Transcript
From Wisconsin to Hollywood: A Chat with Michael Patrick McGill (Hour 1)
Nite Lite with Pete Schwaba and Greg Bach · Wed Sep 17, 2025
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You know it's not.
Good evening, everybody.
I am Pete Schwabba.
Welcome to the program we call Nightlight.
It is great to have you here on this gorgeous scorching Wednesday night, a fall Wednesday.
that I, before I left my house tonight, I turned on the air conditioning.
So I hope you are all staying cool, and I can't believe I'm saying that as we venture into, well, almost late September.
Great to have you here, folks.
I have a great show planned for you.
Two great guests, lots of fun conversation, lots of chances for you all to weigh in.
The phone lines, as always, are open, and you can be part of the show at any given time.
Whatever I'm discussing or Conrad and I are discussing, you are welcome to chime in.
and give us your thoughts, as always.
It's always more fun when you guys participate.
So this is a Wednesday night edition of Nightlight.
What are you pointing at, Conrad?
My chair.
Oh, does it look like there should be someone sitting there?
Look at all these fun people walking by.
I got to do my Nightlight Window Love picture.
And they always start walking by the second I get behind the mic.
Ridiculous.
Nobody's cooperating.
Is that chair bothering you?
It is.
All right, you want me to move it?
Yeah.
Okay, we're just gonna do some house cleaning here, folks.
This always goes over a little on radio.
Thank you.
If you could just go ahead and tell me that before we get on the air, that'd be great.
Thanks.
Oh, and I just moved, oh.
This makes great- I just want to say, how long have you been here today?
Since like two o'clock, you couldn't move that chair?
That's better.
It's still in the way.
Folks, I implore you to check in on the stream.
You know what?
I'm going to move it for good.
Ridiculous.
You know what?
No worries
found our Nightlight Window Live picture.
I want to take a picture of that chair outside.
That's great.
It's like it's the ghost chair.
With your bag
With my bag in it.
That's great.
All right, done.
And here I am criticizing all the people walking by.
There's no one like Window Love Worthy.
It's like one dude has his stomach out and his shirt untucked.
You know, and maybe that would be, you know, okay.
I don't know.
That's a cool picture.
You gotta have some diversity, some variety.
I agree.
I don't mind a few stomachs in the Window Love pictures.
That is the voice of Conrad Krieger, the house cleaner extraordinaire.
How you doing,
So we had a kind of a moment earlier when...
Well, I'll get to the question in a little bit.
I do want to say, you're a Nate Bargazzi fan,
a
Okay.
I like him.
He's very, you're right.
He's very dry.
I like that.
I like his delivery.
I think for a guy to be as unassuming as he is and be able to get away with that and pack in a theater, I think is great because
Nowadays it's like the louder the better and sometimes those guys are funny too or girls, but Nate is I do think he's a very funny comedian, but He got a bad review and variety for being an uninspired host apparently he I mean and He doesn't really have charisma I would say that's just kind of his style is the dryness and I I could see me I didn't watch all the Emmys, but I could see
Why they might think well, he's not Billy Crystal or Jimmy Kimmel or Steve Martin, you know, he just doesn't have that kind of personality
How about
the
ever
It
cool.
Did you hear what happened to her at the party afterwards?
No.
Well, I don't know.
I don't know if it had anything to do with booze, but she was headed to an after party and curing her Emmy and she face planted.
And Emmy went flying and she was okay.
Somebody helped her up.
Maybe she was a
I kind of like that.
I like unbridled.
Enthusiasm like when all decor is gone because it's a big moment.
It's like it's the same thing like you win an Emmy That's like scoring a touchdown while being chased by humongous fast people and you beat them and you scored and I remember when I was younger and People would like Walter Peyton would always just hand the ball to the ref and It was that school of thought like act like you've been there before I get that I get that I also don't mind a guy who flips out he just scored a touchdown
I Have those arguments all the time with my dad because my dad is so predictable.
He'll see a touchdown dance.
Oh geez.
I just don't like when they do that stuff.
I'm like, what are they supposed to do dad like turn in
Shake hands and say very nice touchdown.
is
That's too much
up order football.
