From Grief to Greatness: Michael Tow's Journey Through Acting, Pickleball and Parenthood.

[00:00:20] Speaker A: Welcome to Infinite Human, where we explore our limitless potential through conversations with guests who have achieved greatness, overcome challenges, and work to find their purpose. We aim to share and inspire you to do the same. I'm your host, Shona Kerr. I'm a college coach, professor, and businesswoman who is eager to learn from and sharing the wisdom of others with you and onto the show. Today I am speaking with Michael to who I have had the great fortune to have met playing pickleball. Michael is an actor, a professional pickleball player, financial advisor, and father. He was most recently cast in Taylor Sheridan's TV series Landman that has boasted the largest TV premiere of any show ever. He was also cast in Sheridan's show Lioness, as well as City on Fire, Blue bloods, Hocus Pocus 2, Law & Order, and FBI International. That is coming out soon. We talk about where and how he grew up, his path into the financial world and then later into acting. Michael shares how deep personal loss has intertwined with both pickable and acting for him. Please enjoy the inspiration and wisdom that is Michael to welcome. Michael, this is just a thrill to have you here to talk with me today. I have been very excited and eagerly looking forward to this and I know others are going to really appreciate your story and your path from financial advisor to actor to pro pickleball player. There's so much in there and I can't wait to dig in. [00:02:22] Speaker B: Good morning. [00:02:22] Speaker A: If you. Good morning. Good morning. Coffee in hand. And here we go. I really don't know kind of where you grew up, how you grew up and what that looked like. If you wouldn't mind giving us an insight, that would be really appreciated. [00:02:35] Speaker B: Sure, Yeah. I grew up in Brookline. Brookline, Mass. A fifth generation Chinese American. Yeah. My brother, my sister, we were all kind of sporting sports kids and played all this kind of stuff. And then we jumped into tennis. My brother came at tennis at 12. He was 12, I was 14. My sister was 9. And so she was the youngest and she. And the level of ability or accomplishment in tennis was the reverse order. Brother was in the middle and I played a year. [00:03:08] Speaker A: It's funny, the youngest tends to rise to the top because they try and reach for their older siblings, so it's kind of not fair to the older sibling. [00:03:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. It's tough, you know, that horrible little quirk in my forehand. [00:03:30] Speaker A: So what age did it become apparent that maybe your sister was gonna take the reins on the tennis court? [00:03:37] Speaker B: Oh, it was pretty quick. She, you know, when you start late A sport like tennis, you have to come in early and her coming in really nine was when she took it serious. But she probably started earlier and you know, she was a world ranked pro player. My brother was a four year captain of his team, so it was pretty apparent early when she beat me. This was after I played up to that point and then gave it up for a long time. But when she played me and beat me, Lefty, I knew that was for me to continue in. [00:04:16] Speaker A: Yeah, that hurts. Oh boy. [00:04:21] Speaker B: This podcast is not going to be public, right? [00:04:23] Speaker A: No, no, no. Completely private. Yeah. And I've seen some of your sister's skills, so I can appreciate the level and there really is no shame there. That being said, you do have some tennis background which we'll, we'll get to to later. Now, school wise, were you a great student? What were your aspirations? What, what were you shooting for? [00:04:47] Speaker B: Well, I was, I, I was, I have, I had relatively undiagnosed like add, so I would do. As a kid I would do like everything and, but really where I loved though was acting. So I like, it was like the, I was like the, you know, the kid who was like always the lead in the plays and in the, as a, as, you know, I don't know, fifth grader and we had a school that went from, from kindergarten to eighth grade and you know, every year I was always the, I was always kind of one of the leads and it was great. But then in eighth grade it was, you know, we went to high school. The thing that I thought was cool was not acting. It was, you know, playing sports. So we went. So gave up the acting because really there was no where I was going to take it and went, you know, and kind of did all my other things that I love doing. But, but I always loved, loved acting and that to me was a great place, you know, being growing up in Brookline. Brookline is very different now. But back when, you know, back in the 70s or 80s, it was. We were only one of the few Asian Americans in our heart of the town and was always. I always try to try to fit in, but it was not always seamless and there was always, you could see. I definitely felt different. But on stage it was a very different scenario because on stage you have the lines. So sometimes, especially with my ad, sometimes I can go off at different tangents and start to wander. But when you're on stage, you have a certain amount of lines and no one is going to interrupt you on those lines until you finished your final word and then the other person comes in. So I had the time to be able to elaborate and go. Whatever time I took. If my mind was kind of wandering, I could still, you know, if I'm talking in a normal conversation, I kind of rush things pretty fast before I lose the turn the dot. But on stage, it was. I. You know, it was. I had. People were watching, and I. And I had the time to finish my lines, and it was a great place to. To escape to this other character, other world. And I wasn't me. And it didn't. And. And I had. I could be, you know, anything that this character could fit in. I could shape the character the way I wanted. And it was a great escape. I really, really enjoyed it. And, you know, it was still a kid, and it was never anything that I could think about doing, you know, further, but I just. But I loved it. And