Jeff Ornstein 0:02

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. 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. 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. Welcome, Mike.

Mike Enright 0:56

Hey, thank you very much, Jeff. It's a pleasure to meet you.

Jeff Ornstein 0:59

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. 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. I was gifted with acting lessons when I was 61. And I've had some good fortune, some roles, or you know, featured extra roles on the succession and just like that. And I just finished my first feature film. But you are way ahead of the game. And so other people, you are an inspiration to the listeners that we're catering to. Can I? Should I? Is it even possible? And you're living proof that it's possible. So you were a former radio DJ and TV news reporter, and then found an employee at CNN. So that's pretty corporate world. For 30 years, you were in telecom and IT sales and PR communications. 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?

Mike Enright 2:10

Yeah, it's just I decided that I was in a position where I could retire a little bit early. Wanted to give myself a couple years just in case, just to experience the other side without the responsibilities. And that came about, and I worked in a couple of post-retirement jobs, one of which I'm kind of proud of. I was substitute teacher, and then um Hollywood came rolling in the door.

Jeff Ornstein 2:37

I love it. Well, how did that happen? Did a friend say, Hey, come with me to this audition, or how'd it go down?

Mike Enright 2:44

How it happened is I was working at a big wholesaler giving out samples. It's my first post-retirement job. And I was just having a blast, and I just met a guy that I got along with real well. We're friends, and about four months later, I found out that he was an actor. His name is Dennis Hurley, he's from Weymouth, Massachusetts. And you know, he just started to share stories with me, and that's how I first developed my interest. 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. I'll just give that a try and see what happens.

Jeff Ornstein 3:28

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?

Mike Enright 3:38

It was really legitimately the first time. 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. 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.

Jeff Ornstein 4:09

I think that's phenomenal. So, not for nothing, but your hockey fan. He there's probably a couple of roles that are ripe for him right now. Hockey on film seems to be a hot topic. 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. What'd your friends, what'd your family say?

Mike Enright 4:31

I didn't really decide to keep on doing it until I was down the road a ways. Um, I just thought it was a kind of a one-time thing that happened in my life. I got struck by lightning, I got favored, and something remarkable happened, but I didn't expect that it would continue. 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. And it was a joke between my wife and I. In the very beginning, I'm like, well, if you take these pictures out in the backyard, maybe I I can get an audition. And then I got an audition, and I was like, Well, maybe I can get one day on a major Hollywood set. That would be just fascinating for me. So, you know, one day came along and I survived it somehow, and it didn't kick me off the lot. So, you know, I just kept on wishing for another day.

Jeff Ornstein 5:26

Wishing is great, keeps your hopes up. It's a wonderful way to pass the time, but it's a lot of work going on calls or sending your reels in. You obviously did a good job at marketing yourself too, and were received well. Have you found that typecasting has played into your keeping busy, or are you all over the place?

Mike Enright 5:47

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. And the only thing we could really come up with is that I had a decent head of hair. So that's about what we started with. 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. 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. 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. But yes, it's gotten me a little bit of cash in my family, friends.

Jeff Ornstein 6:34

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. What a lot of our listeners that are considering this, one of the number one hesitations is fear of rejection. And we've had other people like yourself on, and they talk about well, how did you deal with the fear of rejection? Or it doesn't sound like you got many rejections, but Oh, that's thank you, but that's not quite true. 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? How did that go down?

Mike Enright 7:24

Yeah, so after I just tried to get into it, I just asked around and just tried to find out how you get started. And a typical path, we've got some great colleges here in this area, and was able to do a couple of student films. Um, I got a big break with a production company called Elizon Productions. 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. So that just was a huge step up for me. 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.

Jeff Ornstein 8:08

Tell me this. Were you studying? 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. My class wasn't bad, I was bad. So were you have you been taking classes all along?

Mike Enright 8:24

I have. It's great. 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. And then from that I could figure out maybe do I have that? 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? Right. 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.

