21:23
  Jeff Ornstein: Do you feel the connection between the appearance and the inside and the outside?
• 21:28
  Jeff Ornstein: You got it.
• 21:29
  Mike Enright: Absolutely.
• 21:30
  Mike Enright: Like right now, you'll see I'm clean shaven because I'm looking to get some different types of roles to add into the kind of villain, villainous type people and homeless people who I portray.
• 21:42
  Mike Enright: So, yeah, it's not only the facial hair, but I huge kudos to all the people who work in wardrobe.
• 21:49
  Mike Enright: Because once you put that wardrobe on as an actor or as a very young actor like myself, that is like the final coupe des gras.
• 21:57
  Mike Enright: That helps me get that character, and I am that character.
• 22:01
  Jeff Ornstein: Right.
• 22:01
  Jeff Ornstein: That's fantastic, and that's what people who've never done it should learn.
• 22:05
  Jeff Ornstein: You know, it's not you get you have people that are helping you, other professionals, hair, makeup, lighting designer, director, of course.
• 22:12
  Jeff Ornstein: All these people will help build your confidence because they're all adding dimensions to your character.
• 22:18
  Jeff Ornstein: I have to wrap this up, Mike.
• 22:20
  Jeff Ornstein: It was fantastic having you on here.
• 22:21
  Jeff Ornstein: I think a lot of people are gonna go over from this podcast and say, That Mike Enright.
• 22:26
  Jeff Ornstein: You know what?
• 22:27
  Jeff Ornstein: He did it.
• 22:28
  Jeff Ornstein: I can do it.
• 22:29
  Jeff Ornstein: I'm gonna find Insta.
• 22:31
  Jeff Ornstein: It's a pleasure to meet you.
• 22:34
  Jeff Ornstein: Thank you.
• 22:34
  Jeff Ornstein: And remember, it's never too late.
• 22:37
  Jeff Ornstein: I got it, I got it.
• 22:38
  Jeff Ornstein: You're my inspiration too.
• 22:40
  Jeff Ornstein: Thanks for joining, Mike.
• 22:41
  Jeff Ornstein: Thank you for having me.
• 22:42
  Jeff Ornstein: Thanks for tuning in to Next Oct with Jeff Orenstein.
• 22:47
  Jeff Ornstein: Follow, subscribe, and stay connected to your favorite socials at www.nextpodcast.com.
• 22:54
  Jeff Ornstein: Keep chasing your next act.
• 22:56
  Jeff Ornstein: The best is yet to come.