Hello Beautiful People,
Michael A. Newcomer is by far one of the most gracious and kind human beings I have met. He has been onstage, and on the screen, playing roles like Tom in The Glass Menagerie, Mr. Wickham in Pride and Prejudice, Morris in The Heiress, Jonathan in Wintertime, and can currently be seen starring in the independent feature film, A Thousand Cuts, as Lance. He recently received a 2013 Los Angeles Drama Critic’s Circle Award for his performance as Lelie in The Bungler at A Noise Within. Starting May 29th you’ll be able to see Michael as Christy in Playboy of the Western World, directed by the amazing Paul Mullins at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey. Until that opens, sit back and read our exclusive Q&A with Michael, as he was kind enough to sit down with me over a cup of coffee and talk theater, art, and education.
TWT: Did you always know that you wanted to be in the entertainment industry?
MAN: No! I was a jock in high school, and then I went to college and thought I wanted to play tennis professionally. Then I thought I wanted to be a VJ. That of course didn’t work out. College was the first time I really got involved in theater, and it was the firs time where I felt like all I had to do was please myself. And if I pleased myself, then that’s all that mattered, and hopefully everyone else would be pleased as a byproduct. I did this dinner theater tour right after I left school, making seventy-five dollars a week, and was miserable. And so I left theater for corporate America and a “normal” life in Atlanta, Georgia. I had a steady paycheck and health insurance. I was a consulting director for senior living healthcare facilities; I thought it was a good thing, but there was something inside of me that was very restless and not quite complete. Eventually I woke up one morning and said I need to try this. I need to be an actor. Cut to now, I’ve made a living as a professional actor for fifteen years. I’m so glad I took that leap of faith.
TWT: Tell us a bit about your latest feature film, A Thousand Cuts.
MAN: It’s about this man Frank, who is from the Midwest, and his daughter was brutally murdered by one of these people who mimicked the step-by-step horror flicks, like Saw and Friday the Thirteenth. So Frank travels across the country to find the writer/director of this film, and holds him accountable. It talks about who is responsible when these sorts of atrocities happen. Is it Hollywood? Is it the media? Is it the crazy dude? It doesn’t answer the question, but it sets the framework for discussion, and it’s a discussion that has to be had. The whole concept of this film is an intense conversation, which asks the audience and society and the industry, how do we take responsibly of these messages that we’re creating?
TWT: What advice would you give to the high school kids who want to study theater in college? What advice would you give to the 21-year-old graduates who stand at the threshold of entering the professional realm of theater?
MAN: Anytime I do a student talk back after a show, I always tell them don’t forget to learn something else. It doesn’t matter what it is, just learn something else. The business isn’t set up to have you succeed, so if you don’t succeed what do you have left? You have a broken heart, but maybe you know how to quilt and you’re a craftsman. Maybe you’re an accountant. You have something else. It’s important to have more than one skill; being poor does not make you a better actor, it just makes you a poor actor. As someone who has been a poor actor, I can tell you that there’s nothing fun about that. My performance has never been better because I wasn’t sure how I could pay rent. For those college graduates who are not coming from the conservatories, or NYU, or Carnegie Mellon, or Yale, or schools of that nature, I would tell them not to go to NY or LA right off the bat. Go to another market where you can really learn how to be a performer in the real world, like Atlanta, North Carolina, Seattle, Chicago – there are great thriving artistic communities out there, and it’s important to get real life experience before you hit the big cities. Never stop learning the craft, but learn something else. Never give up on your dream, but be smart as to how you go about it.
TWT: Just for fun, what films would you want with you on a desert island?
MAN: The Breakfast Club, (or any John Hughes movie), and Waking the Dead, with Billy Crudup and Jennifer Connelly.
TWT: Just for fun, what books are permanently on your bookshelf?
MAN: Geek Love, by Katharine Dunn. It’s one of the most beautifully The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldon, which I’ve been reading since 1992, it’s sort of like people who grow up loving Nancy Drew and then pick it up again.
TWT: What reasons would you give a politician for preserving the arts?
MAN: Storytelling is our living history book. And you have to teach our kids to tell stories, and telling stories is what art is all about, whether it is theater, music, visual arts, dance, etcetera. We need it.
TWT: Who is/was your greatest teacher?
MAN: My mom and dad. They were quite literally dirt poor, and yet they worked their way up to the middle class. They’re just amazing people.
Thank you, Michael!
Live, Love, Learn,