A Conversation with Michael Mosley
Michael Mosley’s impressive CV just keeps on growing. Michael stars in FOX’s NEXT, a new sci-fi series premiering October 6, 2020.
Michael and I discussed the premise of NEXT, his childhood in Iowa, and his directorial aspirations.
Yanis: NEXT is finally going to premiere. How excited are you?
Michael: I am excited. I’m very excited. They showed us five episodes of it. I’ve never had a network show give me half a season to preview before it went out so I’m excited about it. It looks good.
Y: I’m really excited to dive in and see the whole thing.
M: Me too. I’m excited to see the response to it.
Y: What can you tell me about the character you play, CM?
M: CM has a questionable background. He was a hacker for some alt-right fringe group and then he got in trouble, and now he’s kind of doing his penance working for FBI cyber crimes.
We’re not quite sure if we like him at the beginning of the series. He has a really questionable background. He’s got an ankle bracelet on, you know what I mean? As the season progresses we get to know him better.
Y: When you said “alt-right,” I thought “that’s definitely going to raise some eyebrows.”
M: I know. His views aren’t mine, obviously. His voice is clearly out there. Trying to analyze it and figure out the fringes of it I think is kind of an interesting topic.
Y: I’m assuming he’s a big conspiracy nerd.
He was trying to warn the world and now he’s proven right? He gets to say “I told you so?”
M: The thing that’s cool about the show is everybody comes from such different backgrounds. Policy kind of goes out the window when this AI starts to bubble up, and then all our heroes come together with all their different skill sets to try to conquer this thing. It’s not about policy, it’s about humanity.
Y: Well said, really well said. Are you worried about AI in the real world?
M: I think it’s interesting isn’t it? I mean we have these devices that have access to all of the world’s information at the speed of light, and then this thing is kind of accessing us.
It’s kind of an interesting existential regress we’re in. We are leaning into the technology blindly, but we’re not willing to set it down. I’ve started using the “do not disturb” on my phone, which has been fantastic. When I was born, not to be “old man Mosley” over here, if the phone rang maybe you weren’t home. That was that.
Having a thing buzzing around in your pocket all day, it’s very weird. I booked an open table when I was in Chicago shooting NEXT, and John [Slattery] and I were going out for dinner, and 15 minutes into dinner the phone is telling me that I was having dinner and that maybe I should turn off the phone. And I was like “mind your own business phone.”
Y: “Nagging” is a new function Siri has.
M: Yeah, it’s very strange.
Y: It is. I admit I’m nostalgic for those days as well. The rest of the world is in a race with America for who can make AI the fastest. If other countries make AI, wouldn’t it be best if North America had this power since our society is among the freest on earth?
M: The only problem I have with that is the AI is not gonna care about borders. As soon as they make an AI, if the AI starts replicating itself and get smarter and smarter and updates itself and enhances itself… it’s not gonna care whether you’re Canadian, African, European, American or whatever. It’s not gonna give a shit. It doesn’t have borders, it doesn’t think like that. You know what I mean?
Y: I completely understand. It’s a fascinating conversation.
M: It is, it definitely is. That’s why I think the show works. I think everybody has this itch in their head about this topic. Our technology is just going so quickly. It’s moving so fast right now. I don’t know where we’ll be in 15 years.
Hopefully we take care of ourselves. Hopefully we’re still in a good place.
Y: We can only hope. Michael you’ve played a lot of characters. Who has been the most similar to you and the least?
M: I’ve played a lot of bad guys that are really creepy and kill people. Those guys aren’t like me, but they’re fun to play because they cross that line.
But I guess the most like me… I don’t know, I mean, there’s a little me in everybody. I had a lot of fun doing Sirens. That was two seasons we were in Chicago for, which is a city that I love, and I met two of my best friends Kevin Bigley and Kevin Daniels on that show.
We would just bum around in this ambulance and run around and crack each other up. Bob Fisher and Denis Leary were running the show and they gave us alt lines! It was crazy that we got paid for that job. They fed us and paid us!
As far as being the most me, it was the most fun I had. It was like a buddy show. It was fun.
Y: It was a fun show. What was growing up in Iowa like?
M: Iowa was a cool place to grow up in man. I mean it was, it was a little town of 30,000. My dad worked at John Deere, my mom was a schoolteacher.
During the summers we would get on our bikes in the morning. We would get out all day until the street lights came on and we had to go home. It was really fun, and then me and my buddy we got into college.
I went to college for about half a semester at University of Northern Iowa and I didn’t really like it. I dropped out and me and my buddy we packed my car. He got to pack as much stuff in the trunk as he could, and I got to pack as much stuff in the backseat as I could, and we got in my car and we drove to Boston and we kind of lived out of my car for about a month.
We stayed in youth hostels and then we got a job at a café. We were kind of bumming around and it was a freeing time in my life.
I was 19 years old and didn’t have any idea of what I was gonna do. I knew I wanted to get into acting and knew Iowa wasn’t gonna give much avenue for that. LA seemed fake to me. I didn’t know anything about it, I was just a hick from the Midwest. New York seemed intimidating, and so we picked Boston.
My parents started getting a little nervous because I didn’t know if I had a whole lot of direction at that moment. And they said “what about that acting school you wanted to go to in New York, the American Academy of the Dramatic Arts” So I said “yeah I’d love to!”
I got to apply for different scholarships and went out and auditioned and I got in! It was like a dream come true. I got to study what I wanted to do all the time. It was just acting. It was so intensive and so cool and I just loved it and met some of my friends for life there.
Y: How did New Yorkers react to learning you’re from Iowa?
M: Sometimes it’s kind of fun to play hick a little. When I was first out there I kept my Iowa ID for a little while in case I had to pull it out and pretend “I’m just a caveman I don’t know your ways.” People are pretty cool.
