DSF: Tell us about yourself.
SM: I grew up in Boston, MA. My mother was actually an opera singer, and my Dad is a computer software programmer. I grew up doing a whole bunch of different things, starting out doing some feature animation things with ten of the original guys who created Disney studios like Frank Thomas, Ward Kimble and Wolfgang Raterman. It’s kinda how I ended up going into acting. They said if I was going to create characters, that I needed to take acting classes to realize how to create a character.
DSF: Why did you decide to go to Ithaca College, and what did you study while there?
SM: I was studying drama and theater, and it is a really good TV communications school. I actually was in the theater department, and would take classes there. I was one of those people who had a little bit too much going on.
DSF: Why did you decide to join Delta Sigma Phi?
SM: Part of the reason I pledged is because we didn’t have a whole lot of theater people pledging fraternities and I did it as a way to get out of the cliques and inclusiveness within the theater and to meet people in all of the other departments. In fact, I was probably the only brother within the fraternity who was in the theater department. I am actually 100% positive that was the case.
DSF: What did you do upon graduating from Ithaca?
SM: Throughout summers in college, I would go down to New York City and try to figure out whether I was going into theater, TV, or film. After I graduated, I moved there and started in that field doing a whole bunch of different stuff.
Really my big break for me was when I landed a role in the movie For the Love of the Game with Kevin Costner, which brought me out to Los Angeles. We started in New York at Yankee Stadium because the whole movie actually takes place at Yankee Stadium, and from there when I went to LA, it was my first real experience in Los Angeles.
What brought me back to New York was the fact that I auditioned for this movie called Overnight Sensation, which ended up being a really big change in my life because from that, I met my mentor and business partner who cast me in the film and flew me out to Utah where we shot the movie.
DSF: Talk about how you got the role on the HBO series, Oz.
SM: As we were in Utah, my soon-to-be business partner, Glenn, said “Well, we’re going to shoot the rest of it (Overnight Sensation) in New York. I’m working on a show called Oz right now. If you want to come back, the show, we don’t know what’s going on with it right now. We’re in our third season.”
It was interesting because it was just opening up the world of original programming for HBO. What’s funny is that a lot of people forget that Oz was actually the first original series on HBO, and Sopranos kinda came out of that – it kinda paved the way for The Sopranos.
I ended up going back to New York with Glenn, and he got me on the show, introduced me to the show’s creator Tom Fontana, who incorporated me into it, and I was one of the prisoners for the rest of the show’s run, for the next four seasons that it was on.
It was an interesting perspective playing a prisoner. I guess you could say I was in prison for the next four years! What’s great about it is that the people from that show – all of them have gone onto great things, so it was great to be a part of that.
DSF: Talk about what happened after Oz ended.
SM: From Oz, it was weird because I took on a bigger role in Glenn’s company – Glenn was the Assistant Director on Oz and my now-mentor – and we merged and became partners in Burnside Entertainment and started this company which basically pooled people’s per diem money and whenever we had enough money, we would create our own projects.
I recently opened up our west coast office trying to get more projects out here and came back in 2001 after September 11 happened and work essentially stopped in New York for a while. When I came back to LA, I was involved in the movie Phone Booth.
DSF: Tell us about what the experience in Phone Booth was like.
SM: I served in an on-camera stage manager kind of role working with Joel Schumacher. It was a really unique experience because we shot it in real time. We rehearsed it for two weeks on a back lot, and then shot it for two weeks - literally 10 shooting days which is just unheard of.I served as an on camera stage manager, with a wire directly to the director, and he would have me placing the actors while in the scene so they wouldn’t break up the action. From that, I ended up putting my roots down in Los Angeles.
DSF: What have been your most recent on-camera roles?
SM: I’ve been doing things here and there, was working on a show called Sleeper Cell for Showtime for a little bit playing an FBI Agent, and then was working on the show called Vanished, which unfortunately came to a very quick conclusion. The show didn’t end up doing too well, but it was a great crew to work with.
This year, I ended up creating, producing and starring in my own multi-camera sitcom pilot, that we’re shopping around to the networks now called With Friends Like These. We’re just trying to get a deal with that and get it on the air.
