CHRIS NEUMER: It dawned on me yesterday while I was explaining to a group of publicists—I had a very, let’s called it contentious relationship with one of them like three years ago—but I realized that they don’t even deal in the now. They deal only in the future.
MIKE VOGEL: Yeah.
CHRIS NEUMER: Once something is scheduled, they’ve almost completely forgotten about this interview and it’s not even over yet, and then it’s next week, and it’s literally like they only deal in the future. Most people in a real world setting don’t deal with things that way.
MIKE VOGEL: Yeah. Your decisions that you make now – There’s that old adage that “your sins will find you out.” You have to think that eventually, stuff will come back to bite you. It’s the same gamble with this. Every film, you can control everything only when you’re on set.
CHRIS NEUMER: Right.
MIKE VOGEL: And after that it’s in a completely different group of people’s hands and your fate basically rests with them.
CHRIS NEUMER: And whether or not they liked it, you’re getting the blame.
MIKE VOGEL: Exactly. It’s always your fault, no matter how bad the script was to begin with, no matter how misdirected it may have been, or misacted, or mis-anything. And then people say, “Well, you’ve got to hold out for the good ones.” They’re right in theory, but, I’ve also got to eat. And I’ve got a little daughter, and a wife I’ve got to take care of. I enjoy that. I enjoy being the provider. This is my job. You reach a certain point where, even if it’s not the best material, it’s a chance for me to perform an act. This is what I love, and get paid to do. I have to do it for the creative juices in me. I have to do it. It’s just a catch-22.
CHRIS NEUMER: Right. Somebody had mentioned something to me where they weren’t denigrating acting, but they were talking about how Nicolas Cage made a film because he just wanted the money, and I said, “Do you really want to get up early in the morning to go teach the eighth graders? You’re telling me that this is what you want to do?”
MIKE VOGEL: Right.
CHRIS NEUMER: And they said, “Well that’s not a passion project, he’s just doing it for the money,” and I said, “Well you’ve got to do it for the money… you need money, look at that kid from 3rd Rock.
MIKE VOGEL: I love that guy.
CHRIS NEUMER: Yeah, he’s got 3rd Rock money. He doesn’t need to do a damn thing, that’s why he can go play gay prostitutes and all that.
MIKE VOGEL: Yeah, right.
CHRIS NEUMER: So I figured I’d ask you, I know you did some modeling, so did you have the ability to sit around and pick and choose certain—
MIKE VOGEL: Well, no. The modeling does nothing. When I was modeling and doing commercials, I was also plumbing at the same time. I didn’t want to move to New York City. I mean, I love the city, but I can’t take it for more than several days and then I’m climbing the walls. Philadelphia is a one-hour train ride away, and that way I can get back to my family.
CHRIS NEUMER: What is it you don’t like about New York?
MIKE VOGEL: Nothing, I love it, but coming from Bucks County with trees, and fall, and seasons, and land.
CHRIS NEUMER: You got a real “in” with Shyamalan don’t you?
MIKE VOGEL: Yeah. Then you go to New York, and the energy of New York, I love it, but when I can have the best of both worlds, I’ll take that. I can’t stand being shoe-boxed in. I have to be able to go sit in the woods, so when I was modeling, I’d leave at four o’clock in the morning and tell my agent to stack all my appointments early in the morning, and I’d take the train up, do my lines and everything I needed to do, and I’d come home around 2:00 in the afternoon. I’d be plumbing until 10 o’clock at night…
CHRIS NEUMER: That’s the glamorous life, right?
MIKE VOGEL: That’s glamorous. It doesn’t get better than that. You still have sewer-residue by the time you get downtown the next day.
CHRIS NEUMER: You’re doing something very similar right now if I understand correctly.
MIKE VOGEL: (laughs) The answer to it all is that everyone always thinks that the minute you get a project that you’re set for life.
CHRIS NEUMER: You just got the new J.J. Abrams project… and it’s going to be big, and huge, and that means you’re going to have back-end points, and not only that, but I think it means that because it’s such a big budget that all the money goes to the actors… Yeah, I think I know how Hollywood works.”
MIKE VOGEL: Yeah, we won’t talk about all that on this one, but, yeah that’s how this thing works. That’s what it comes down to. And look, at the end of the day Deniro went off on an actor one time when this actor went nuts waiting in a make-up trailer saying, “I can’t believe they brought me in early, I’ve been waiting for four hours, what could they possibly be doing out there.” Deniro’s sitting there reading a magazine, he turns to the guy and he goes, “Shut the fuck up.” (imitating Deniro’s voice) “The waiting, the make-up, the time you spend here, the time you’re doing nothing, that’s what you get paid for. The acting, you do for free. That’s the pay off.” That’s the truth of it. Even if you’re making nothing, there’s a release that comes from, those forces inside you. You couldn’t pay money for that. But to answer the question, you try and space things out as best you can. I look at it as kind of like a race—a long distance race. You’re just hoping you get the bottle of water at the right time and that sustains you for the next five miles. You hope at that mile marker that you’re not dehydrated and somewhere in between all of it, you have to hope you’re running on perfect terrain, that’s flat for a while, where all the right things are happening.