Jeff Ornstein 9:01

Right. That's excellent. 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. Can I inhabit this character? Am I a pig farmer? Am I an alcoholic writer? Am I a ghost that's coming back to haunt my children? Whatever it is. 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. So I think in some instances, I felt very comfortable saying, I got nothing to prove. I've already proved something before. So now I'm proving this to myself. Can I be the born-again dad living in Utah? Because you just have to let yourself go. 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. 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. But I think that being able to inhabit the character quickly and easily, seamlessly and convincingly, is the way you jump ahead. Where are you located? Forgive me. I didn't catch that in your.

Mike Enright 10:20

Oh, I live in the southeast part of Massachusetts.

Jeff Ornstein 10:23

Oh, hi, neighbor. Go spot. Yeah. I'm in Boston. Yeah. All right. So educate me a little bit. Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Who is this name in this fellow?

Mike Enright 10:34

Oh, this guy is the star of one of the many stars of the Walking Dead series. And then he got his own spin-off three or four years ago. And they brought the second season to Boston tissue. Oh, wow. And that's where that's where I got involved.

Jeff Ornstein 10:51

When you were a zombie, were you like rotting flesh and limbs missing, or were you the handsome good-looking zombie?

Mike Enright 11:00

No, I was not a good-looking zombie. Okay. And initially I had a different role called uh Bloodshirt. 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. So you actually see my own face, it but I have a beard, and I'll just flick it to you right here. You kind of feel like I look like not too pretty. 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. They did call me in to be a walker or a zombie, yeah. So I got a couple days on set doing that.

Jeff Ornstein 11:52

That's very cool. So looking back, it sounds like you're just loving the theater and being a part of this community. Do you miss your corporate life, or is there anything about your corporate life you wish you could incorporate into your theater life?

Mike Enright 12:06

I loved my career in business. It was really varied. I got to do a lot of different things, so I got to travel, which was really cool. Yeah, I've been away from it for about four years, and I'm okay with that.

Jeff Ornstein 12:16

Okay, good. 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. So I've met people on the streaming shows that are professional extras, or what are they called? They're not called extras anymore. They're called background. Background, yeah. Background actors. They actually make a living and they work five days a week. 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. So you live in Massachusetts. Is there ample opportunities that are coming your way in Massachusetts? Do you have to go to New York or Chicago or how does that go down?

Mike Enright 13:08

Well, I haven't made it to the point where I'm a known speaking actor yet. 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. Now I've been on sets, probably 14 different sets at this point. Um, probably 100, 150 days on set. So I'm very I'm starting to get pretty comfortable being there, and I think that's a lot of it.

Jeff Ornstein 13:37

Well, the other thing that I found when I was in background for these well-known shows, the camaraderie is amazing. It is amazing, and I think that's a fallacy that's in the back of people's minds. Oh, Hollywood's cutthroat, people are out to promote themselves. And in between the shoots, when us background folks are hanging around, you never stop talking to people. Everybody wants to share the story, and I found it a really encouraging environment.

Mike Enright 14:03

That is a great observation, and that's one of my favorite things about doing it. 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. So yeah, so one of my favorite things is the time that we spend in holding and waiting to get to the set. I I just love meeting new actors, and I've learned an awful lot. And they've helped me in so many different ways. One of them, one time I met these folks on a set. 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. I won the that little segment, so to speak. And as a result, I got a letter three days later from the union, and that that kind of was the final necessary ingredient. Right then, I could join the union and really excited and scared to do so.

Jeff Ornstein 15:04

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. Do we have them here in Massachusetts?

Mike Enright 15:12

Oh, they're great. I've been to three at this point. They've always got something going on. They have actors' workshops from time to time that are of very small cost. And I went to one of those, it's great. You can check out one of my pictures on Instagram, Mike Enright17, all of us actors now. We also have to be social media people as well.

