Laughs, Fouls, and Hollywood Dreams (Hour 2)

Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay.

This is Night Light with Pete Chwaba.

Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.

And now, a guy who believes a penny saved isn't Jack S***.

Pete Chwaba.

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 gotta do my nightlight window love picture, and they always start walking by the second I get behind the mic.

What a ridiculous... Nobody's cooperating.

Right, 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 will and radio.

Thank you.

If you could just go ahead and tell me that before we get on the earth, that'd be great.

Thanks.

Oh, and I just, oh.

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 on the way.

Folks, I implore you to check in on the stream.

You know what?

I'm going to move it for good.

Ridiculous.

Now it's out of frame.

Now it's all good.

You know what?

No worries now.

I think we just found our Nightlight Window Love 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 in it.

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.

And maybe that would be OK.

You know, that's a cool picture.

You got to have some diversity, some variety.

I agree.

I don't mind a few stomachs in the window of pictures.

That is the voice of Conrad Krieger, the house cleaner extraordinaire.

How you doing Ty?

I'm doing great.

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, right?

I mean, you know, honestly his comedy to me is kind of dry.

It takes a while to get to the punch.

I'm not

a

huge fan of his comedy.

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,

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,

you know, I'll say this about the Emmys Congrats to Kristen Malody

How about

your mother?

She's

the

mom

And she's the mother and she's the only person from I much rather to win and I mean so it's

ever yeah, it's pretty cool It is cool.

Did you hear what happened to her at the party afterwards?

She get a little too drunk.

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 Flying and she was okay.

Somebody helped her.

Maybe she was a

little drunk.

Maybe I would be

Yeah, that's it's really cool though.

I think her speech was pretty cool too.

She she just screamed I didn't see

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.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's, it's, it's pretty cool thing to score a touchdown.

You know, you should, they should, you know, I think how the Emmy should go.

Every speech should go like Adrian Brody.

Is he still talking?

He might be.

I wish I had that on

hand.

I have those arguments all the time with my dad because my dad is so predictable.

He'll see a touchdown dance and I'll go, geez, I just don't like when they do that stuff.

I'm like, what are they supposed to do, dad?

Like turn and shake hands and say very nice touchdown.

You know,

there's

a certain, I think you gotta be kind of tamer on it because I've seen some of these new like, you know, he's like.

Eight youth leagues and they're doing touchdown dances.

That's too much pretty provocative actually like shaking shaking their hips and stuff like that

Yeah, it's it's I'm like, okay.

This is how do you not how does the ref not be like all right?

Well, we should probably give a flag to that eight-year-old

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 what they were thinking.

What amount of muscle that guy is.

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.

Yeah, they are.

And maybe they're great cars.

I don't know, I've never owned 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.

Yeah, I think I lease C2 every day.

Two equinoxes

at least let's do some some digging at this one.

We'll take a picture of every single equinox.

We see you gotta do it 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 Milwaukee 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

Milwaukee.

Yeah, go UWM Panthers.

You know, that's what I gotta say.

It's gotta

be pretty close to uh,

I'm sure they'll

get UWM, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Go Panthers.

Go Panthers.

Are they good?

Never.

How'd their football

team do last year?

They

don't, they don't have one.

But uh, the basketball, you know, I prayed for them to be good and they just never,

they

have

had

good teams though.

They almost, they keep almost making it to the, to March Madness and then they fall a couple of games short in the tournament.

recently, but like, I want to say 15 or 20 years ago, they had 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.

You know, what's UWGB, the last two years has made, the women's basketball team has made the tournament.

Correct.

Which is really cool.

Yeah, you're right about that.

That is pretty cool.

And they're still good, right?

Yeah, I think they're supposed to be good this year.

They should be good this year.

I thought I read that.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, I think without further ado, it's time to get to the nightlight question of the

night.

Let's talk about the question.

Okay, question.

Question.

Question.

Pregunta.

Question.

Question.

Okay, I have a question.

Questions.

This question.

Domanda.

Question.

Question.

Questions.

Who is the best athlete turned actor or actress?

Who is the best athlete turned actor or actress 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 they're not that bad.

And you put it as a joke, The Rock.

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.

Well, I have to see, but he got like a 15 minute standing ovation

I think at the Venice Film Festival about two weeks ago,

which is

pretty

cool.

Yeah,

I think, you know, because he did say this was like his first serious role.

That's not I mean, because his other stuff is mainly just like comedy

and

throw a little bit of action in there.

Yeah.

But

I definitely have heard that this movie is his best

so yet.

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 Butkus in 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 Dick Butkus, 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 it either.

We did not.

Go ahead and share it with the people.

Well, of course, we got the best character in Happy Gilmore, Carl Wethers.

