With all of the crime dramas, legal dramas and medical series on television, On the series, just about every character is married, with the exception of Charles Grey - the happy bachelor who toes the line of authority. My friend recently had the opportunity to chat with Michael Irby, the very charming and extremely personable rising star, about how he broke into the acting biz, what he enjoys doing during his time off and how he scored the role of a lifetime on the hit CBS series The Unit.
Q: When did the acting bug hit you?
Michael: "As a kid, I dabbled a bit here and there. They were kind of dares when I was a kid. I was a soccer player my whole life and then with a little turn of events, I stopped playing ball. I started taking acting classes and a teacher of mine said, 'you know Mike, I think you could do this for a living.' At the time I didn't realize this was actually something you could do for a living. I was from a small town mentality. I knew there were actors, I just didn't know you could make money doing it. He told me I could go to New York or L.A. to go to school. I decided to move to New York when I was 19 or 20 years old. It was a very wham-bam, fast decision. I didn't tell any family or friends what I was doing. I was known for living on the edge of life."
Q: You have a background in theater, are you still active in that medium?
Michael: "I'm not too active. When I moved out to L.A., I did a play when I first got out here. I had representation when leaving New York, but I didn't have any representation when I got out here, so I decided to do a play. That's what you do in New York, so out here I was like a fish out of water. I did the play, met some people out here and started meeting some buddies. They started introducing me to the right people, I found a new agent, a new manager and things started to really fall into place. My wife and I have a son and as soon as we started saying yes to the earth, it started saying yes back to us, which is so interesting because we moved here right before 9/11....10 days before 9/11."
Q: You've had terrific roles with some of the biggest names in the business, did any of these stars give you advice that you'll take with you throughout your career?
Michael: "[Robert] Redford said something interesting when we were sitting around the 'ole prison yard one day. He was just talking to some of us - it was myself, Mark Ruffalo, Cliff Collins and a lot of up-and-coming actors and he said, 'make sure you got hobbies, make sure you're not living and dying for this thing,' which I believe he meant this thing called the business. The art you can live or die for, but the business is sometimes so fickle. There's really no rhyme or reason sometimes for those who find success or failure in this type of industry."
Q: What are some of those hobbies?
Michael: "I love to cook, I'm the family chef. My wife loves it! I like to eat, I'm not picky, I'll eat anything under the sun, I just like the certain way it's made and prepared. She [his wife] was a vegetarian when we met, I'm a meat and potatoes type of guy and I had to widen my variety of cooking. It's so much fun, I love cooking! I get to think about it all day. From the moment I wake up, I think about what I'm going to make for dinner. I play guitar. I have a son, that's a hobby in itself. I found some time to make time for myself. I've always been writing, writing poetry, the spoken word. I make time for my friends because friends are really hard to come by here in L.A. It's really important, no matter how much you're working, that core group of friends, whether you're all working or not working, to try to stay in touch with it all."
Q: How did the role of Charles Grey come to you?
Michael: "It was right on the tail end of pilot season, I was supposed to be doing Commander in Chief with Rod Lurie. We had worked together on Line of Fire and The Last Castle, we were old buddies. He called me and said he had this great idea about a female President and I thought it sounded fantastic. He put it out there that if something else comes along, he'd like me to take a look at it. I took that to heart and The Unit came up and I found out who was involved with it and hands-down, I was speeding over there!
I went in and it was one of those days when everything was lined up. David Mamet came out and asked if I had any questions and tells me, 'Michael, I want you to go in there and tell everyone you don't need this job.' I was like, 'What, What?!' I went in there and kind of said it my own way and I saw him kind of lighten up with me. I was literally driving away, I hadn't even gotten home yet and my manager called and said they wanted to see me again. It was just one of those things, it was all meant to be."
Q: What makes your character unique over the others?
Michael: "One facet is that I'm not married on the show. I think Grey and myself too...I always bring myself to everything, not that the other guys don't. I think the way the character is written and the direction he's headed, he's a little bit of a question mark and I think I am too in my own life and the way I choose to live it. I think with Grey, you can see some of the other guys are more straight-forward, you can very much see what the mission is, what they are going to accomplish, but Grey steps out of line every now and then, which I find is very fun to do with the character. That's definitely a unique characteristic of Grey's. He's not afraid to go one way or another."
Q: What's ahead for your character?
Michael: "We've got some great episodes coming up, some more bomb stuff coming up, one of my specialties. It's so much fun to get in there and work with some of those props. I don't think we're going to see a girlfriend for Grey for quite a little while and I'm kind of ok with that. I think he's a fly by the seat of your pants kind of guy. You're going to see a bit more action, more gunfire. Whenever I'm there, there's definitely something going on, I've noticed that."
Q: Does the show have anything big coming up for February Sweeps?
Michael: "The great thing about our show is that we really don't play that game, we're kind of different in that respect. Nobody's dying, there's no big cliffhangers. We don't really get too tricky with it."
Q: Aside from The Unit, do you watch anything on television?
Michael: "I've been watching a little bit of Heroes. It's really fun, I think we all have a little bit of superhero in all of us if we'd just slow down and listen to what that is. I think we're all born with a gift and living in the states or anywhere, you don't always get the chance to live out that dream. I think we all decide to lock in at some point and we realize we need to make X amount of dollars and have X amount of kids. I think it's a very artist type of show, it's very cool."
Q: If you could have played any role in TV or movie history, what would it have been?