Jeff Ornstein 15:36

So tell me this. So you're keeping yourself busy, you're doing the background work and the highlighted extra or whatever the names are, I forgot. 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? Like, boy, would I like to be that dad ass. I want to be that superhero. I don't know. Is there something that Yeah, there is.

Mike Enright 15:56

And actually, I almost got it last a couple weeks ago. I almost got that that role that I always feel like I should have. 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. I thought I did as best I could, and thought I had a really good chance, and it just didn't roll my way. 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? Even if it's just on screen, I'd love to be a DJ, I would love to be in a music video. 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.

Jeff Ornstein 16:40

Isn't that good? 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. So I was the dad, you know, I was always cast as the dad, and I really wanted to be a bad dude once. And I asked my coach, whom I absolutely really loved, and he made me better and better. Can I be like a badass dude, like maybe streetcar or something? And he's like, You'll be what I'll tell you'll be. And that was the end of that discussion. And he said it with love to be honest with you, I got a role for you.

Mike Enright 17:15

Something I've been thinking about. You should you should be. What's that? 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. Maybe that's your life now.

Jeff Ornstein 17:32

I don't know, but in class, I was always the dad, every kind of dad. 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. Ooh. So yeah, they're fun roles to play. And so my friends are saying, Yeah, you're gonna be typecast as the rich murderer who can't be trusted. So, you know, my wife was 30 years younger than me, this absolute beautiful actress. 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. I had this great monologue I wanted to put on tape. It was a pig farmer. I think I might have mentioned that earlier. And the guy was like, We're not doing it. You're not gonna be ever cast as a pig farmer. So forget it. If they want a pig farmer, they know what they're looking for, and you ain't it, buddy. So don't she's like, I could cast you as a pilot all day long. So I could be a pilot, perhaps. 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. I don't want to be the caricature of the neighborly dad. 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. If I could get my hands on that, the real talent would emerge and the public would see me.

Mike Enright 19:02

Oh, yeah. Okay, yeah.

Jeff Ornstein 19:04

Yeah. 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. Okay, so what's the story behind that? That sounds terrific.

Mike Enright 19:21

I'll never forget them. They're incredible experiences. If I had to pick a winner out of the three, they're all winners. 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. And they just had us march out. 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. Wow, and and I tell you, the fans of that show are worldwide, and they are fervent. 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.

Jeff Ornstein 20:07

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? Will I be good enough? How will I support myself? What will my family think? 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.

Mike Enright 20:38

If there's one thing I can say, is it's never too late.

Jeff Ornstein 20:40

That's fantastic.

Mike Enright 20:42

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. He said, Mike, when an opportunity comes along in life, take it.

Jeff Ornstein 20:52

That's that's great advice. And you know what? It's the risk takers in life that make a difference. 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. 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. It talks about you showed it a little bit, experimenting with your looks, facial hair, hairstyle, wardrobe. Tell me a little bit about that. Is that like if you change your looks, does that help you master the character? Do you feel the connection between the appearance and the inside and the outside? You got it.

Mike Enright 21:29

Absolutely. 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. So, yeah, it's not only the facial hair, but I huge kudos to all the people who work in wardrobe. 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. That helps me get that character, and I am that character.

Jeff Ornstein 22:01

Right. That's fantastic, and that's what people who've never done it should learn. You know, it's not you get you have people that are helping you, other professionals, hair, makeup, lighting designer, director, of course. All these people will help build your confidence because they're all adding dimensions to your character. I have to wrap this up, Mike. It was fantastic having you on here. I think a lot of people are gonna go over from this podcast and say, That Mike Enright. You know what? He did it. I can do it. I'm gonna find Insta. It's a pleasure to meet you. Thank you. And remember, it's never too late. I got it, I got it. You're my inspiration too. Thanks for joining, Mike. Thank you for having me. Thanks for tuning in to Next Oct with Jeff Orenstein. Follow, subscribe, and stay connected to your favorite socials at www.nextpodcast.com. Keep chasing your next act. The best is yet to come.