He's done other roles, obviously, than just Happy Gilmore.

Yeah, like a little role called Apollo Creed where he was excellent.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think he's definitely one of the best.

And Dave Bautista, he's had some cool roles.

Yeah.

And he was in Murder Mystery or something.

Knives Out, that's

what it's called.

Knives Out, yeah, right.

And he was in the second one, and he plays in a hilarious character in that.

And he's also in Guardians of the Galaxy.

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 he when he was like he's like the pirate with a face of an angel like his delivery was great He

also plays I mean a bunch of you know kids movies as well Like this movie called my spy, which I thought I'd hate but it

actually

was

kind of wholesome That's interesting.

Yeah, he's got a hundred 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

he was also in Dune.

I forgot he's in Dune.

Yes.

Yeah.

No, he's good I like David Bautista 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 but 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

Williams has done some stuff Has she really yeah cameos here and there.

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.

Two 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, 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 jury is 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 635.

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?

That is, that's pretty cool.

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.

Well, yeah, that was bad.

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,

too.

Yeah, it sucks.

He did that kid did get some cool stuff because of that.

Yeah true because his dad got bullied I Mean, I think his dad just had enough was like fine.

Whatever 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.

Oh, nice.

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.

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, well, wait a minute, I want 12 sides.

No, 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.

In any way, they can make more money, they will do

it.

Of course.

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 a while?

You gotta 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... Buickless Saber.

Mike knows my issues with the Buickless Saber.

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 Buickless Saber 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 of muscle.

Mike Destel says Alan Autry, former Packer quarterback Carlos Brown, played the part of Bubba in the heat of the night with Carole 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 Beachwabba and Nightlight, and it's great to have you with me on this Wednesday, folks, on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Welcome

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.

There's some there's some great clips.

Yeah, 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?

For that.

No, I'm kidding.

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.

How are you,

Pete?

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, Mike, so we can see you.

How you doing?

I'm good.

Since I'm on the stream, I've made sure I wore my Donald Driver throwback

jersey.

Oh, you just made Conrad's day.

That's a sweet

jersey.

But now yours, I heard you're a Bears fan.

Is that true?

It is true.

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 so

true and i thought the same thing with farve actually to be honest with you so uh

right

but whatever i

married i married a bear's 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 uh 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 huge 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 performance.

So

totally agree by himself.

I said David Bautista and

Yeah, uh, where, I don't even 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 go with Carl

Wethers,

Chubs Peterson,

maybe Rest in Peace.

Exactly, that was what Carl Wethers 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.

He handed down, absolutely.

Well, all right, so let's switch the conversation.

You didn't come here to talk about Carl Wethers.

I want to talk to you about your career.

I can

talk about Carl

Wethers.

I didn't talk about Carl Weathers all day.

Wouldn't that be funny if you could?

Like if you were the Carl Weathers guy and this

would

be.

This film penny you sent me this short film with you and my pal Lance Barber in it.

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.

Honestly, I think it's probably one of my favorite projects that I've ever been involved in.

It was a short film about 15 years ago.

My wife, Amy, was pregnant with my first, about to be firstborn 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, ah.

I guess I did all right for just just winging it and not knowing what I was doing.

But Lance is a fantastic actor.

Reginald Vell Johnson was in it.

Don Starrt from that 7th show.

They got some really good actors in that in that thing.

They did.

It's a 20 minute movie, but I thought they did a really nice job with it.

And I was very happy with

it.

And Reginald Vell Johnson from Die Hard, right?

He was the cop.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah, right.

The big twinkie,

right?

That's the

thing that's great about LA.

You're shooting a short film and you get actors with major credits.

I mean, that's a home

run.

Yeah, for sure.

Well, thank you for sharing that with me.

I really enjoyed it.

So

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, Dodge, to do the Macarena or that you got him to dress up and blaze orange and pretend like he was trying to relieve himself in the woods.

I mean, those are

Let's talk about high caliber acting

that 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 hit that 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, it's hilarious, but that's what happens 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 like but when we were in wisconsin watching them originally in the 80s i had no i no reference for it but

isn't it a blast though

That's so much fun to do.

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 Hunga.

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.

I 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.

Darjeel Katraer.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Crazy stuff like that.

We're a big Chips family out here.

My wife sat down and watched.

They ran him on, like, MTV.

Yeah.

And

when the boys, my boys were really little.

They uh watched it ad nauseam and then cut to we went to one of those autograph shows out by the airport and the in 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 uh it was a big deal oh what a thrill that's so cool

and and uh 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.

It 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 a 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.

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, hey, maybe you need a year, pal, 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 gonna be delaying the inevitable.