You don't even have anything to shake.
What are they doing?
That's hilarious.
But anyway, so there's more Emmy news and that was kind of cool.
Hey, by the way, I drove down here tonight, two things.
Someone like stared me down for passing them on the right.
Then maybe they just, you know, maybe they thought, no, there's a nice looking guy or a, I like his car.
I like the way he's got his hair feather.
I don't know
Look at those guns at 10 o'clock at two.
No, but he just kept staring at me.
I'm like, dude, you know, if you don't want to be passed on the right, get out of the left lane.
Yeah.
And here's another thing I noticed.
When did the equinox become the American car?
These things are everywhere.
And maybe they're great cars.
I don't know.
I've never.
I own one, but my buddy Tom Boyle just bought one.
I've seen, there's like two of them parked out here on the street.
I passed like three of them.
I think they make an electric car now that's really popular.
And they must be offering deals, because everybody has one now.
At least.
Let's do some digging on this one.
of every single equinox we see.
Gotta do it.
Do a deep dive.
Hey, this is exciting folks if you're listening in Milwaukee check us out on 100.3 FM 100.3 FM.
That's our new signal and new to downtown the walkie and feel free to share that with people and the frequency is out there and That's a new way to listen to us in
get
team do last year.
They
recently, but like I want to say 15 or 20 years ago they did teams that got in and they won a couple games These Wisconsin teams other than UW which made a final four and has had a lot of success
Like UWGB, UWM, they were like those teams for a while you did not want to play in the tournament.
Correct.
Which is really
Yeah, you're right about that.
That is pretty cool.
And they're still good, right?
think they're supposed to be good this year.
They
All right, ladies and gentlemen, I think without further ado, it's time to get to the nightlight question of the
Okay, question.
Who is the best athlete, turned actor or actress?
Who is the best athlete turned actor or actors 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 8 5 5 7 5 civic this is kind of a weird thing and I You know you see this occasionally.
It's mostly wrestlers like we were talking about before the show because You know Wrestlers are showmen, you know or women they that's what they do.
So I think if they can tone that down and learn how to act sometimes are not that bad and you put You put it as a joke the rock
But and I know I've joked about the rock too, but listen the rock is in talks for an Oscar nomination with this new movie He's in called the smashing machine where he plays an MMA fighter.
That's why he lost like 70 pounds So the guy is trying to be a great actor.
I commend him for that We'll have to see but he got like a 15 minute standing ovation.
I think at the Venice Film Festival about two weeks ago
Yeah,
and
but
So yeah, you could put you might put him on there But I remember when I was a kid a lot of like I remember seeing dick butt kissing movies and like You know, who's the guy?
Oh Jim Brown Jim Brown was actually Not a bad actor like he always played kind of a tough guy
But he had nice moments like he was not a bad actor But dickbuckas I never need to see acting again Michael Jordan you could talk about Michael LeBron Shaq and those kid movies I don't really think that counts, but if
you want to
put that in there you can And you and I both had the same answer we did and we didn't even talk about we did not go ahead and share it with the people
yeah a little a little role called Apollo Creed when he was excellent Yeah,
Yeah,
what I was out.
Yeah, right
And he's very funny in that.
I could take or leave those movies, but he, to me, is the best thing.
I don't remember which one I saw, but when he was like, he's like the pirate with the face of an angel.
Like his delivery was great.
actually
That's interesting.
Yeah, he's got 100 over 150 credits as an actor like if you told me How many credits does David Bautista have I'd say I don't know 20 This guy has his worked hard and I'm gonna find the name of this movie.
I saw my buddy Dave Hendrick told me And I it was like a streamer that I did one night.
It was not a great movie, but he was good in it So
Yes
Yeah, no, he's good.
I like David Batista.
I don't know that he could do, like, is he ready to do a role like The Rock did and drop 80 pounds?
And maybe, I don't know.
I'm not saying they can't do it.
I mean, wrestling is theater.
But it's hard.
And, you know, Ronda Rousey has made the jump.
And Gina Carano, like MMA fighters, but they're like action.
And that's fine.
That is acting.
But give me an actor who's like, like Arnold Schwarzenegger has done.