New Yorkers are really tough. If you come up and approach them on the street they’ll assume you’re nuts. After a couple minutes of talking to a New Yorker, once they realize you’re not nuts and you’re just trying to get to the A train, they’ll walk you there themselves. People are cool out there, they just have to be tough. They were cool to me.
Y: Did you ever have to use your Iowa ID trick?
M: Well I’m not proud of it, but I was at a Coldplay concert once at Madison Square Garden. I lit a cigarette, and I wasn’t supposed to smoke it in Madison Square Garden. So the guy came and told me and so I put it out.
I pulled out my Iowa ID and I was like “I’m sorry dude I’m not from here, I just assumed we could do that anywhere” and then I kind of got out of it. I didn’t get kicked out.
Y: How is directing and producing going?
M: Back when we were at the American Academy of the Dramatic Arts we’d do our school during the winter months, and then the summer we would have off.
We would write plays and we would go down to the Lower East Side and find some little gutter punk theater and put up little shows and little plays.
I would write plays, my friends wrote plays, I would direct plays. We’d all do something and quickly realized that being a one trick pony in this circus, you should try to stretch your legs in other ways.
I’ve always been interested in writing and directing or producing or just finding projects. I have a book that I optioned about a famous murder that happened in my hometown and I’ve been working on that for years. We’re moving the ball forward. We’ve got producers now involved and we’ve got scripts and all kinds of stuff.
I’m not sure what I can say about it. I don’t want to ding it up and mess it up. That’s kind of where my heart’s at right now I mean.
I love the show NEXT but it’s good to have a couple things happening. It’s good to have more than one iron in the fire. I mean you look at peoples IMDB pages, they've got 15 things in development. I think that would be kind of a cool thing.
Y: You’ve been on many different sets. What’s the secret to good morale on set?
M: Well one of the first jobs I ever got was when Bill Lawrence put me in the final season of Scrubs. We sat down at the first table read and he said “I got one rule,” and he said “don’t be an asshole.”
And it’s really simple. He’s like “you guys are doing what you wanna do. You guys are getting paid handsomely for it.” These people [the crew] are working really hard. They’re missing their kid’s basketball games on Friday nights and sleeping through their kid’s soccer games on Saturday mornings. I mean these people are busting their hump, there’s no reason to be a dick.
It’s a pretty simple rule, and it’s fun what we do. Nobody's curing cancer here. We’re putting on other people’s pants for a living. We’re telling stories and just keep it simple. Enjoy it and just stay positive.
When I hear about people being assholes on set, I don’t understand what the malfunction is. I mean, we’re having fun, it’s playful and it’s storytelling.
Whether you’re on a huge big studio movie or doing a little indie, all that matters is that little frame. That’s the most important thing. All the stuff that happens behind it… there’s just no reason to get a god complex about it. It’s stupid.
It’s fun. Making movies is fun. To me it’s always been pretty easy. There’s been a few bad apples here and there but I’ve always had a pretty positive experience.
Y: That’s a great rule. That’s probably why Scrubs was such a fun show. Because the cast and crew were having fun and happy to be there. Ultimately the viewers benefit from that.
M: When you’re making a movie, or making a TV show, you kind of create this little circus family for six months or three months or six years. It’s family. It should be a family. Stay positive and stay helpful and chill.
Y: Is it true you’re afraid of heights? You’re not gonna go skydiving anytime soon?
M: Maybe someday. I don't know. But right now, I’m good with my feet on the ground.
Y: What’s next for you?
M: I’m shooting a short next week. It’ll be my first time back on set. I got a test two days ago. The results came back negative. They’re gonna take our temperatures and make sure everybody's tested and separate.
I'm gonna be interested to see what life on set is like with this pandemic. I don’t know what's gonna happen next. I’m really excited for people to see this show [NEXT]. I'm really crossing my fingers for a second season.
I’ve got a show that I’ve optioned. it’s about the Jerry Mark case. It’s about this guy Jerry Mark, who in 1976 was convicted of killing his brother, sister-in-law and their two children in their Cedar Falls home. He killed their two children in their bed while they slept and got in the motorcycle and went home.
I’ve been writing letters to Jerry Mark. It’s kind of creepy, but he and I are pen pals kind of. We’ve been developing that so I’m really interested in seeing where that goes.
Y: Halloween 2020 is going to be very different than most years. Many children won’t go trick-or-treating, and many grownups won’t give out candy. Can you share one of your favorite Halloween memories to liven our spirits?
M: I’ll tell you one, and it wasn't when I was dressed up as a kid. Me and my ex-wife, we were in a townhouse apartment. It was Halloween night and we had just moved into this apartment. We were so excited to get to know the neighborhood. So kids knew we were a Halloween friendly joint, I went to the store and got buckets of candy.
We sat out there, we had some wine, we start filling our bowl of candy…and nobody came. We were so bummed out nobody was showing up. So then these kids started coming, and because I thought it was a wash, I started saying “hey kids take as much as you can.” So they were taking handfuls of candy and throwing it in their bags.
I was like “hey this is cool, I’m gonna be a cool house.” And now I’m running out of candy! Now the kids are coming and I’m running out of candy.
I get in the car and I run in the store, and now all they have is that crappy corn stuff, what is that called — candy corn — nobody wants that crap. That’s all they have, and so I buy a bunch of that and now the kids dry up and then I have all this candy corn in my fridge.
Y: Hopefully Halloween 2021 will be a normal one.
M: I hope so too.
NEXT airs Tuesdays 9/8c on FOX.
You can follow Michael Mosley on Twitter @MikeMosley and on Instagram @MichaelMosley