it was furthest from my mind ever that I'd ever get back to it. [00:07:32] Speaker A: Was there a school play in particular that you loved? Was the one that you went. I just. This is me. I really. This is. This is a place I love to be. [00:07:41] Speaker B: There's a play called Fritz and His Dog, which is great. I remember that was a lot of fun. I was Fritz. But actually one that I didn't like that much was Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. And the cool role was. Not necessarily. It was Huckleberry Finn. And that year. That was the beginning of the year when we came for auditions, came in, and there's one kid, and I kind of. I was pretty talented, you know, relatively. And I. But I didn't, you know, put tons of. I didn't know. The idea of working in prep and all that stuff, it was just kind of. I just kind of did it naturally. This kid came in fully prepared. He had the. The. The corn stuff. You know, the corn thing in his. Chewing the corn stuff in his mouth. He had the straw hat and the. He had kind of the rip clothes. He was. He came in prepared for the role. And I was kind of always established as someone who could get one of the leads, but I didn't go for. For. For Tom Sawyer, but pucker. Very Finn. And I'm like, this is mine. And he came in so prepared that I ended up having to be. It was so, you know, I didn't get those top roles. The teacher had to kind of put a. Which was not a. Was kind of a weird thing for what I would have always done. So they put me in a. A secondary cast. But what that taught me was like, Boy, sure, you can be talented to some degree, but if you have this. But if you come in prepared and the way he can. He blew me out of the water. And that point on, I'm like, I will never just wing this kind of audition again. It's not. I was humbled. And that's a play that stood out for me. And from that point on, whenever there was a scenario, and I probably take this today, I take it really serious. And the preparation, because I remember that time when I'm like, this is mine going in, no prep at all. Just kind of my normal wing. [00:09:48] Speaker A: It interesting where these turning points come in your life and they can seemingly not be a big deal, but it's like, there it is. There's the moment he came in with his straw. I mean, I'm imagining it. It must have been. It must have been shocking, actually, that that play was. [00:10:05] Speaker B: Was brought. It was a. It was. It. It was brought in the TV like a. Like a, you know, morning local news that they brought in a small production of this. And I remember I was the third. The third character, but everyone was focused on him and how was. And I remember as whole class was watching it, you know, when we watched that, you know, whatever, a few days later, I remember that part of it. [00:10:36] Speaker A: It's been helpful, though. I'm guessing you're doing your acting in school. You know, you love it. Which I do find fascinating, by the way. The. The sort of interplay of ADD and how the almost the stress of the moment focuses oneself in. Because most people would be thinking, I'm on stage in front of all these people. Oh, my goodness. For you. You're like, hey, I've got all the time in the world. This is it. I kind of distills it. And I do get that it's a different. [00:11:07] Speaker B: It's actually a soothing. Because everything's. [00:11:10] Speaker A: You thrive. Yeah. [00:11:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:12] Speaker A: And actually, we'll talk about sport a little bit more later as we get into this, but I think there are parallels in. In sport that way too. It is just you on a court or you on the field. And you know that. That sort of pressure to perform in that moment. But it's you. It's you hitting that shot or kicking that ball. And I do think that's right. [00:11:34] Speaker B: That can be too. [00:11:36] Speaker A: And the preparation. Yes, yes. And the parallels there. One has to practice, one has to prepare, and then one has to perform. And yeah, they may seem desperate, but I think they're not in many ways. Anyway, you're acting in school, you're not really crossing your mind that this could actually lead to a career? What paths did you, did you try and take from there? [00:11:59] Speaker B: Yeah, there was always this kind of stereotypical thing, but my parents wanted me to be like a doctor or a lawyer and, you know, in that route. And so I went to school as a, you know, as a pre med and, and you know, right away that first semester, it was obvious that pre med was not my thing. I wanted to be a pediatrician because I love working with kids and to be able to kind of be in a scenario where, where a doctor could be, you know, helpful and kind of patient and caring. It kind of fit into my personality to think that actually, just as we're talking about it now, it does come in full circle because I do became a doctor on tv. [00:12:46] Speaker A: I know he's going through my mind too. [00:12:47] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a separate story, but yeah, that didn't work out. Had a great time in college. Learned a lot, Very little from, from school, but, but a lot socially. That was, it was a. I went to UMass and that was a, A lot of fun. It grew up a lot there. But then by the time I kind of settled down and focused in, it was, it was kind of too late. So I kind of went to, to kind of jump from, from pre med till it was. So I went to, I became a stockbroker. I was, I worked at. When I graduated, went to working at UBS and kind of did the whole grind there. And that's where, you know, I was doing like the 80 hours a week, making $14,000 a year. 14,400 is the method that I paid that. Yeah. And it was, we, we had a grind and it was one of those jobs where you kind of came in, they had 100 people come in and, and you know, these, all these, you know, grads from, from, from college and just kind of throw them in and just throw them against the wall and see who stuck. And, and after. I remember after 100, 100 plus people in the first few years, and I remember being like four or five that remained, but the four or five who did went