Yeah.
He's a movie star.
I wouldn't say he's a serious actor, but he's good.
You know, Serena
Oh, funny.
Bushwick, that's the name of the movie.
David Batista was in, that takes place in New York.
That was the first thing I saw him in, and he was decent.
It was a bad movie, but he was pretty good.
All right, who is your favorite?
Who's the best professional athlete turned actor or actress?
That is tonight's question, 855-752-4842.
Text us on the app, drop us a stream comment if you're watching on YouTube, Facebook, or X, and be part of the show.
Folks, when I come back, I'm gonna tell you how many side orders I'm allowed to order.
through DoorDash.
That's coming up next on Nightlight with Peach Waba on the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
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Nightlight with Pete Schwabba.
It is great to have you with me, folks, on this Wednesday night, a scorcher here in Wisconsin.
Who knew?
It was pretty hot today.
In fact, I was in denial most of the day.
I'm like, God, I'm really hot.
What am I doing?
I'm just not exercising enough because I'm like sweating and it's fall.
And then I looked at the thermometer.
It was like 82 degrees in Marinette, Wisconsin in September.
So the Earth is probably going to end soon, but it felt great today.
On that note.
So our question of the night, folks, is who is the best athlete turned actor or actress?
Conrad and I had the same answer.
I'm not going to say this has never happened before, but it's kind of rare.
We both said David Batista and Carl Weathers.
And I would put the juries out.
Maybe David Batista is actually better than Carl Weathers.
But I don't know that he's had those roles yet, but we'll see.
But let us know.
who you think is the best athlete turned actor or actress that is our question of the night.
And while I'm at it, boy, I've got two really fun guests tonight.
This is exciting.
I've been trying to get this, our first guest on who will be here at 6.35.
Been trying to get him on the air for a couple months now.
We kept missing each other, but he is an Appleton based actor who has had tremendous success in Hollywood.
His name is Mike McGill.
You've probably seen his work on Shameless or Bosch or many other.
He was also in the office Conrad, you know that?
He played a character named Kenny Anderson.
He did like a half a season or something like that.
And I did not watch the office that late in the run.
I kind of stopped watching after season five.
And I've seen sporadic, sporadic episodes.
So I don't know if I've seen Mike on the office, but he's had a ton of success.
He's a heck of a nice guy.
And I would expect nothing.
Nothing less from a good Wisconsin boy who went out and conquered Hollywood.
That's very cool.
So he is from Appleton and he will be here at 635.
Anxious to talk to Mike.
And then my pal Greg Schwem, syndicated columnist and comedian will be here at 720 to discuss a really cool fundraising event for colorectal cancer.
Greg will be here at 7.20, and he is a syndicated columnist.
He writes his own column called The Humor Hotel on Tribune Media Services.
We're gonna talk a little bit about the Kiss Cam incident.
He had a funny take on that.
And the woman who grabbed the foul ball in Philly.
We didn't really address that on this show.
I think that happened the night before I was off or something, and then I just kind of forgot about it.
But yeah, we'll talk about that with Greg,
that.
Yeah
because his dad got bullied
just get out of my face.
Yeah, it's a stupid baseball But still I don't know that I would have given that up I Mean cuz I've been to enough baseball games in my life where I feel like it's where it's not easy to get a foul ball
It
doesn't happen to everybody even if you go to a lot of baseball games.
So I there's no way I don't think I would have coughed that up
But anyway, we'll talk to Greg about that at 720, Mike McGill at 635.
I don't order DoorDash very much.
And I think I mentioned this before on the show, but today I ordered something.
And the establishment I ordered from, the DoorDash app gave me the option it said, side items, choose up to five.
Why is that nice?
Did he choose up to five?
No.
Who's ever ordering?
Five sides unless the Jacksons are coming over to have lunch with me or something like first of all It's a weird Psychology because they're saying choose up to five.
Are they trying to use reverse psychology?
And think I'm gonna go wait a minute.
I want 12 sides.
No, I nobody orders five sides And if you ordered more they'd give it to you.
So why are they that must be like a marketing tactic or something?
It's just really strange
All right, let's read some texts.
