Jeff Ornstein 0:01

Hi everyone and welcome to Next Act with Jeff Orenstein. I am Jeff, and on this show we celebrate people on the cusp of greatness. 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. We'll talk about current projects, lessons learned, and the extraordinary opportunities ahead. So the best is yet to come. Tom is a Chicago-based actor whose career spans theater, television, and film, including roles in Prison Break, Chicago Fire, and The Dark Night. A graduate of Moody Bible Institute and a lifelong performer, Tom blends his faith, creativity, and storytelling skills to bring characters to life, whether on stage, on screen, or behind the microphone. And welcome, Tom. We're delighted to have you here. Well, I'm excited to be here. Thanks for inviting me. It's a pleasure. So I'm particularly excited about when we have a guest like you because this is called Next Act, and I'm someone who's juggling, you know, creating a new career while still maintaining my old one. And it seems as though your history is not dissimilar in that you had a whole pre-life, and then you had a whole very impressive post-life. So I want to talk about a little bit about your origins, and then we'll get into all the good stuff that you're doing currently.

Tom McElroy 1:24

Okay. Post-life, I'm not dead yet, just so you know. Yeah.

Jeff Ornstein 1:29

Post post-pre-life. So in my notes, I was given that you grew up in a home where theater and acting was discouraged, yet it also notes that you were a magician, you were in school plays, you were in church plays. So how did those two things resonate with one another?

Tom McElroy 1:49

Yeah, that's kind of a misnomer because it wasn't like the theater arts, it wasn't like acting or storytelling or that sort of thing that was discouraged. Obviously, it was kind of encouraged. My cousins and I were constantly doing little plays for the family, you know, three little pigs and whatever. And so that was there. And you, you know, you had school, you had church, you had various venues, and that's really the issue. It was like the legit theater venue. Right. You didn't go there. The cinema, you didn't go there. I mean, why do you think they call it the cinema? Ah, interesting. That's actually from a recording artist named Larry Norman. I'm so dull, dog. It's unbelievable. He came up with that thing, but it kind of mirrors my dad's uh kind of view on things. But anyway, so it wasn't that the skills and so on were discouraged. It was just those two venues. I get it. Dad watched a lot of TV all the time. We watched a lot of TV.

Jeff Ornstein 2:52

Okay. While you were growing up and honing your skills on the on the as the magician, pulling rabbits out of hat and doing skits and church plays. It then took you to the Moody Bible Institute, where you graduated with a Bible and theology degree. Yes, indeed. And was it immediately after that that you became a pastor for youth?

Tom McElroy 3:10

Yes. Went right into ministry, did did a summer of missions work in southeastern Ohio, and then came back to actually the area I grew up in and was actually the youth pastor at the church I grew up in as a kid.

Jeff Ornstein 3:22

Well, that's something also we have in common because I actually, well, I'll use the term Sunday school because that's what we called it growing up. But I went to Sunday school three times a week until I went to college. Wow. So I I lived at the temple. I mean, that was my world of special life and the things that they taught you and the values and the systems that they installed in you. So I think we have a little common ground there too. I have to say I was able to get onto your IMDB site and see some of your performances. I was fell bound. I really loved it. And you've definitely nailed some of these characters, you know, with a very in a great intensity. So congratulations on that. Thank you. But you had an earlier life also that was corporate, and then I was giving notes that you had some personal setbacks. Did that like say, okay, these doors are closed, now I've got to find something new, or was there an epiphany moment where you said, I'm tired of this and I wanna I wanna be a performer? How did that happen?

Tom McElroy 4:16

Yeah, part of it was a closed door. I had a spiritual crumbling at the end of my youth pastor years. And so that really kind of eliminated the option to continue being a youth pastor. I understand. And uh so I went into, I eventually I did construction, I went into the corporate world. During that period of time, just before the crumbling, I was actually in the passion play in Zion, and I was backstage one night. This was before there was any spiritual crumbling, but just uh we were about to go on for the pilot scene, and I'm standing there, and you've got the big black curtains there and the wings and the lights above, and there was a fog machine kind of going on, and the camaraderie of us backstage, getting you know, it's like like not everybody is like totally in character before they step out. Some of us don't do that, we're not in method, so to speak, so we kind of will, you know, crack a joke or something before we go out and then we're quite serious. But there was just this moment, kind of a holy moment, where I just went, wow, Lord, this I would love to do this all the time. So that was there. And so then, oddly, Lord, I have this spiritual washout. And yeah, it took, you know, but God is faithful and he he he didn't ever leave me, even though maybe I walked away from him for a little bit. He he just guided me back towards what I think he had for me all along.