on to pretty good career. So I said UBS for many years and then kind of went off and opened my own shop. And I still do it today. [00:14:09] Speaker A: What gave you the tenacity to become that four or five people out of a hundred that made it through that grind? [00:14:21] Speaker B: Oh, it was a grind. It was the person who worked. It wasn't necessarily a person who wasn't necessarily working smarter, but it was working Harder. I remember there's one thing on Friday night, It was like 7pm the rest of the brokers were left, but they were further along. And I remember just staying there, calling like, calling like, oh, we're all Friday night. And I Remember staying at 10 o'clock and everyone was gone from the office. This was on the point where, you know, bad month and you'd be gone. And so to me it was the, it was putting more hours in than everyone else. That's something I could control. I could control. Could I control the results? No, but what I could do is I can control how much, what work I put in. So if I felt like if I more time than everyone else, that was one of the check marks that I had. Now if you do that, there's a bunch of stuff that then follows. But, but if you didn't. But the other stuff you can't really, you can't control as much. You can't control the results, but you can't control the work. So that, that to me was just how I kind of was trying to be the differentiator. [00:15:30] Speaker A: Almost goes back to your Huckleberry Finn example of preparation. [00:15:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:15:35] Speaker A: You know, you see the guy like, maybe I can't control if they choose me, but I can control what I put in. [00:15:41] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:15:43] Speaker A: Junctures along the way. [00:15:45] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. [00:15:46] Speaker A: And then you went and set up by yourself with your own practice. [00:15:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:51] Speaker A: So yeah, I mean that's a big step. [00:15:54] Speaker B: Yeah. And I did that for, I did that and I still have my firm in New Boston Financial Brooklyn. You know, the path kind of goes pretty fast. You know, at that point, if you kind of make it through, then you're, you know, and so I did that for, you know, I've done that for 30, 30 plus years. 30 years, yeah. [00:16:16] Speaker A: So it's a good stint. [00:16:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:18] Speaker A: And still going. But in the process of that, you decide somehow I'm going to be act. I'm going to be an actor. I'm going to go back to my passion in school. What made you decide, you know what? I think I'm really, I'm going to go for this. Like, where was that decision point? Where was that key that you turned and just said, I, I'm actually doing this? [00:16:38] Speaker B: Yeah, well, at some point my career was, you know, my, my firm was, was fine and I had a good staff and it was, there's a point where I could kind of, you know, the business was kind of running itself and I could have gone to the path of just continuing to grow, but with Add, you know, all my different like, you know, things I love doing, I could do. There's something else I wanted to do. And it. It was one of those things where Massachusetts at that point was. Had their Massachusetts tax film credit where they're bringing. They gave big tax credits for films to come into Massachusetts. Massachusetts, you know, is a. Was at that point a much more inexpensive place to shoot than New York City. And you kind of. Kind of make things around and it looks kind of like. Like New York and certain things, but, you know, at. At half the cost that New York cost to do. So they had a lot of movies come in. Remember, they needed, you know, extras and they had the. The movie the Departed, which I didn't know what that was at that point, but I knew that they had these big stars in it. It was Jack Nicholas, Jack Nicholson, Damon DiCaprio. It was a, you know, Alec Baldwin big name and Martin Scorsese film. And they needed extra for this Chinatown suit. So I came in and you know, it was one of those things that, you know, they had it at night. It was like a night shoot. They had us there for. For a few days. And I remember leaving like, you know, after a full night of shooting, leaving at like 3am in Chinatown in Boston. And then they as. As we left, they were no joke by a hundred people waiting fans to see Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio. You know, as they were leaving the closing the scene, just waiting for that one glimpse of him as he walks from the. I don't know, from the set to his Escalade that came by to pick him off. I remember, Whoa, this is cool. I remember. Boy, you know, I remember this. This part. I used to love this, you know, and as a. And as a former actor, I remember used to having those dreams of like the forgetting your lines going up to on stage. Actually this back to the Tom story thing. I remember one time got up on on stage and forgot to bring the dead cat as my. As I did the Huckleberry Fin, this the backup role. And I remember going up and the teacher was like, just go out and get the cat and go get the cat. I'm like, and. Which means I had a break character and I kind of froze. But I remember that and that was that that's like as an actor forgetting your lines is the worst thing. I remember having those dreams a lot and being like. And then waking up like, this is not. I'm not an actor. You know, I gave that up and. And then it came back full circle. But. But so that it was. So there was attack back to this, the story. It came back as a tax credit. And so they brought films here. So I'm like, all right, I'll just do it. And then there was a. An opportunity that they needed. So I did a lot of those kind of background for. For some big films. It was fun. It was just. There was nothing. There's no acting. It was just a, you know, extras. But it got to be on set. And I kind of see some of these people do what I used to love doing. And I was like, oh, this is. This is really cool. Then they had a role for the show