We got some stream texts here for our question tonight.
Who is the best professional athlete turned actor or actress?
Eric our pal Eric Rathsak Why hasn't Eric been on the show in a while?
come back Eric.
What did I do?
I did reach out to Eric, but I'll follow up with him the lead singer of ask your mother Eric says can't wait to hear Mike McGill tonight
Well, that's refreshing, Eric.
And I love that Eric's a rock and roller, but he can't wait to hear the actor.
That's kind of fun.
Yeah, thanks for listening, Eric.
Great to hear from you.
Mike Desitel says the equinox is the new Buick, Buick Le Sabre.
Mike knows my issues with the Buick Le Sabre.
I've called it the most sexless car you can buy.
That's the car.
If you have an erection lasting more than four hours, you go sit in a Buick Le Sabre and it
You lose your boner.
That's the car to do it in now.
It's not as sexy of a ride as the Buick Lucerne You know comes up with these names Like a Lucerne is like a wheat field you could do a Buick La Schwabba That would be better.
That'd be cool.
I still wouldn't buy one and it's my name
But the new Buicks look kind of cool.
I don't know what is with those those words though Dave on the stream says the guy that played Hunter Fred Dreyer.
Oh Fred Dreyer was a good actor That's a great pull Dave and he played Dave Something on Cheers.
He was a sportscaster.
He was really funny and he was pretty good football player I don't know if he's like an all-pro or anything, but great sense of humor.
Yeah, Fred Dreyer.
That's a great one
Eric Rathsack says, Bubba Smith, high tower.
Good one.
Police Academy.
Absolutely.
Jeff on the stream says, actor and athlete, Mark Harmon.
Okay, Mark Harmon, another one.
Very good.
It's funny too, because some of those people, like Mark Harmon, I think of more as an actor, like he's acted his way out of his sports reputation.
And I'm not saying he's Lawrence Olivier, but he's pretty, he's very serviceable, good actor on NCIS.
And you kind of,
The fact that I forgot he was an athlete means he's made the jump.
Thank you, Jeff.
Craig Kinett says, how about 1953, Mr. Universe contender Sean Connery?
Does he count?
Yes, he does, Craig.
And I saw that when I googled some of these names earlier.
Sean Connery was in that contest, but he wasn't huge.
He wasn't like, but he was really like kind of ripped and chiseled.
Sort of like, he had kind of like my physique.
Conrad a mountain the muscle mountain muscle Mike that still says Alan Autry former Packer quarterback Carlos Brown Played the part of Bubba in the heat of the night with Carol O'Connor.
Oh on the TV show.
Okay Awesome texts everybody keep in common.
We'll read your stream texts or your text line texts as the show progresses coming up after the news Appleton kid done good
Been out in Hollywood for years.
Mike McGill will be here.
We're coming back.
It's Beach Wabba and Night Light, and it's great to have you with me on this Wednesday, folks, on the Civic Media Radio
back.
This is Nightlight IMP Chihuahua.
You just sent me a message about Gary Oldman.
I forgot about the clips.
Yeah, we'll get to him.
That's funny.
that's fantastic.
I need a haircut, by the way.
I can't get into.
Do you have someone here in Green Bay?
Yes.
But you pay like 50 bucks, right?
Oh, wow.
Teasing.
Have kidding.
Hey, all right, we'll do haircut stuff off the air right now, folks.
I'm very excited to welcome my first guest of the night, as I mentioned before.
I've been trying to have Mike on the show for a while now, and it worked out he's agreed to join us over the stream tonight.
He is an Appleton native and a very accomplished actor.
And he seems like a heck of a nice guy.
Conrad, I will be surprised if Mike and I don't hit it off.
Yeah, so I'll let you be the judge.
But Mike McGill joins us now on Nightlight.
Hi, Mike.
All right, Pete.
Love
how are you?
You could tell Mike is an actor and used to visual mediums because he's waving on the radio But you are on the stream mic, so we can see you.
How you doing?
I'm good on the stream.
I made sure I wore my Donald driver throwback jersey.
Oh You just made Conrad's day.
That's a sweet.
Yeah, but now yours.