CHRIS NEUMER: Like with Matt Damon. If there’s one thing I don’t like about Matt Damon it’s that he’s making it look too easy.
MIKE VOGEL: He is, he really is.
CHRIS NEUMER: People say, “Well look at Matt Damon, it looks so simple, well you get some good scripts, you do this, maybe you don’t make twenty-million, but you’re making fifteen.” He’s really making it bad for everybody…
MIKE VOGEL: (laughs)
CHRIS NEUMER: … because he’s just making it look too easy.
MIKE VOGEL: He is, but you know what? More power to him. You hope the cream rises to the top. I think, in his case, it has. He’s earned it. He’s worked hard. He’s skipped out on a lot of things and it’s worked out.
CHRIS NEUMER: I’m sure there was a veiled Matthew McConaughey joke in their somewhere… But I’ll have to go looking for that later.
MIKE VOGEL: (laughs)
CHRIS NEUMER: I don’t know why I was thinking about this while you were talking—it wasn’t even something I was originally going to ask—but how has Entourage affected you? Has that affected your life any?
MIKE VOGEL: (chuckling) How has Entourage affected me?
CHRIS NEUMER: The things about acting in Hollywood that the American public knows are basically what they’re spoon-fed. The truth of the matter is, it’s more cutthroat than any other industry. It’s more progressive than almost any other industry and it’s probably more fucked-up than any other industry, but nobody really knows that because—
MIKE VOGEL: Because they watch Entourage.
CHRIS NEUMER: Yeah. I’m curious to know if, because of Entourage, people are asking you why you’re not doing three-somes in the hills or things like that?
MIKE VOGEL: I’ve had to make a choice—and it’s not even a choice that anyone should have to think about, you shouldn’t have to sit and weigh whether or not this is the choice you have to make—I’m a family man. It’s what I am. I married young. I had a kid, my daughter, seven months ago and I’m enjoying being a dad. That’s the joy that I want.
CHRIS NEUMER: Right, that’s season six of Entourage.
MIKE VOGEL: Right! We need to have them have their affairs and their flings. Wait until you see season six. Son of a bitch. I can’t believe any of it, and I can’t get into any of it. Maybe my whole perception of this will change someday, when it’s all different, and maybe it won’t, but I’ve chosen to take the path of—this is what I love doing. This is my job, and I’m living my dream and I’m living my dream with a family. I’m living my dream, doing everything I want to do and that doesn’t consist of going out to parties and all the insane, drug-filled nights in the hills. It doesn’t consist of all those things that maybe other people look at and say “Mike, you have to at least play that part, you have to at least leave something for people,” and I’m like, “You know what? If people can’t respect and appreciate the fact that [I don’t do that]. If anything, it should [make people realize] that there are some normal people left in all this insanity.” It is possible to do all your work, and go home, and just leave it at that. It’s not this fantasy that people have made it into. And if they can’t see it for that, well, maybe I’m headed back to Philadelphia, and that’s fine, because I’ve done it my way.
CHRIS NEUMER: I can’t tell, was that, “yes,” or a “no”?
MIKE VOGEL: (laughs) About Entourage? Well… yes and no.
CHRIS NEUMER: I mean, do you have any good stories about how you were in the Playboy Mansion and let out some zebras or something?
MIKE VOGEL: (Laughs) Pay ten thousand dollars a month for a publicist and you’ll get all the great invites that you want. I’ve never been to the Playboy Mansion. I couldn’t tell anyone where the back door is. I couldn’t tell anyone how to get in. I’ve never been. I’ve got nothing for you.
CHRIS NEUMER: I tried to get into Entourage in season one. It was when one of the boys hooked up with Ari’s assistant and the assistant actually had time to do stuff.
MIKE VOGEL: It happens in every agency.
CHRIS NEUMER: Oh, I’m aware of that, but my problem was that this girl would leave at five. My friends were like, “This is what you have a problem with? That the assistant is leaving at five?” Yeah. That’s what I have a problem with. I remember I was having this conversation at 9:30 on a Friday night—11:30 for me in Chicago, 9:30 here in LA—and I was out. I said to my friends “I will call this agent I know at ICM right now and I absolutely guarantee you his assistant will answer the phone. They were like, “Bullshit.” So I bet them twenty dollars that she’d be in, called and she answered.
MIKE VOGEL: And it ain’t even pilot season.
CHRIS NEUMER: Right, and I said, “I just wanted to call and see if you were still working,” and she said, “I’m still working, Chris.” I said “I just won twenty bucks betting that you’d be in the office.” She laughs and says, “I’m glad my pain can bring you some form of happiness.” Really, that’s what it’s about. So assistants, yes, they date people, but they don’t leave at five and have a lot of time to spend shopping during the middle of the week.
