Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Michael Pierce. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Michael, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

That is such a great question because I was really very young and I am not sure what the genesis was of my wanting to be a creative. There isn’t one thing that stands out. I enjoyed doing plays in elementary school. From about 1st grade through 4th grade I was always asked to be in the Christmas Pageant. It was elementary school, but there was a stage and curtains so it felt important. I was mesmerized by Magic Shows on Television and purchased Mark Wilson Magic Kits from Sears. I always watched the Saturday Morning Sid and Marty Krofft Television Shows. When I was a bit older, maybe twelve or so, I started doing Magic Shows at Birthday Parties locally. I somehow got involved with Marie Hitchcock who at the time was known as the San Diego Puppet Lady who did grade school performances and shopping malls and weekend shows at the Puppet Theater in Balboa Park which is now named after her. Theater and Dance were the next step and I was involved in Theater outside of school and in High School. My mother was a dancer when she was a child and my grandmother took dance lessons later in life and my Great Uncle a Jazz Musician, so I seemed to have some of their artistic quality passed down to me. I remember watching the Brady Bunch on Television and telling my mother I wanted to act and be on TV too. We lived in San Diego and there weren’t a lot of opportunities at that time for agents. Any that we ever dealt with were a scam and took your money and charged you. I still knew I loved that whole environment and continued doing theater and dance competitions up until I graduated from High School.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

When I graduated from High School, I knew I didn’t want to live in San Diego. There weren’t the opportunities for me. I watched a lot of television and knew all my favorite TV shows were filmed in Los Angeles. It was only a few hours away and I knew that’s where I wanted and needed to be. I acquired an agent in San Diego and another in Los Angeles in 1981. I used my high school senior photo and had copies made and sent those out to agents. I look back and think did the agents think, this poor fellow, how naïve to send a high school photo, or did they think, that takes some nerve. Either way, it worked in my favor and I was represented by agents. I had some headshots taken and I looked like every other young male actor in the early 1980’s. We all had a big toothy grin and feathered back hair parted in the middle. I was fortunate because I ended up booking some background on the soap Opera General Hospital, that led to me being a dancer in the disco which was part of a huge storyline for over a year and I worked frequently, almost weekly on the show. That led to me getting more work on the show and landing my first Under Five line. I obtained my AFTRA card (pre SAG AFTRA Merger) through that show as well.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

It was 1982. I was no longer needed on the Soap Opera General Hospital (I wasnt asked to work any longer) as the disco storyline had ended. At this point I was living in Los Angeles (Hollywood) not far from the Sunset Gower Studios where the show was filmed. I ultimately had to move back to San Diego. I didn’t want any trajectory to end so I applied to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. I auditioned and was accepted. However the Academy was in Los Angeles, so I had to move back to Los Angeles again. One of the stipulations of attending back then was that you wouldn’t accept any work in the field (you cannot professionally act). I accepted that as an opportunity to study the craft and acting and was fine with it. So I basically had to stop acting and not accept any bit parts in films or commercials. I believe the last role I did was right before school started and I was a High School Student in an NBC made for TV film called ‘High School USA’. From that moment on I was all about studying and working and not acting. After two years of school (it was a two year program) I move again back to San Diego and took a job in a nightclub so I could afford to live. I did one or two commercials when I moved back to San Diego and that was it. I wasn’t acting any longer and kept my nose down in a forty hour a week job.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

I really was young and naïve on my own and I wish I knew that it was okay to say to my agents, I am back. I would love to work again and even if they didn’t accept me back perhaps they would have been able to recommend me to another agent, but I didn’t do that. I thought to myself, I am now in a forty hour work week and this must be the path I am supposed to end up. I wasn’t astute enough to share my education and try and use that to move myself forward in a different career that would have allowed me more creativity. I also wish I had paid more attention to AFTRA, the union had so many resources for out of work actors, to try and get a foot in a door, and I was just naïve. I didn’t follow through and utilize my talents, specifically with spending nearly a year and a half working in television and two years of intense studying. Fortunately that was so long ago and I ultimately utilized resources (local theater) and found a way to step back into the industry and never looked back and it has been very successful for me.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.michaeljosephpierce.com
• Instagram: michaelpiercesd
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/actormjpierce1/
• Youtube: abarmansaperitif2023
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3019537/

Image Credits
https://www.chrisjonphotography.com/