called Brotherhood. It was with Jason Isaacs. He. Jason Isaacs is Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter series. The guy with the long gray hair, really great, great actor, great guy, but very scary. And he had this show called Brotherhood. It was based on the. What he buggers off. So he. They needed two Asian people to be kind of like drug dealer guys. And my brother was doing it with me at this point. He kind of got me started. It was not a, it was not a big. We didn't. We. I saw it. You know, he told me about it. Not a big deal. I was nothing at that point. So then, like a few weeks later went by and they still needed people. My brother's like, they still need people. Let's try it. Like, all right, fine. We went to go do it, first audition ever as an adult, and sure enough, we got this. We got the role. So we're. This, this. No experience at all professionally. And that's how I got my SAG card. And at, you know, that point, it. I never looked back. [00:21:17] Speaker A: Now I'm inspired by the fact that you, you, you do so many things and you, you, you just, you went for it. You just went for it. It's there and you went for it. People go to acting school. You did not. [00:21:29] Speaker B: I do go for it, but I, But I go for it in a practical way. So I still have my. I had my firm. This was. This was not. This was not a serious thing. This was. This was. This was, as I went in it, serious, but it wasn't a serious thing where if I, if it failed, I still work during the day. So I did, you know, so I, When I did it, I did it as a hobby. But like anything else that I kind of usually do, I do it. This is the hyper focus part of the add where. [00:21:55] Speaker A: There you go. Yep. [00:21:57] Speaker B: You know, I came in and said, all right, this. I'm gonna. I. This Is fun. I love doing this. I'm gonna try to be the best actor I can as a hobby. There's no, there's no aspirations. It's like, all right, well what's in front of me, this is. All right, there's one, there's a, there's one role here that I'm going to try. I'm going to do whatever I can to train for it. Oh well, I don't have acting school, you know, four years at Juilliard that some of the other people have or people have been for years and years. Years. And so I said, all right, well I have to, how am I going to get myself a chance? Well, I have to, have to train and I have to practice and I have to, I have to learn the business and I have to, you know, understand what, what. The difference between doing something, for example on stage is very different than auditioning for something on camera. Stage you can, but as camera you have to really be. You have to be. It's, it's, you have to be much more still. It's much more camera can focus in and be much more intimate and kind of takes a lot of your expressions. Whereas in theater your can be really, really big. So it's a very different way of auditioning. So I, so I said, all right, well if I'm going to do this, let's just, I'm going to do it the best way I can. And even though it's going to be a hobby. And so there was like smaller roles in Massachusetts. As these movies came in, they hired, they hired everyone out of LA and New York, but any of the smaller like waiter roles and things like that, they would hire locally. And so I would do this to kind of get those roles and got a few of those. And then at some point I'm like, all right, well I can't get any more. So I'm like, all right, well luckily some people looked at it the other way, but luckily the two major markets in, you know, in Hollywood or it's Hollywood and New York and you know, work is. Some people look at it as, again, I'm not there but it is a four and a half hour drive from Boston so hey, I can drive it. And so if I did my financial planning stuff and kind of move my things around, I could go to New York. So I, so I would start to go down in New York and do kind of over. I did more all nighters as a 35 year old with at that point probably three kids than I did at umass. And that says a lot. [00:24:10] Speaker A: Yeah, that does. That's incredible. Sounds like you thrived on it. Sounds like it fed to you. [00:24:18] Speaker B: Oh yeah, absolutely. It was the part of kind of the challenge and trying to make my way into a city that I never really went to, you know, much and kind of going in there blind but seeing and you know, there's a lot of good actors in New York. But I realized that at some point. Yeah, and there are a lot of actors, but the top is, you know, if you're topping in the area, it's. It's not that different than necessarily in Massachusetts. But, you know, but it was a big disadvantage. I didn't know people, so you had it. So that is the point of like having to, to grind, having to make sure that the training was back to the point of, you know, for cold calling as a product, we're putting in more hours than everyone else or if I train more than everyone else, I'm going to be. That's what I can control. And eventually when you kind of do that week over week over week, you end up being. It does have some payoff. And so then at that point I would get started, get, you know, agent in New York and started getting roles in New York. And it was 2018. So this is after like kind of 10 years of kind of dabbling in it, 2018, where I started getting some momentum as an actor. But I still was doing just things in New York. So I was pretty established actor at that point. 