I heard I heard you're a Bears fan.
Is that true?
It is true.
I've
I'm as much of a Bears fan as you can be over what's happened the last several years.
And yeah, I spent the first part of my childhood in Chicago.
So I am a Bears fan and you can have fun with
that.
That's the team you grew up with.
And I'm sure in your youth, they were steamrolling, right?
Sweetness.
it was great you
know for that well but you sound like you're kind of complaining when you're from chicago and you say well the 85 bear like arguably the best team ever and then you but we're all mad that it wasn't a dynasty you know i mean like right so anyway you guys have done pretty well with your packers the last few years
if you told me after erin rogers won that first super bowl that that they weren't going to win anymore with him i would have been like you're nuts but
Here we are.
True.
And I thought the same thing with Farve, actually, to be honest with you.
So,
uh... Right?
Yeah.
But whatever.
Well, I'm
married.
I'm married a Bears fan, so... Oh, wow.
I can't... I can't escape you guys.
And you're still together.
How long has it been?
Oh, luckily, when we first started dating, the first time I went back and met all of her family, the Bears had just come to Limbo Field and they completely obliterated.
the Packers.
So I got nothing but guff from her whole side of the family.
And that was the year that they went to the Super Bowl loss in the Colts.
But ever since then, you know, fortune has been on my side on this rivalry.
So
yeah, I
will
say
hope that continues.
When you said that I was racking my brain, I'm like, when would that have been?
Right?
Yeah.
Right.
Well, that's great.
Hey, Mike, do you
Do you have a favorite professional athlete turned actor you could share with us or actress?
I just saw that I just saw that scroll down and I was trying to think of a professional actor turned athlete.
And for
one
reason, the first thing that popped in my head was Lawrence Taylor in any given Sunday.
I was like a pretty good job for it for an athlete turned actor.
Now, you
know,
he might have just been playing himself, but
But I thought he acquitted himself pretty well in that movie.
Okay, that's a great one.
I thought maybe you would have said Farve because of something about Mary, but
That well, that's
a he's a
category of his own there and then and then of the like the wrestlers who are all becoming actors I think Dave Bautista does a nice job of things.
I've seen him in He did a good performance.
So
totally agree about yourself.
I said David Bautista and
Yeah, uh, where I don't remember my answer, Mike.
Here it is, uh, David Patista and Carl Weathers.
Uh, weathers.
Yeah.
Oh man.
Action Jackson.
That's one of my,
that's one of
my faves from the 80s and predator, of course.
Predator and you know what?
Apollo.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know what?
I might have to, I might have to do a one B and I might have to change my Lawrence Taylor answer.
and going for Conrad
Wothers,
Chubs Peterson,
maybe Rest in Peace.
Exactly, that was what Conrad said.
And here's one I forgot about, Mike.
Fred Dreyer, who was on Cheers back in the day, and then he was Hunter.
Yeah, he was pretty good.
So it can be done.
Yeah,
he had a nice run, absolutely.
It
can be done, absolutely.
Well, all right, so let's switch the conversation.
You didn't come here to talk about Carl Weathers.
I want to talk to you about your career.
I can
talk about Carl Weathers.
I can talk about Carl Weathers all
day.
Wouldn't that be funny if you could?
Like, if you were the Carl Weathers guy and this
just...
That would be, actually.
This film, Penny, you sent me this short film with you and my pal Lance Barber in it.
Um, give me some background on that.
That was like 10 years ago and it was about a wishing well and the pennies and Lance is the guy that fixes it.
You play Lance's dad.
That was a very sweet little film.
I did.
Yeah.
No, I honestly, I think it's probably one of my favorite projects that I've ever been involved in.
Um, it was a short film about 15 years ago.
Uh, my wife and me was pregnant with my first.
About to be first born son at the time.
So I wasn't a father in real life yet, but I was playing one I was playing one in the film and then now I look back on it and I was like I guess I did all right for just just winging it not know what I was doing but Lance is a fantastic actor Reginald Bell Johnson was in it God start from that seven sure they got some really good actors in that in that thing
did It's a 20 minute movie, but I thought they did a really nice job on it
And I was very happy with it.