Michael: "I love Scarface. We're not really making movies like that anymore. Basically, you could take any movies from the 70's and I wish I was in them."
Q: Anything you'd like to say to the fans?
Michael: "Keep watching the show and thank you for the support!"
Q: When did the acting bug hit you?
Michael: "As a kid, I dabbled a bit here and there. They were kind of dares when I was a kid. I was a soccer player my whole life and then with a little turn of events, I stopped playing ball. I started taking acting classes and a teacher of mine said, 'you know Mike, I think you could do this for a living.' At the time I didn't realize this was actually something you could do for a living. I was from a small town mentality. I knew there were actors, I just didn't know you could make money doing it. He told me I could go to New York or L.A. to go to school. I decided to move to New York when I was 19 or 20 years old. It was a very wham-bam, fast decision. I didn't tell any family or friends what I was doing. I was known for living on the edge of life."
Q: You have a background in theater, are you still active in that medium?
Michael: "I'm not too active. When I moved out to L.A., I did a play when I first got out here. I had representation when leaving New York, but I didn't have any representation when I got out here, so I decided to do a play. That's what you do in New York, so out here I was like a fish out of water. I did the play, met some people out here and started meeting some buddies. They started introducing me to the right people, I found a new agent, a new manager and things started to really fall into place. My wife and I have a son and as soon as we started saying yes to the earth, it started saying yes back to us, which is so interesting because we moved here right before 9/11....10 days before 9/11."
Q: You've had terrific roles with some of the biggest names in the business, did any of these stars give you advice that you'll take with you throughout your career?
Michael: "[Robert] Redford said something interesting when we were sitting around the 'ole prison yard one day. He was just talking to some of us - it was myself, Mark Ruffalo, Cliff Collins and a lot of up-and-coming actors and he said, 'make sure you got hobbies, make sure you're not living and dying for this thing,' which I believe he meant this thing called the business. The art you can live or die for, but the business is sometimes so fickle. There's really no rhyme or reason sometimes for those who find success or failure in this type of industry."
Q: What are some of those hobbies?
Michael: "I love to cook, I'm the family chef. My wife loves it! I like to eat, I'm not picky, I'll eat anything under the sun, I just like the certain way it's made and prepared. She [his wife] was a vegetarian when we met, I'm a meat and potatoes type of guy and I had to widen my variety of cooking. It's so much fun, I love cooking! I get to think about it all day. From the moment I wake up, I think about what I'm going to make for dinner. I play guitar. I have a son, that's a hobby in itself. I found some time to make time for myself. I've always been writing, writing poetry, the spoken word. I make time for my friends because friends are really hard to come by here in L.A. It's really important, no matter how much you're working, that core group of friends, whether you're all working or not working, to try to stay in touch with it all."
Q: How did the role of Charles Grey come to you?
Michael: "It was right on the tail end of pilot season, I was supposed to be doing Commander in Chief with Rod Lurie. We had worked together on Line of Fire and The Last Castle, we were old buddies. He called me and said he had this great idea about a female President and I thought it sounded fantastic. He put it out there that if something else comes along, he'd like me to take a look at it. I took that to heart and The Unit came up and I found out who was involved with it and hands-down, I was speeding over there!
I went in and it was one of those days when everything was lined up. David Mamet came out and asked if I had any questions and tells me, 'Michael, I want you to go in there and tell everyone you don't need this job.' I was like, 'What, What?!' I went in there and kind of said it my own way and I saw him kind of lighten up with me. I was literally driving away, I hadn't even gotten home yet and my manager called and said they wanted to see me again. It was just one of those things, it was all meant to be."
Q: What makes your character unique over the others?
Michael: "One facet is that I'm not married on the show. I think Grey and myself too...I always bring myself to everything, not that the other guys don't. I think the way the character is written and the direction he's headed, he's a little bit of a question mark and I think I am too in my own life and the way I choose to live it. I think with Grey, you can see some of the other guys are more straight-forward, you can very much see what the mission is, what they are going to accomplish, but Grey steps out of line every now and then, which I find is very fun to do with the character. That's definitely a unique characteristic of Grey's. He's not afraid to go one way or another."
Q: What's ahead for your character?
Michael: "We've got some great episodes coming up, some more bomb stuff coming up, one of my specialties. It's so much fun to get in there and work with some of those props. I don't think we're going to see a girlfriend for Grey for quite a little while and I'm kind of ok with that. I think he's a fly by the seat of your pants kind of guy. You're going to see a bit more action, more gunfire. Whenever I'm there, there's definitely something going on, I've noticed that."
Q: Does the show have anything big coming up for February Sweeps?
Michael: "The great thing about our show is that we really don't play that game, we're kind of different in that respect. Nobody's dying, there's no big cliffhangers. We don't really get too tricky with it."
Q: Aside from The Unit, do you watch anything on television?
Michael: "I've been watching a little bit of Heroes. It's really fun, I think we all have a little bit of superhero in all of us if we'd just slow down and listen to what that is. I think we're all born with a gift and living in the states or anywhere, you don't always get the chance to live out that dream. I think we all decide to lock in at some point and we realize we need to make X amount of dollars and have X amount of kids. I think it's a very artist type of show, it's very cool."
Q: If you could have played any role in TV or movie history, what would it have been?
Michael: "I love Scarface. We're not really making movies like that anymore. Basically, you could take any movies from the 70's and I wish I was in them."
Q: Anything you'd like to say to the fans?
Michael: "Keep watching the show and thank you for the support!"