2018, but only in New York because to audition, you had to audition in person. [00:25:44] Speaker A: Got it. [00:25:44] Speaker B: You know, then Covid hit. And when Covid hit, what happens is they couldn't audition people in person anymore. So they transitioned from in person to self tape auditions. And when you have things on self tape now, instead of the 10 spots they have in an LA Hollywood office to see people they could see, instead of 10, they could see 100 and it could be from anywhere, including Boston. And so that's where. And they'd pick the best actor at that point because they'd have to fly people in for those bigger roles anyways. And then that. So after Covid was where my career kind of took the biggest jump. [00:26:28] Speaker A: That's, that's interesting that Covid sort of helped you out in the process. Now as, as an Asian American, did you find yourself getting picked for certain roles more than others? Did you find yourself getting pigeonholed? Was it frustrating? How was that experience? [00:26:45] Speaker B: Yeah, it's very different now. Probably the last since crazy rich Asians and in 2019, I think 2018, 19 roles were. I mean, you remember, you know, growing up, the type of roles, when you ever saw an Asian person, it was Asian male. It was. A lot of times it was. It was yellow. It was yellow face. So like Mickey Rooney and Breakfast at Tiffany's, it was characters non Asian playing agents. When you saw, you know, it was like Long Duck Dong and Sixteen Candles. You know, roles like that, you would have. It was very. They were kind of the sidekick, they were nerdy. They were. They were the gangster or the restaurant worker. They always had an accent, English. It was always like a lot of those. Those kind of roles. And never at that point were they. You had Bruce Lee and even he had issues. And on that, it was. You didn't see Asian males in any real significant roles back then. When I was growing up and when I first started acting, so all the roles were very, very serious. And I would get pretty pissed off at that because a lot of people look at media as a way of saying, this is what people are like. If you grew up and you didn't know and you didn't have a lot of Asians near you and you saw the butt of a joke and the one who looks really weak and non athletic and not the guy who got the girl, that's what you kind of thought that someone who's always had an accent who wasn't cool, I mean, that's. People kind of take that into all right, that's how people are. And I remember seeing that. I'm like, why is that? And I started seeing the shows that were put out, and I kind of see who wrote the shows and how. Who produced the shows and who directed those shows. And at that point I'm like, well, at some point in the turn was. I'm like, well, I can actually change that because if I get some of these roles, I could play a certain role. And they require many. All like, you know, so many. Probably 50% of my auditions that I had had had accents. I remember doing a movie with Bradley Cooper, and Bradley Cooper, who is an American Sniper, he's kind of like, you kind of think of an all American. That. That's actor. That's who you might think. I remember we were in the movie Joy were having a conversation, and it turned out that his grandmother, I think, came from Poland in 1938. I remember, like, and having the conversation going, actually, my great grandfather was born in San Francisco in 1891. And here I am playing characters who have, you know, accents. Immigrants who just Fresh off the boat, like, you know, small. And here he is, Mr. All American. And I remember we had, we had, he's a great guy. We had such a great conversation about it and he understood the dynamics of it too. And he was, we were talking about it. It was, it was really funny. [00:29:55] Speaker A: Yeah, it's, it's painful actually. And I give you credit for saying, I'm going to change that. [00:30:01] Speaker B: Yeah, because, because when you get a role, you can, you can play it character wise or you can play, actually there's nothing wrong with someone with an accent or a place that has a different language, but it's, if you play it as a character. But if you, One note. But if you, you can actually play a character with some depth, with some layers, with an arc, with dreams and hopes behind the scenes, you know, you still have, you're still limited what you have on, on your, your words that you have to say your lines, but, you know, have some depth of that character. That's something that I could control. And then, so for the years I had the ability to, to move to producing and directing and then having larger roles, you have a much bigger impact on, on your character and your character direction, what your character says or, you know, that I, I, I know I'm supposed to be someone who was, came from China trying to save his son, but I don't think he would say this kind of role, this work here. And then at that kind of level, you could say the director would say, oh yeah, yeah, change it the way let's say it, let's change it. Call in the writer and we'll, you know, adjust the script here. Now I can do that, but it took years to do that, you know, to get to that. [00:31:13] Speaker A: Well, I give you a lot of credit and you know, some people might have just said, hey, I guess I'm stuck with this. I'll go with this to say, hey, I'm going to humanize this role with what is in front of me. I think is, is admirable and, you know, much appreciated. And what advice would you have for Asian Americans, young Asian Americans, thinking about acting or in acting in terms of that? [00:31:36] Speaker B: Well, I mentor a lot of, a lot of, you know, youth who kind of come up to, I'm doing a play right now and there's a, there's a few, you know, actors who are great actors, great theater actors, but they, they didn't know what the path is to kind of go towards film and tv. It's kind of helping them kind of set up, you know, Kind of moving out to more into New York and what I kind of, what I did, you know, I kind of tell them it is not easy. You can't go into as a stockbroker where after two years, 96 people are gone out of 100. You can't say an actor, where thousands of people trying to be an actor. You could be the best actor in the world. The odds are not with you. So to me, that's why I kind of had the point where I have the safety piece now and so I could get the training. I could afford the training and the headshots and kind of stuff that I wanted to do. But I also had a job that I was working 10 hours a day. And so there's a trade off. And so I'm very realistic with, with, you know, the people that I, that I kind of mentor and talk about, talk to. You have to, you have to. It's not something that you, you could be, you know, three, four years in and really have very little show for it. So that includes