And Reginald Ville Johnson from Die Hard, right?
He was the cop.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, right.
It's a big twinkie,
right?
That's a big
twinkie.
That's, that's Ghostbusters, but he was getting the twinkies when they were turning my car to Swiss cheese.
I need back
up now.
That's the thing that's great about LA.
You're shooting a short film and you get actors with major credits.
I mean, it's a home run.
Yeah, for sure.
Well, thank you for sharing that with me.
I really enjoyed it.
My pleasure.
Well, I enjoyed because I did my homework over the weekend and revisited the Godfather of Green Bay.
So I knew we had the Lance Barber connection there.
And I have to tell you, I don't know what I'm...
more impressed with that you got our mutual friend Daz to do the Macarena or that you got him to dress up in blaze orange and pretend like he was trying to relieve himself in the woods.
I mean those are, that's talk about high caliber acting.
It took some, Mike did not need that much direction.
I will say at a screening we had in Marinette, when Mike was doing his thing where he was squatting in the woods, he got a huge laugh.
And right as the laughter died down, you heard his mom say, Michael, I'm so proud of you.
It was like his own personal Oscar moment.
Oh hilarious, but that's what when you when you screen a film in a town where you shot it Nobody's listened to the story.
They're all like there's my garage.
That's my uncle Fred, you know, it's
like
I do that now when I look at old films, you know, and you probably do after living in LA like, oh, yeah, I know that neighborhood.
Oh, there's pink hot dogs.
There's such and such, but you know, but, but when we were in Wisconsin watching them originally in the 80s, I had no, no reference for it.
But
isn't it a blast though?
That's so much fun to do.
Like I remember, here's a crazy, and I'm getting off on a tangent here, but I remember being, I dropped my son off at school.
I'm at Colfax and maybe to hunger.
No, I'm at Colfax and Riverside, or I'm sorry, Moorpark.
And I see the two motorcycles pull up and CHP chips.
When I was a kid, I remember watching that show, never even questioned what chips stood for.
And I'm like, oh, chips, California Highway Patrol.
I looked from the motorcycle up.
Who's crossing the street?
But Larry Pine, the guy from the show, chips.
Chris Pine's the
guy.
Yeah, absolutely.
Crazy stuff like
that.
We're a big chips family out here.
Uh, my wife sat down and watched.
They re ran them on like me TV.
Yeah.
When the boys, my boys were really little.
They, they, uh, watched it ad nauseam and then cut to, we went to one of those autograph shows out by the airport and the, and the cast of chips was there that weekend.
So they all took a picture with them.
Nice.
They got the, you know, got the meat punch and John sit on the motorcycle.
So
it was a, it was a big deal.
Oh, what a thrill.
That's so cool.
And.
And is it Richard Pine?
Yeah.
Oh, you might be right.
Robert Pine.
Robert Pine.
That's it.
He was there,
too.
That was just such a weird serendipitous morning that kind of made my day.
So, all right, so let's do this, Mike.
Mike McGill is
my
guest, folks.
He is a native Appletonian who has been living out West for years and has some great acting credits.
He's a very good actor, and he's here on us.
He's here on Nightlight for a little bit tonight.
And it's great to have him.
Mike, tell us a little bit.
For people who don't know who you are, and I can't believe since I told people who's on the show tonight, you know a lot of people know you.
But for those that don't,
Tell us how you got started and a little bit about your background.
My dad, may he rest in peace, his birthday, his 89th birthday would be this Friday the 19th.
But he's no longer with us, but he took me to the drive-in to see the first Star Wars when I was a little kid.
That's the first movie I ever went to go see when I was a little kid.
And I think from that moment on, I just knew that that was something that
I wanted to do.
I grew up in Appleton.
I grew up on the Lakeshore of Lake Winnebago.
Went to Appleton East High School.
And then I went to UW, Stevens Point, UW Oshkosh, and got a degree in radio TV film.
But I always knew that I was going to pull up my stakes and head west when the time came.
And yeah, you know, when you're in your early 20s, I'm not sure how old you were when you decided to head out there, but you know,
People would say, hey, you better give yourself a year to get acclimated out there.