DSF: Looking at your IMDB.com page, it looks as though you have been in a lot of things.
SM: Yeah, here and there. I’m fortunate enough that I have had a pretty steady progression to my career. It’s by no means ideal where I’m working constantly on leading roles in the shows, but the one thing that’s nice about it is the fact that you keep a certain amount of anonymity, and autonomy just kinda doing your own stuff.
Of course, anyone wants to be famous. It makes your decisions a lot easier, and it makes business a lot easier, but I’m fortunate enough that people trust me with a lot of producing with them now, including a recent commercial for Toyota’s new fuel cell car, which is a $15 million prototype car. I was line producing the shoot, which included putting the crew together.
DSF: What do you like better – acting or producing?
SM: They are just two completely different things. If you think about it, one’s a very left brain activity and one’s a right brain activity. One’s just a lot more organized and in the meat and potatoes of everything, and one you can be a lot more creative with.
DSF: In acting, what other actor would you say you emulate or look up to?
SM: A lot of people compare me a lot to Tom Hanks, with his ambition and stuff. I definitely appreciate the kind of role that he’s had and the kind of work that he’s done, because he has tried to cross over into producing as well.
There are a lot of people that I adore for other reasons. At one point, I worked with Anthony Hopkins, and just watching him was truly amazing. The guy can’t do anything wrong.
DSF: What would be a dream role for you?
SM: I’ve been getting involved with television a lot recently, and I would like something where there is some creative freedom to have an ark to the story, just having a character that has some time to develop.
I know a lot of TV is just instant gratification, or in movies that are just completely action, there isn’t time for character development. Some of these shows are really fighting to make it like Smith, which was cancelled quickly – many people found boring, but it had some of the best character development that’s been on television in a while. Like House, I would love to play a character like that because it’s a role you don’t normally see, and you don’t normally see as the focus to a show on network television.
TV is often formulaic, so most of the roles I’ve had up to this point have served other people’s roles, which is setting up someone else instead of having a path for my own character to kinda discover what’s going on.
DSF: What are you watching on TV these days?
SM: Right now, obviously House like I said before. Heroes, I have been watching that non-stop. You can kinda see the through line here – that these shows have the character development. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, I like the pace of it.
As far as sitcoms, I am curious to see what happens with The Class. It’s like the little sitcom that could, because they have been changing it and tweaking it. Jim Burrows, who is heading that up, it’s always interesting to see what his shows do like Cheers and Will and Grace. How I Met Your Mother is a strong one too. The Office is just brilliant. What’s really interesting about it is that once they stopped copying the British show and their scripts, it was interesting to see where they would go with it. We’re starting to see that, which is cool.
DSF: What is your ultimate goal?
SM: With our pilot that we’re currently shopping around, my goal was to create a show, a vehicle for myself. Whether it is an hour drama or a half hour comedy, the half hour comedy was just to kinda see if I could do it because I hadn’t done it before, either would be great.
The main goal is to develop something for myself where I can work with the people I want to work with, and not to be greedy about it, but to be able to live a little more comfortably and do what I want to do. TV is a very good means for that, where you’ll work every week, and you won’t have a crazed schedule like on a film, where you could be shooting, and be somewhere for months.
I have a film coming up where I may be assistant directing down in Louisiana called Autopsy, and I would be stuck in Louisiana away from my life for three months and that would be kinda hard.
DSF: What did you gain from your time in the Fraternity?
SM: I think what I gained was not limiting myself to what I knew. Literally, I knew that being in college, I could stay in my major, and only meet those people. The Fraternity for me was great because it was a way to have brothers doing thousands of different things. I think I was able to open some of the brothers’ eyes to something they didn’t know as well.
DSF: What advice would you give to any brothers who want to go into the entertainment field?
SM: Don’t be afraid to ask questions. I guess for me one of the biggest things was being willing to ask questions when I didn’t know how to do something. That’s how I got into producing, and when people are more willing to tell people that you don’t know something, people are more willing to help you.
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