money, that includes pressure from friends and family. So many actors give up after they're so close, they're so talented, so close to breaking out, but, but, but never stay in it long enough. So to me, I kind of, I always recommend to kind of go my route if you really go at it. So with where. If you're going into an audition where you have to, if you don't get that audition, you can't pay your rent. There's too much pressure there. It's already, you're already against you. But to have the pressure of, of the financial pressure as well is really tough. So I kind of tell it like it is. And to me, I think the route that I took was this was in some ways even though the hardest from a time perspective, it was the easiest for me in terms of the safety piece of it. Now when I go on tradition, if I didn't get it, I didn't get it. It's not like I need to pay my mortgage or anything like that. That's already set. [00:33:41] Speaker A: Again, there's some parallels to sport there too. If, if you're trying to make your money playing the sport and you need to win that tournament that you've paid to go to, the pressure of that is such that can be disabling to you actually even performing, but you still put in the grind. I know you had the fallback, but the overnights in New York, I can't even imagine the tiny amount of sleep, if any, that you were getting that's insane. [00:34:07] Speaker B: Oh, it was. I really know that part of them. It was a lot of fun though, because I would, I would try to maximize all my time. You know, if I was going down, driving down four and a half hours down to New York, I could work. But I had four and a half hours to work on my lines. You know, calls with my, you know, for the financial side, I would say calls on, you know, with my assistant on my way back, you know, I had three, three kids. And so it was, you know, at some point I would try to like merge all those things. So I'd have like, I would do plays where my daughters would, would join in or we'd have, you know, films that we would do, you know, small little things and I would bring them in. So I remember bringing my daughter in one time on a, on a movie with Matthew McGonagay. And so it was, it was called Sea of Trees. And so she got a chance to kind of come in and be a little girl in the scene with Matthew McConaughey. And I remember, you know, to me it was like perfect. It was the merging of family and passion of what I love doing. [00:35:10] Speaker A: And you're the coolest dad at that point. I mean, nothing beats Zach, not really. [00:35:14] Speaker B: It was maybe the one day out of the year that they, that their friends happened to see me in something. Fine, I was cool that day. But then it went right back, just dad, annoying dad. [00:35:25] Speaker A: Most recently you had a part in Landman which has been the biggest TV premiere ever. If I'm reading this, there we go, we got the coffee mug. Biggest TV premiere ever. And what a special thing to be part of. How was the experience filming that? [00:35:43] Speaker B: It was great. I mean it came back to, it goes back to me fate. I end up getting 2022. I end up getting a series regular meaning in every, in every episode of a show called City on Fire on Apple. And it was about a father who loses whose daughter gets in a very serious accident. And it's the daughter, the father and the daughter in my storyline of dealing with the daughter who's in a hospital and dealing with that. When we finished shooting a month later, daughter was 19 years old on TV. A month later in real life, my, my 19 year old really got an accident and passed away. And the, everything was the same from the hospital, the conversations, the doctors that. Everything that I did on, on the series happened a month later in real life. And I remember and even in the hospital of this actor, her name is Chase Swee Wonder. She's A fantastic actor all around. We had pictures in this hospital room of me with my real daughter because so we had all. So we was actually with her. And I remember the day. This kind of longer part of the story, but it comes into Landman is that the day that I got the news I was actually playing pickleball. But I was in the middle of an audition and it was auditioned for this show called. At this point, I didn't know what it was or they didn't tell who it was, what it was. But it ended up being the show called Linus, which is by Taylor Sheridan. And it was four. The audition was four scenes. I remember doing two scenes of it and then saying, I'm gonna play some pickleball, come back and finish and finish the other two. Well, we never finished those other two. I got the news that my daughter was. Was in the hospital in a serious condition and she ended up passing. And I never finished those other four scenes. But at some point I had sent it off to my friend before and he said, I'm going to send this in anyways. So he said just send me your in. At this point I was in a fog. But they sent my two scenes in out of four unedited and just sent it in. And about a month later, I end up getting the role of. In Linus, which stars Zoe Saldana, Nicole Kidman, Morgan Freeman. And it was Taylor Sheridan his world Yellowstone of the Yellowstone World. It was his new series. And what the role was was a doctor who deals with Zoe Saldanas and Dave, Annabelle's daughter who comes in, he, you know, friend of the father of Zoe Saldana's husband. And the daughter comes in for mysterious accident. So what really it was was a. Where I was in Sydney on Fire where I played the father grieving. To me, I think it's fate that I was. Could use me to prep gotten me emotionally for what was supposed to happen in real life when my daughter passed. But this was the flip. This was the doctor dealing with a scenario of a teenagers getting hit by a car and. And dealing with playing from the doctor side of what happened really to my daughter. And if you watch any Taylor Sharon stuff, it's very realistic. It's not like. Like, you know, Grey's Anatomy very kind of, you know, like this is. This is like a movie. He. He did Sicario. This was like, you know, a hundred extras, you know, eight ambulances in