I just sooner or later have to get out to LA so 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 booking a few things here mostly mostly TV shows you know I'm getting occasional commercial and an occasional little bit roll in a movie but for whatever reason 90% of

The jobs I've worked for TV shows and with a name like Michael Patrick McGill 90% of those 90% jobs were cops Right 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 you know the angry dad But so you know our construction work with that kind of thing.

I'll probably never cast

as the chief of surgery or the managing partner of a law firm.

But hey, you find out where you find your niche

and your work within it.

Absolutely.

So did you go right from Appleton to LA?

Or were you in Milwaukee?

Oh, wow.

That's a really big

move.

Well, you've got to swing to 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, go see the Statue of Liberty, I got to do both of those things, so I did it after that.

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, so he beat me to it.

You should be able to take that back.

Statue of 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.

This is Night Light.

I am Pete Schwabba.

And our question of the night is who is your favorite professional athlete or who was the best professional athlete turned 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 at 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 with Scots and 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.

Scratch and ask you better 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.

OK.

And I remember I had worked on shameless that day.

I had rapped and 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.

OK, 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 cake 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 was 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 Willard's apartment.

And they had, I don't know, like the props and put a...

a sleeve of rips crackers or something out and I improvised 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 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 I'll have

to kill them

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 that you would know if you get inside and I remember getting an audition for Ray Donovan

Oh, yeah,

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 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 source material.

And you also have to consider, I'm not going to be the one getting, you know, the punchline.

I'm not going to have the doze 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 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 I'll get a cheese.

The same performance is just looking for one little hook that maybe is like, oh, that was interesting.

Nobody else did 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.

Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay.

This is Night Light with Pete Chwaba.

Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.

And now, a guy who appreciates a nice hot meal at a fair price.

Pete Chwaba.

Welcome back.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are kicking off act two here on this Scorcher of a Wednesday night.

I bet it's still 80 degrees out Conrad.

Yeah, it's you know, I'm happy for just one last week of warm mother and then I'm guessing it's gonna get cold again next week, but

No, we'll see what happens

We're having a lot of fun tonight, folks.

Mike McGill is here.

He is an Appleton native who has been doing some great things out in Hollywood.

He's got some great credits.

We're going to talk to him about Shameless in just a few minutes.

He did many, many episodes of Shameless.

Our question of the night is, who is the best pro athlete, turned actor or actress?

And Conrad, I don't know if you saw this text, your dad had a great one.

And I'm going to try to find it right now, but you could probably find it faster than I can because...

Well, yeah, I already know what he was going to...

Did he tell you ahead of time?

No, I just, I know what he would say.

Yeah.

All right, so Steve from Florida says, hands down, athlete turned actor all around personality, Bob Uker.

Yep.

Again, I didn't even think of Bob Uker.

He could have played any character if Hollywood gave him a chance, but as we all know, he was kept back in the back row.

I agree with you for the most part.

Let me get Mike McGill's take on this.

I don't know, Bob Uker in a serious role, like doing a love scene.

He would've made it funny, I

guess.

I would've paid money for that.

Absolutely.

Take my money, Bob.

Absolutely.

Wasn't Jason Statham, he was like an Olympic swimmer or something?

Wasn't he before he became an actor?

He's had a pretty good, nice career, too, actually.

Oh, man.

There's a handful of

them.

Yeah.

I've seen his name.

Some of the texts I have to get to, I've seen Jason Statham's name in there a couple of times.

I don't know what he did, but yeah, he obviously was, and I think he was in a professional martial artist.

Yeah.

But, you know, the native Wisconsinite man is going to put Yucca above Statham no matter what.

And I didn't mean martial artists like Karate.

I mean, he drew pictures of Marshalls.

He was very good at it, Mike.

He had

a

very good career.

Somebody has

to do it, right?

Drawing sheriffs.

So all right, my guest at the moment is Mike McGill.

We've got a few more minutes with Mike.

As I mentioned, he grew up in Appleton and you've probably seen his work if you've watched the show Shameless.

You were on pretty much like the run of the show, right, Mike?

Yeah, they hired me.

My first episode was the second episode of the first season.

So

they

stopped the pilot, and then they brought me in right after that.

And the idea was it was going to be, they called it a recurring co-star.

And they would dangle that carrot so many times if you'd think, oh, I'm going to do another episode.

And then I'd always do like a one episode, and then never get hired again.

So I did the second episode of Sameless the first season.

And then they didn't bring me back until later that first season, like maybe episode eight.

So, you know, episode three, four, five, six goes by and I thought, well, I guess it's another one and done.

But thankfully, somebody in the writer's room remembered me and they started bringing me back in towards the end of the first

season.

You did like a hundred episodes or something like that.

And I can hear it.

You're such a humble guy.

You have that Wisconsin kind of Midwest.

You know, as an actor, Mike, what did, and you probably get this question a lot.