And I thought, maybe you need a year.
Well, after a year, I'm going to be starting TV and movies, baby.
And then
it's like cut to three years later, and I still haven't worked on everything yet.
And I'm like, oh, my God, what have I got myself into?
But yeah, I just, I started with Chicago for a while, but I thought I'm just going to be delaying the inevitable.
I'm just sooner or later, I'm going to have to get out to LA.
I moved out to LA in the spring of 1998 and I got knocked around for a few years and then you know luckily in the early aughts I started uh booking a few things here mostly mostly tv shows you know I'm getting occasional commercial and an occasional little bit roll in the movie but for whatever reason 90 percent of the jobs I booked were tv shows and with a name like
Michael Patrick McGill 90% of those 90% jobs were cops.
So
And you know the other 10% now I'm now I'm moving into my bartender phase But it's always a blue collar roll, you know, it's a cabbie or a security guard or The angry dad, but so you know our construction work with that kind of thing.
I'll probably never cast as the
your chief of surgery or the managing partner of a law firm, but hey, you know, you find out where you find your your niche
and your work within it.
Absolutely.
So did you go right from Appleton to LA or were you in Milwaukee or good?
Oh, wow.
That's a really big
move.
Well, you know, you got to swing.
You got to swing for the fences, right?
When you're 24, 25, you don't know any better.
So you're just like, I'm going to do this.
I would have loved to spend some time in New York and I always hope a job will bring me out there but to this point I've only been to New York once on one little trip and I said I wanted to go see a taping of the late show with Damon Letterman and go see the Statue of Liberty and I got to do both of those things so I didn't have to do that now.
is a bonus.
That's awesome.
My guest is Mike McGill, also known as Michael Patrick McGill by Screen Actors Guild for Screen Actors Guild purposes.
When we come back... I
have to be Michael Patrick McGill because they have a skateboarder who was in a bunch of 1980s movie...
Oh my
gosh.
...professional skateboarder named Mike McGill.
He beat me to it.
You should be able to take that back.
Statute limitations.
We are coming right back with Mike and I'm going to ask him about his time on Shameless and Bosch.
Don't miss it, folks.
We're having fun here at Nightlight with Pete Schwabba on the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website,
And our question of the night is who is your favorite professional athlete or who is the best professional athlete turn actor or actress?
Jim from Appleton.
He's the 920 says best athlete turned actor.
Alex Karris.
That's a pretty good one.
And Karim Abdul-Jabbar from airplane.
Of course, those are two I kind of forgotten about.
That's a great one.
And then Cody from Madison in the 608 says, if you guys tried the new wing restaurant next to you on State Street.
We're in Green Bay right now.
I do do the show from Madison sometimes and I will put that on the list though.
Thank you for your text.
We'll get to more of your texts coming up in a little bit.
Eric Rathsack on the stream says, met Mike at Jones Park a few years ago, great dude, referring to our guest, Mike McGill, actor and Appleton native.
Do you remember Eric Mike?
He's
hard to forget, man.
He's a tall drink of water.
He's
a big stretch.
And he's the front man for a cover band called Ask Your Mother that plays all around Wisconsin.
They sound great.
And they were nice enough to let us... I had some friends from high school that formed a rap group called Shad Rap, and we performed.
I was in... I just happened to be in town that weekend, and I hopped in and performed with them.
Stretch and ask you about it.
Let us perform during one of their breaks.
So it was
fun.
Oh my
gosh.
That sounds like a blast.
Yeah, Eric and Eric has been in the studio before they've performed He's
great.
So
Yeah, that's a great text.
Thank you, Eric We'll have him back on soon.
Okay, Mike.
So we got to get down to all right the first role I saw you in I'm a huge fan.
I love cop shows
And I love the wire.
I would say after the wire, maybe Bosch is my favorite cop show.
And you played a detective, a Vegas detective, and you were great on it.
What was that experience like?
That was really great.
You know, first off, since you're a fan of the show, you know how great of an actor, tight as well over it.
So I was excited to be working with him for sure.
Yeah.
And when they were originally casting that,
My agent was a friend or my agent was a fan of the of the Bosch books.