a hot real hospital. Police officers, doctors, nurses, you know, in. In a. And it felt so real. So it was very emotionally Draining. And I, I, I give the cast members a lot of credit for casting me because when I, when I was actually in that role, it was about a month and a half, maybe two months after my daughter had passed. At one point I thought I wasn't, I thought I was going to break down because it was so realistic when she was, the daughter was screaming. [00:40:10] Speaker A: So that's heavy. And it was, I don't know, very heavy. Was it cathartic in any way or was it just painful? [00:40:22] Speaker B: Yes, that I, I think it was meant full and 10. This is the longer story to land in is. Yes, it was cathartic. And I remember having a conversation with Nicole Kidman about it. She did Rabbit Hole, which is the movie about a mom and dad losing a child. And, you know, we had a, we had a very close conversation about that. And she was so supportive, but she had actually given me a lot of issues, you know, and this is before she had given, before we had this conversation, she said, one of the things that I give you the biggest compliment as I can as an actor, it was this, you played your role so believable. And she said, that was my biggest compliment that I could give to an actor. And at that point, I remember getting that from Nicole Kidman and feeling after all this hard work to get that compliment from Nicole Kidman. But to me, it directly went to my daughter, as my daughter as part of, as kind of her setting this up for me. And at that point, I knew that there was something more to this role. It was kind of, I've been in, played a lot of roles before, but I knew that this had more legs. For some reason, it wasn't the largest role, but Taylor Sheridan, I don't know, maybe after it came out, all of a sudden my agents get a call and they said, we offered this new Taylor Sheridan show and we're offering a role on Landman. And so it came from Linus, but I kind of did a scene. I got thrown into a scene where it was with Demi Moore and Billy Bob Thornton and come in, and all of a sudden we finished. I came right in. They kind of pulled me in from the trailer. You know, no prep, because they had the scene before and just said, throw me right into the scene. It was pretty heavy dialogue, really long, very emotional, a lot of stuff going on. And then we finished shooting that first scene. When I film, I don't wear my glasses and I don't wear contacts because contacts make me blink. So I, I can't, I can kind of see right in front of me, but that's about it. And all of a sudden we finished cut. And I see coming over that. This kind of this big white cowboy hat. And then I. It comes. He comes right up to me. And it was Taylor Sheridan, and he is, you know, the creator of all these Landman Linus Yellowstone, as I mentioned. And he was like. He's like, anytime we have this kind of scenario where gonna have you in. And. And. And it was. It was the. It was really, really cool. And because I didn't know why I got the offer. I knew I got the offer, but was it the casting director? Was it the producers? I didn't know why. He's like, when I saw. When I had you in Linus and I saw you in Linus, I'm like, I. I'm gonna have. I need you back. So it was. It was really kind of. Kind of cool. And. And then we had the premiere, as I mentioned, in LA a few months ago or a month ago, and that was a lot of fun. And this Landman series is fantastic. [00:43:41] Speaker A: It has taken off. And I mean, how incredibly validating for you. You've earned every piece of it, obviously. But to get that validation as well is a massive testament to you. And the red carpet. I saw pictures and video from the red carpet. Nobody's cooler than you, Michael. [00:44:02] Speaker B: It was a lot of fun. I tell you, that was the one day of the year that my daughters. I have three daughters, and the younger two were like, all right, maybe he'll be cool for that day. Hollywood doesn't have a lot of premieres these days because it was a lot of fun with these megastars. [00:44:22] Speaker A: I'm so happy that Landman is getting the success that. That it is. And, you know, Yellowstone was huge. I know. But I think Landman has been bigger and certainly more people I know are watching Landman. I mean, this is super mainstream. So now the way you and I met was through Pickleball, which, you know, now I know you have a little tennis in your background, and that's where that big forehand comes from. But sort of. How did you. How did you get into pickleball and what has it meant to you so far? [00:44:56] Speaker B: Well, it was my brother who gets a pattern again. The summer of 2022, something like that. He started having my sister and I family over, and he set up in his driveway, this store called Pickleball and set up this. I think it was chairs. It was in his driveway. And I think he had cheers and different tables as the net. So it was really kind of like a furniture as the net. And sure enough, we enjoyed playing. And then at the end of the day, it was my sister against my sister and I and we had this epic battle. No idea really the rules. We probably played some wrong rules, but it was great. And it was actually very similar to my acting style in that I'm like, this is fun. I love. This is kind of cool. I could see playing this and I did it as a hobby. All right, this will be kind of cool. But then, but. And we kind of just did it for fun. But then when my daughter passed, it became a very different thing. It became an escape to me because when you're on a pickleball court and you're playing for that two hours, you can't really think of anything else. And if you do, you can, but you're going to get pelted with the ball and, and you're going to lose. And so you, you really have. If you have other thoughts, they, they're in, but they have to go right out. It's not, you know, it's not a. Something that is. You have to be really good to forget about noting when you're playing pickleball, you have to focus on every shot. It's very easy to kind of escape. And that, to me is what pickleball was. It was a bit back to the point