Jeff Ornstein 5:48

Right. You know, it's interesting. I had another guest recently who was in animation, very accomplished, and he spoke about the theater and plays. He said, you know, I've never been much into theater, anything in plays, and you know, that participation putting up production. And while he was saying that, it was bringing me back to exactly where you just were, in between the curtains, backstage, and the lights are on, and you're seeing your compatriots, you know, sideways, and you're getting your juices going, and then you get on stage and you do your thing. And you know, you have that bug or you don't have that bug. Absolutely. Right?

Tom McElroy 6:21

So it grabs you. Yeah. About that bug, you know, the first show I was in in Chicago, we were at a bar after the performance, and I'm talking with this guy, and I'm new. I'm just totally new, and I'm just like, give me a leg up, talk, talk to me about this. And he he looks, and this was a very successful theater company. They'd come out of school, got equity awards. A lot of them decided they were gonna go out uh west and conquer Hollywood because they were just they were on fire. And I'm like, so tell me, you know, give me a what you know how's it and he goes, I wouldn't wish this business. I'm my worst enemy. I came out of school, I booked this and this and this and this, made $125,000 my first year out of school. It's been five years, I've not made a single dime since. Wow.

Jeff Ornstein 7:08

But not for the face that wasn't stopping him. Right. So to that back, when you're a youth pastor, you were doing theater with the the young people, and that kind of never left you because you've got this really impressive mentoring thing going on that pops up repeatedly. So describe that, that you're doing you do the mentoring and you're also doing the performing. Is there is there something that you know says I I'm giving back to younger people everything I'm learning daily along the way?

Tom McElroy 7:41

Well, sure. And I've used not that particular line, but I have said to young people who are like, okay, I want to do this. Okay. First of all, you gotta ask yourself, is there anything else in life that you could do and really enjoy doing it? Right. Be okay with that, really enjoy doing it. Probably you might want to consider that because this is a brutal business.

Jeff Ornstein 8:02

Right. No gas.

Tom McElroy 8:03

But if you can't let it go, if it is just I gotta do this, then then go for it.

Jeff Ornstein 8:09

Then you you you enjoy the $150,000 of bookings in a year and you suffer through the five-year of hard-boiled eggs and tomatoes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. So you've also, in addition to the big name productions that you've been in, you've also worked with some pretty big names. So what's it like, you know, for someone like me who's just getting into it, what's it like when you walk into a room and there is some hugely famous performer or someone you've seen perform, you know, since you were a little kid on TV or in the at film. Were you starstruck? Or do you just sort of roll with the punches, or were you cool, or were you a little goo-goo?

Tom McElroy 8:49

Oh yeah. You know, I mean, I mean, like probably the first time being in the presence of a of a well-known personality was uh Tommy Jones, and it was Natural Born Killers. And I was a prisoner in the scene, and it's the end where he's climbing up and and then he falls back into the crowd. And so we're there, you know, and we're ready to catch him. I happen to be standing next to the stunt guys that that were part of the scene that were going to catch him, and he fell and his head landed right here. I was cheek to cheek with him. And I'm like, oh, hi. It did not make it, it did not make it to the print, which which it was kind of sad. It's just kind of a bigger shot. But um, yeah, so that was, you know, and it and it was it was it was exciting, and you know, sure. Get your juices flowing. Yeah, it was it was like wonderful. Christopher Nolan, I have a very tiny part in the dark night. I was in a show with some kids uh when the DVD came out, and they had me actually sign their DVDs because they were just awestruck that I was in the dark night. How cool is that, right? Yeah. You've arrived. I was man too. That was my name, man too. So so I blew the judge up. But the guy Jim, the other actor and I that were in it, we spent our day going, giving each other a high five. We're in Batman. You know, I mean, there's juice like that. Very cool. Cindy Williams, I'm like, oh, and there was kissing in this. There was like a beginning of a make out scene that was gonna get interrupted in the script. So I'm like, okay, you know, I'm not usually very, you know, like when I talked with Christopher Nolan, you know, it was just like talking with you. But I'm a little like, I'm gonna have to kiss her, and I, you know, don't know how she'll feel about me. And so and uh I walked in, and I shouldn't say she walked in. I was there before she was, it was a first day of rehearsal. She walks in, she drops her bags, she looks around, she goes, Where's my husband? And she runs up to me and she grabs my face and she plants a big one right on my lips, and she goes, We are gonna have such fun. And I thought that was brilliant. Great way to break the ice brilliant, yes. It was just, and we actually became fast friends during that production. We did it again actually in Florida later on. That was a truly wonderful experience, and she she was a she was a lot of fun.

Jeff Ornstein 11:14

It's it is really brilliant because it's like, of course, you were there, she's the known star. Who wouldn't be nervous? I'm gonna kiss a stranger to me, even though it's a famous stranger, and just like cut even worse as a famous stranger. Right. So all right. So uh a question that they had that I was looking forward to asking might have answered, though. What was the most unexpected or humorous thing that's ever happened to you on stage or on set? That one might qualify.