So he was pushing me to get in on that show.
And I actually went and auditioned for the pilot to be the two detectives, Crate and Barrel.
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
And I remember I had worked on shameless that day.
I had wrapped in it.
I also have to be my son, Jake's third birthday.
So I kind of was like, I don't know if I want to go all the way and do this audition because I want to get home and celebrate his birthday.
Okay, I'm going to
But I thought, you know what, I'm gonna do it.
My agent's a fan of the show.
And so I went and it was one of those auditions where the producers don't even bother looking up.
What'd you do in the, okay, thanks for coming in.
I knew right then and there, I was like, okay, I didn't get this one.
So let me go get my son's Thomas the Tank Engine Tank and go home and celebrate with him.
But cut to a year or two later and the Ivy role came up and I auditioned for it.
And, um, you know, they had me do a couple of episodes and they were nice enough to bring me back for one of the final episodes of the last season, but that was, it was really cool.
I really enjoyed working with the tightest.
And, um, oh God, Matthew Willard is one of the other guests.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was a great show.
He
played an FBI agent, uh, Lillier did.
And you played the Vegas attack.
And you, you were a great kind of foil to them because.
Titus' character, Bosch, the title character, is kind of a hard-ass.
And you came across as this sarcastic, nice guy who was willing to put up with stuff, but you could be a hard-ass if you had to.
And I just, that was a great character.
What did you do, like four or five episodes?
And it was so memorable.
Well, thank you, man.
Now, I do remember there was one, there was one episode where we came in and shook down, you know, Matthew Lillard's
And they had, I don't know, like the props and put a...
a sleeve of rips crackers or something out and I improvise I grabbed one of the crackers on the sleeve and ate it and made the producer laugh and it ended up staying in the in the episode so I was I was proud and I was like oh my improv made it to the final episode so but uh yeah I was great I really enjoyed it I would have I would have loved to come back for more but you know beggars can't be choosers I'll take I'll take a handful of episodes over now
you know
I have kind of a weird question for you, Mike.
And
I hope I phrased this right.
But as an actor, you've got this great material that Michael Connelly wrote or that ended up being on the screen.
As an actor, is it easier to do good material?
Or if you see a bad script, what is more challenging?
Because I'm sure the stakes are higher when you have a great writer.
But when you don't, you have to bring more to the part.
What's more of a challenge?
I think I think trying to raise up something that isn't That isn't awesome, you know, if it's great you would know if you get inside and I remember getting an audition for Ray Donovan
and it was a great show and I was like man, I can't believe how easy I locked in all the you know the lines There's a really good, you know a great written scene.
Yeah, whereas a lot of times, you know, sometimes you get like a multi
cameras sit calm and they're cranking them out.
And usually the role of the guest stars in those things isn't to be funny.
It's to make the regulars funny.
You're a set up person, especially if you're a cop and something like that.
So, um, a lot of times, you know, my manager, my agent, they're like, well, I wasn't really that funny.
I said, well, you know, you got to consider the search material.
And you also have to consider, I'm not going to be the one getting, you know, the punch line.
I'm not going to have the DOS moments.
where he's in the woods and mom is so proud of his little boy.
But you do the best you can.
You try to do the best.
I usually try to put a little button at the end of auditions, but sometimes it can be something just as simple as a facial reaction or just a sigh or something like that.
Something because these casting directors, especially these days, they don't see you live in a person anymore.
They're looking at
500 tapes and then I'll get a cheese.
The same performance, you're just looking for one little hook that maybe is like, oh, that was interesting.
Nobody will do
that.
Very well said.
That's a great answer.
All right.
We're going to do the news, Mike.
Can we keep you for a few more minutes past the news?
Absolutely.
All right.
Fantastic.
When we come back, we'll ask Mike about his time on Shameless and we're talking acting in Wisconsin and all kinds of... I might even ask Mike what his favorite haunts are in Wisconsin when he comes back.
We'll do all that after intermission.
Act 2 is coming up next.
Greg Schwem is here at 720.
Tribune syndicated columnist telling us about a great event coming up.
But more Mike McGill when we come back.
It's Pete Schwabba in Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.
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