of being cathartic. You know, to me it was more than just a sport. And I remember the Father's Day, the last Father's Day that I had with my, my, with Alana, my oldest daughter. And she, she wrote, and this is the back of the point. They never gave me credit. They. They kind of poohed any of my stuff. They did. But I remember he's like, I am so proud to have as a dad a professional actor and a soon to be professional pickleball player. And this was two years ago, so there was no. This was kind of. It was like a dream. But I remember having. I still have that letter that she gave to me, Father's Day. And I'm like, all right, that's going to be my goal. And so for the last two years I have been really trading really hard and kind of using the same kind of thing as the, from the financial planning stuff, the acting stuff of saying, all right, well, it's not going to, I'm not going to make a, you know, huge money thing from this, but I'm going to be the best player that I can. And if I'm going to spend time Doing this, it's been so helpful for me in my journey of dealing with grief. And it's given back to me so much. Not just me, my wife as well. She loves playing. She's a beginner, but not a beginner, but someone who's just enjoys playing and she's not a sport on pickleball. And to her same idea to be able to get on this court and meet people, great people that she plays with and doing all this stuff, it's given our family so much. And so if I'm going to, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this. The way I kind of do everything is I'm going to really kind of immerse myself in it and learn the best. I might not learn the fastest. I'm going to be the fastest. Some people who are really, really good and I'm not that level. I'm like, fine. I'm going to have to train harder. Well, yeah, I'm going to have to train harder. And I should. I do think that I'm going to train harder. I'm going to have to all work. And this is the thing that always held me back from tennis was I started at 14, and when you start at 14 in a sport that someone's playing at 8 or 9, you're at a big disadvantage. Well, I'm like, well, here I'm now 50 and now the ability to play in the senior pro area. Well, I don't have the restrictions of not being able to get the lessons. I can get the lessons from it. I can train and work. I can control my schedule. If I want to train from 5am to 8am, I'm going to do it. And so, and especially during, with acting, especially when there's a lot of downtime sometimes between jobs, this to me has been really my focus. It's, it's. I have a long way to go, but I'm taking the same passion as I did with, with acting, you know, into, into pickleball. And it's been, it's been, it's been amazing. The, the trip. Of all the people that I met, including yourself and, you know, Scott and my friends I play with and Todd and Captain Todd. And I get my. [00:49:53] Speaker A: Yes. [00:49:53] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, Sydney, Don and Sam, all these people that I've got a chance to meet that are my friends and Laura, you know, T.J. oh, I remember, you know, all these guys who have been so supportive of me and friends on the court and when I travel for acting. A lot of times, pickleball is such a. Such a popular sport these days that I, when I go to a certain town, when I shot Landman in Fort Worth, Texas, you know, I met. I joined into a local pickleball group, and they, you know, welcomed me in. I was playing every day that I, you know, when you out shoot on a set, you don't shoot every day. A lot of times it's a downtime. So I got a chance to meet new people. Texas and California and Baltimore and Georgia and Florida, you know, all these different people. So much, so much fun. And I really, really have really enjoyed the sport and this new challenge of being a senior pro pickleball player. [00:51:02] Speaker A: I've been watching your game, and it's only getting better. And I've seen your work ethic. I get it. I see where you're going, and I am excited for that. And thank you for sort of explaining what it's been for you, because people have been sick of me saying it, but this little sport has literally changed people's lives. I've seen it over and over and over in many situations, and I'm a big fan of what it can do. It's certainly been that for you. But yes, look out, senior pro world, because Michael is coming. No doubt, no doubt. I mean, such a bohemian. From your financial planning to fully fledged successful actor to burgeoning senior pro pickleballer. What. What are your hopes and dreams moving forwards? What. What are your aspirations? What's. What's still left to achieve for you? [00:51:50] Speaker B: Oh, there's. There's a lot. There's a lot. But one thing that, you know, when. With having a lot of passions, the passions that I kind of. The way I take these things, a lot of times, I don't have a lot of time for. For other things. So. So it's. It's. It's family work, acting, and pickleball. I think that's enough. So to me, this is where I'm. I'm on. I'm looking for that. The next series regular role for an acting job, hopefully another Taylor Sheridan show. I just came back from Budapest for FBI International. That's gonna be a lot of fun. So to me, it's getting. But. It's getting. But those are kind of getting as guest stars. I want to come in as a series regular on a show and for pickleball, really being a solid senior player, that, to me, is what I'm really training for and working hard on. [00:52:39] Speaker A: I love it. Anything else you want anyone to know out there as we're looking to wrap this up. [00:52:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Watch. Take a watch on Landman. Great series. [00:52:50] Speaker A: Well worth it. Thank you for everything you're doing in your advocacy. This will be very inspiring to others. I thank you for taking the time and can't wait to get back on court with you. [00:53:00] Speaker B: Absolutely. Shona, thank you so much for having me. [00:53:08] Speaker A: This has been Infinite Human with me, Shona Kerr. Until next time, keep challenging yourself and make others better along the sa.