MIKE VOGEL: And the time they do have is spent reading, and doing treatments, and dissecting materials so that they can write it down on a piece of paper so that when you call your agent and get them on the phone and ask, “What are your thoughts on this project?” And they look at the notes and go, “I think the project is a really genius breakdown of two lovers getting together.”
CHRIS NEUMER: And then they do the sitcom joke of where they can’t quite read the other person’s handwriting but still keep trying to. You’re asking, “Is it right for me?” And they respond, “Yes, because you like… uh, roller-coasters?”
MIKE VOGEL: Best regards, Jake. (laughs)
CHRIS NEUMER: Exactly. I’m assuming that you have talked to other actors in your position. I’ve always been under the impression that it would be harder for male actors to try and transition from young actor to rising-up-and-comer. However, the more I talk to people who are doing the doing, everyone else seems to have the opposite opinion: namely that it’s harder for women. I always thought it would be easier, because they can take their tops off if they wanted.
MIKE VOGEL: It just could happen to different people at different times. Women. Women got it tough, for sure. I guess, to a certain extent, a lot of pressure is put on a looks-based job acquisition. But, it’s the same thing, a lot of times, for guys. It’s become so commercialized that it’s not even about the best actor, or let the best actor win. That’s why I love professional sports: Because it’s about the performance. No one could look at A-Rod and say, “We’re going to make him a star,” Someone else would point out, “Well, he’s only hitting .180 this year.” “Doesn’t matter! Kid’s got a great smile and God, does he look good in those pants!” That doesn’t happen. When a guy goes out and hits fifty homeruns, and makes phenomenal plays then he’s getting that star label.
CHRIS NEUMER: Augie Ojeda is not getting it.
MIKE VOGEL: (Laughs)
CHRIS NEUMER: But, is there anything else you wanna throw in, talk about, touch on, complain about… tell stories about… Bad mouthing somebody in another agency?
MIKE VOGEL: (laughs hysterically) Have you done that?
CHRIS NEUMER: In a round about way, yes.
MIKE VOGEL: What happened?
CHRIS NEUMER: I was eating at the Peninsula—
MIKE VOGEL: There’s your first mistake. Never eat at the Peninsula. There’s an underground tunnel that leads to the C.A.A. from there, and it’s all connected.
CHRIS NEUMER: Yeah, I know that now. At the time, it was a different story. What happened was, because I wasn’t looking behind me to see Jim Cameron’s agent there, I told a joke where this studio executive dies and goes to heaven. He sees St. Peter and then he looks up on this hill behind the pearly gates and he sees this guy with a beard and a megaphone, yelling orders at all these extras, and there’s a phenomenally huge boat on a gimble, and the bearded guy is ordering everyone around and demanding things. The executive turns to St. Peter and asks, “Is that, is that James Cameron?” and St. Peter says, “No, that’s God. Sometimes he just thinks he’s Jim Cameron.”
MIKE VOGEL: (laughs out loud)
CHRIS NEUMER: And that’s the joke, and the agent, was quite literary, like right here, I mean within arms reach, and I was like, “Ohhhh…”
MIKE VOGEL: (mimics slide whistle)
CHRIS NEUMER: But, I’m at the point now where I’m glad that I have these things that entertain me later. I’m actually at the point where I can be entertained by my own misfortune.
MIKE VOGEL: When you’re doing articles on up-and-coming minor league tennis players, I’ll laugh at the Jim Cameron joke. No, you’re exactly right, man. Why can’t we take the piss out of people here? Why not? Why is it almost such a closed society where everyone wants to protect everyone else? But even anymore, it doesn’t matter…
CHRIS NEUMER: What if your agent called you up and said, “Mike, listen we don’t think you’re right for that role in the remake of War Games, but we’d like to have you look at this script because we think you’re right for it.” The world could spin off its axis!
MIKE VOGEL: Yeah, you’re right.
CHRIS NEUMER: You could fall apart, and start crying, hysterically on the phone. It’s far better to be told, “Mike, you’re great for everything,” even when you’re not.
MIKE VOGEL: Right.
CHRIS NEUMER: Forget about the fact that then you’d be wondering why, if you’re so great for everything, you can’t get the roles you want. Push that to the side.
MIKE VOGEL: Yeah, it is what it is. Somehow, all of us are still here in the soup, and enjoying it… somewhat.
CHRIS NEUMER: And, as you say, at the end of the day you get to go home to a wife and kid which takes you away.
MIKE VOGEL: Right. Exactly, that’s what it’s about.
CHRIS NEUMER: And what do I have? I just have my many beautiful models, and stacks of money.
MIKE VOGEL: That’s awful.
CHRIS NEUMER: It is. It really, really is.
MIKE VOGEL: I mean, how do you sleep at night?
CHRIS NEUMER: I never sleep.