Tom McElroy 11:39

There have been so many. One time the set didn't work properly, the bed came off the rack, it was being pulled out by cable, and it and the the pin for the bed that was supposed to be in the cable that was supposed to help it turn the corner, it just cut through the entire stage. My son happened to be in the audience that night. He said it looked like a buzzsaw was just going straight across the stage, all these wood chips were flying. But my my favorite time with Cindy was during rehearsal, and we'd gotten to the place where you're actually now going to kiss. You know, at the beginning of rehearsal, he was walking through, getting blocking, all that. Now we're now we're starting to kind of run it a little bit, get it really moving. And I get on the couch with her and I'm starting to kiss her. And, you know, it's supposed to be like, bam, the door opens and we break, and you know, but we're just making out. I mean, James is not coming in the room. So so this goes on for a couple of beats, and finally Cindy pushes me and when she goes, get in here, James, before he gets me pregnant.

Jeff Ornstein 12:40

That's crazy. So the only great sense of humor she has, sounds like fun. Yeah, yeah. We we really had a good time. So do you find outside of your Romeo roles that are you getting do you get typecast? I mean, I've talked to a lot of actors about this, you know, like you don't deny typecast, it's part of the reality of things. I noticed some tough guys in your in your in your roles. I mean, are are you often typecast? Or do you feel like when you're getting calls, the roles are, yeah, here I'm going down that path again? And di does it bother you? Do you welcome it? Is did you find it complimentary?

Tom McElroy 13:19

Yeah, I don't know. I I guess I feel like i uh I've been fortunate to but I mean, like you said, the Romeo roles. I never imagined I would be playing leading male man roles, but I have a couple of times, a handful of times. And also the comical, crazy weirdo guys. And the I've it it it's really been more of a variety for me. Excellent. I wouldn't say that I feel like I have been typecast. I've been typecast kind of in people's minds, like in my agent's mind. I can remember auditioning for uh, you know what? I don't remember what I auditioned for because I must not have booked it, so I don't remember. But it was a mean, murderous kind of guy. And I finished the audition, and which agent was it? I can't remember now. She looks at me and she goes, Oh, Tom, I don't like to see you like that. That's not you. That's so you embodied the character. So it's it was like, okay, well, I'll take the compliment, and I'm sorry that I scared you. And I'm glad you think I'm a nice guy, in spite of the meanness.

Jeff Ornstein 14:21

Yeah. Now that being said, since you know, because uh and just for clarity, I didn't see typecasting when I saw your different roles, you know, on your site. I I mean I saw the character, which is great. You know, the the embodied the character, and you you go away and the character comes back and envelops you, and that was terrific. But it's just a question I do like to ask. With that in mind, I understand that you would love to play Joe Keller and All My Sons. So I did a little background research, and boy, that's a complex individual who, you know, really represents bad things, you know, while on the surface represents good things. What is it about that character that just says, Oh, before I go, I gotta get this one under my belt.

Tom McElroy 15:08

Yeah. I've I've got it under my belt twice. Oh, excuse me. I didn't get that in my notes. Yeah, that's that's okay. I I but I played him in my 30s. Oh, and he he's like in his 60s, yeah. And he's in his 60s. Yeah. So now that I'm of age, I wanna play him again. But yeah, the character, the whole show. That was the first legit theater I ever really really went to see. Mm-hmm. Roger Mueller, good friend of mine, played Joe in Body Politics performance of it in Chicago back in the day. And I mean, I'd never read it, I didn't know anything about it. I'm total newbie, and I sit there and I watch this and it just blew me away. What a powerful piece.

Jeff Ornstein 15:50

Right.

Tom McElroy 15:51

It just deals with the whole human the rationalizations that we do. It highlights a passage of scripture that I think is so important, and that is from Proverbs, it says it's a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is the way of death. Right. And it's such a powerful piece that highlights that and the rationalizations that we go through. And and I mean, people we people think, I think I'm doing the right thing. I think I'm really a good guy, I think, but it's not. Right. And we need another guide. Now it comes clear at the end, but there's absolutely no hope for Joe in that. Right. Because his way of dealing with that now getting faced with the fact that he's a fraud is to off himself. Sorry, spoiler alert for people, but it's you know been out forever. Off stage no less. Off stage no less, yes. And thankfully so, probably. But it yeah, it just is such a powerful piece, and there is an answer, there is a savior, there is a redemption available. So you know, what a great conversation piece. What a what a powerful piece to begin to to to work into us, you know, story is so powerful in getting us to face ourselves, which is the power of storytelling, theater, film, you know, television, that whole venue, that whole business that we're in. It's it's it's dealing with the human condition, the human soul. Right. And what's what is the world view? Right. What is true? Right. Yeah, yeah.