And I don't think, I think people are great everywhere, but I only know people from where I've lived, like Chicago, Wisconsin, a little bit in LA.

And my first instinct is to say, oh, he's such a humble guy.

He's so Wisconsin.

But did growing up in Appleton give you a point of view or make you bring certain tendencies to your acting or give you a perspective?

I think it's just, you know, it's just how you're raised where just where we were the time where we were raised in the place where we were raised, you know, you just have a bring a blue collar work ethic to it.

And that's something that a lot of people, you know, out in the West Coast, they're born with kind of a sense of entitlement.

And I'm like, let's let's roll our sleeves up and get to work.

Man, let's get it done.

Yeah.

You know,

it

it served me well obviously for the john well shows that were based in chicago being from the midwest but um

yeah you

know i i just it certainly helped me i think you know in my career book jobs knowing that i'm like okay this isn't going to be handed to me i gotta i gotta do the work and at the end of the day you want to just you want it to be you want it to feel natural you don't want to

You want to be like, oh god, I could tell this guy's acting, you know, right?

That's what that's what you're going for.

So luckily for me being a drunk butterfly wasn't too much of a stretch.

I had lots of practice growing up in Wisconsin.

Absolutely.

So what do you prefer, Mike, when it comes to acting roles?

Like, do you like big studio films or independent films?

Do you feel there's more freedom with independent films?

Or is it all about the director and what the director's after?

I just like to work, period.

I mean, if you get a big studio film, you've got more money to play with, obviously, but you also then you have 50 people that have to sign off on anything.

Whereas if you're doing an indie film, like when you guys were probably doing your film, you were the boss and you had final say, and that was it.

And that gives you a nice kind of freedom too.

So

if

you can find a happy medium, that's why I think a lot of these guys

A lot of guys that are kind of in the pole position, they'll do a studio film or two and then they'll run off and do a passion project or a low budget indie film where they can stretch a little bit and maybe play a role that they wouldn't get to do within the studio system.

I don't

have that problem because the studio and quite frankly, even the indie film circuit isn't calling by name.

I'm just happy to get a gig in there anyway.

Give me a paycheck.

It's so hard because so few times in your career in this business, unless you're Uber successful, do you ever have FU money?

And then maybe the couple of times you find you have it, there's no one to say FU to.

It's like the timing never works

out, right?

Take a look in the mirror and say FU to

yourself.

Mike, again, I hear the humbleness and all that, but is there, and I know you like to work and I love when actors say that, you know, I think when we're younger, I remember when I was a stand-up comic and I was jaded already at 24 and thinking I knew everything and you really have, you know, anything.

So you get to a point where you're just

you appreciate the work.

And it's like, man, if we can figure out a way to fool people and tell, you know, make a living at this, it's great.

You've won the lottery.

But are there roles, having said that, where your agent or your reps will call you and go, Hey, you're going to read for this.

What role would you not want that to be?

Are there roles you try to steer clear of?

At this point, not right now, currently, no, I'll take anything you, I'll take anything, you know, I mean,

Honestly, I can't think of anything off the top.

I'm smart enough to know at this point I'm not going to get a part where I'm going to be the love interest or the leader.

I'm a character actor.

I would love to find a role that suits my personality and gruff but lovable and makes the audience laugh or connect with the audience at some point.

Um, there's very few.

I think there was, I think I remember getting an audition one time where it was just in some freaky thing with this guy.

I mean, I won't, I won't get into the particulars for your audience, but it was, it was like, yeah, this guy kind of sounds like he belonged in insane asylum or, you know, not, uh, Arkham asylum, not, uh, not on the movie screen.

So, but, um, well, very few things offend me.

but you know over the run of shameless and I would tell people like okay look if you've never seen the show I'm gonna tell you right now it lives up to a title so you know even sometimes we get those scripts I'm like oh man somebody's gonna have a problem with this you know but but for for um for Bill Mason I was like oh my god what a great what a great role for an active play you know I mean it's just like

Whenever anybody asks me, like, who's your favorite character on Sims?

There's no hesitation, Frank.

Yeah.

Just the stuff they gave him to do.

And he was so good.

He was

great.

I was like, man, I can't believe I'm getting paid to have a front row seat to watch him be Frank Gallagher.

Honestly.

It's funny.

You were talking about how the title of the show is appropriate.

My daughter was watching Shameless when she was like a sophomore in high school.

Before I knew what it was and I'm like,

she's

like, dad, you want to watch one of these with me?

I'm like, yeah, sure.

And I'm like, how long have you been watching this?

She's a couple of years.

I'm like, oh my God.

Sometimes people go like, oh, you know, so and so the big thing they want to meet you, they come over and it's like middle schoolers.