Jeff Ornstein 17:20

So uh and I just love that show. With the Joe Keller that you played at 30, would he we see him as the Joe Keller you'd play today, or anything you'd approach differently, or were you solid with the way you did it initially?

Tom McElroy 17:32

I would sure love to find that out.

Jeff Ornstein 17:34

Right.

Tom McElroy 17:34

I would sure love to get on stage with a bunch of people because yeah, early on I I started in theater not knowing anything. I didn't go to school for theater, obviously. And I'm sitting there, and this girl, she she has this probably eight, twelve, fifteen page document with her. It's her backstory on her character. Right. She wrote a backstory on her character. I taught her to do that in theater school, and she did it. And I sat there and my heart went to my feet, and I thought, oh dear lord, what have I gotten myself into? I don't know how to do that stuff. That's insane. Right. And I lived under that for years, just feeling, you know, I don't know how people are still booking me because I still can't write, you know. I mean, I'm just like, I don't know, I don't know if I know. And then I watch Actors Studio interviewing Harrison Ford, and the guy asks him, How do you put that together? What kind of prep do you do? And he said, And he goes, you know, yeah, I memorize memorize a bit script, and then uh, you know, when I get on set, the costume, the props, the other actors, and you just kind of dive in and it all informs itself. And I went, Oh my harris. Oh thank you. Thank you. That's what I do. I thought I was doing it wrong.

Jeff Ornstein 18:54

You know, well, you're obviously not doing it wrong because you're doing it too often. Yeah. So have you reclaimed part of your faith, or is that just something that you've put behind you now and it's it's something you respect as you're part of your past, but it's not part of your current life, or definitely part of my current life.

Tom McElroy 19:13

It is. Oh, oh, yeah. And and I I though though I my spiritual crumbling involved, I don't know that I like this part of Christianity. Maybe, maybe the Bible doesn't really say this. Maybe there's another kind of Christianity that's a little more, I can do whatever I want to do.

Jeff Ornstein 19:34

Right. Right.

Tom McElroy 19:35

And and the Lord was faithful to me through that whole time. I I'm I never lost my faith in the sense of God doesn't exist. Right. Christianity is a croc, a crap, and that kind of thing. But I I just walked away from really being an intimate relationship with the living God. And I'm I'm now he he done, he never let go of me. No, no, no, no. Everywhere you go. He said, You're mine. Now get your nose back in my word, right? Spend time with me every day. Walk in my ways, not in your own ways. Because you saw how that worked, didn't you? Yeah, Lord, I'm sorry. It didn't work very well. I'm I it really didn't. Are you still in Chicago? I am sort of. I am in Chicago the way most people in Illinois say they're from Chicago. Uh-huh. I live in the suburbs nearby. Okay. I was in Chicago for 20. Sandusky. Sandusky, yeah. I had friends that lived in Chicago, but they were they were in Sandusky and I didn't know for 20 years. Yes, that's it. No, Beach Park is really actually the it's just north of Chicago, about 50 miles. But we lived in the city proper for 20 years, just until three years ago when we moved back up here to my uncle's old house. He died at 101 and ended up buying the place and living here. Yeah.

Jeff Ornstein 20:53

Well, because I only asked because Chicago is a really rich theater town. Yes. A lot of people think, oh, New York, LA, New York, LA, or London, but Chicago I happen to know, I mean, it's just crawling with talent and um performance skills. So it's a great place to be.

Tom McElroy 21:11

Yeah. Two hundred and fifty theaters in town at any given time.

Jeff Ornstein 21:15

Isn't that great? Is it affordable or did it go like New York and become a little bit of a very expensive evening out? Yeah, it's expensive. Right.

Tom McElroy 21:24

Theater's always been expensive compared to the movies, especially.

Jeff Ornstein 21:27

Good God, Tom. We are way over our time limit. Not kinda, sorta. So I have to say, you know, we uh we're able to meet s people from so many different walks of life, and how did people get to where they've gotten? And you've got a really unique story, you know, certainly not the typical, like you said, I had to study theater, went to things, I was a nanny, and I ran. I mean, you have a a really great story that was a big turnaround, a big epiphany, and and a big chance to be serving the community in one way and then say, you know. I'm thinking maybe put myself a little bit first here, and I'm going to serve the community in a different way. So I'm very impressed with that. Oh, thank you. Thanks for tuning in to Next Act with Jeff Orenstein. Follow, subscribe, and stay connected to your favorite socials at www.nexttackpodcast.com. Keep chasing your next act. The best is yet to come.