November 3, 2025 • 35 mins
It is an honor and a privilege to welcome two-time Emmy-winning actor, producer, and writer Mike Manning to The Jake’s Take with Jacob Elyachar Podcast.
Television audiences first met Mike when he joined the cast of MTV’s legendary Reality TV series, The Real World: D.C. After completing filming, he dove into the entertainment industry. He appeared on Crash & Bernstein, Hawaii Five-0, Major Crimes, Teen Wolf, The Haves and Have Nots, and This Is Us.
Daytime television fans know Mike from his work on the popular web soap opera The Bay (Caleb McKinnon), Days of Our Lives (Charlie Dale), and the groundbreaking CBS soap opera, Beyond the Gates, where he portrays investigative journalist Bradley “Smitty” Smith.
Mike also started Mannifest Productions to connect audiences with entertainment that matters by developing and producing films, TV, and new media projects that not only aim to change the world but also open hearts and minds through art. He began his producing career with the documentary Kidnapped for Christ alongside Tom DeSanto. The film won several awards before being shown on Showtime and was responsible for legislation in California and other states to protect children from abuse at “camps for troubled youth.”
He also produced Jinn, Son of the South, M.F.A., and Folk Hero & Funny Guy. His homeless youth documentary Lost in America, starred Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry, Grammy-winning songstress Jewel, Rosario Dawson, and Tiffany Haddish. Meanwhile, The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, directed by Oscar-nominated David France, was released as a Netflix Original after premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Outside of the entertainment industry, Mike works with nonprofits that advocate for the poor, the environment, and equal rights. In 2010, Mike Manning lobbied Congress in Washington, D.C., on behalf of the Human Rights Campaign. Since then, he has received proclamations from the New York City Council in recognition of his cause-related work.
On this episode of The Jake’s Take with Jacob Elyachar Podcast, Mike Manning spoke about why he chose acting over The Challenge, being a part of the Beyond the Gates family, and several Mannifest Productions, including The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson and Lost in America.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jake-s-take-with-jacob-elyachar--4112003/support.
Television audiences first met Mike when he joined the cast of MTV’s legendary Reality TV series, The Real World: D.C. After completing filming, he dove into the entertainment industry. He appeared on Crash & Bernstein, Hawaii Five-0, Major Crimes, Teen Wolf, The Haves and Have Nots, and This Is Us.
Daytime television fans know Mike from his work on the popular web soap opera The Bay (Caleb McKinnon), Days of Our Lives (Charlie Dale), and the groundbreaking CBS soap opera, Beyond the Gates, where he portrays investigative journalist Bradley “Smitty” Smith.
Mike also started Mannifest Productions to connect audiences with entertainment that matters by developing and producing films, TV, and new media projects that not only aim to change the world but also open hearts and minds through art. He began his producing career with the documentary Kidnapped for Christ alongside Tom DeSanto. The film won several awards before being shown on Showtime and was responsible for legislation in California and other states to protect children from abuse at “camps for troubled youth.”
He also produced Jinn, Son of the South, M.F.A., and Folk Hero & Funny Guy. His homeless youth documentary Lost in America, starred Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry, Grammy-winning songstress Jewel, Rosario Dawson, and Tiffany Haddish. Meanwhile, The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, directed by Oscar-nominated David France, was released as a Netflix Original after premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Outside of the entertainment industry, Mike works with nonprofits that advocate for the poor, the environment, and equal rights. In 2010, Mike Manning lobbied Congress in Washington, D.C., on behalf of the Human Rights Campaign. Since then, he has received proclamations from the New York City Council in recognition of his cause-related work.
On this episode of The Jake’s Take with Jacob Elyachar Podcast, Mike Manning spoke about why he chose acting over The Challenge, being a part of the Beyond the Gates family, and several Mannifest Productions, including The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson and Lost in America.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jake-s-take-with-jacob-elyachar--4112003/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Hell, Hello everyone, and welcome back to the latest episode
of The Jakes Take the Jacob Elisher Podcast. I'm your host,
Jacob Alisher, the chief content producer and writer of jakestak
dot com, a pop culture entertainment news website. If you're
watching us on YouTube, please give us a thumb stup
and please subscribe. If you're watching us on our audio
platforms or listening to us, give us a five star
(00:41):
writing and download this episode and more episodes. I am
so honored and thrilled to welcome welcome our next guest.
He is an Emmy winning actor, writer, producer, and founder
of Manifest Productions. You got to start on the real world,
you see, and after using that, he jumped.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Off to the Hidden Springs, Teen Wolf, Hawaii, five Oh Why,
and This is Us.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Daytime TV fans know him as Caleb McKinnon on The Bay,
Charlie Dale from Days of Our Lives, and more recently
Bradley Smithy Smith on Beyond the Gates. He's also produced
Son of the South, Lost in America, Kidnap for Christ,
and A Depth and Life of March MP Johnson. Now,
so this recording has three hundred and eleven thousand Instagram polish,
(01:23):
so I'm one of them. To please help me welcome
the fabulous Mike Money to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Thank you for having me, Jacob, and for that amazing introduction.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Thank you so much. You're soon welcome.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Mike is such an honor and privileged to have you
and guys, I told him before we got started.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
He's one of our generation's best success stories when it
comes to going from reality television into the entertainment industry.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
I mean I if you would have asked me back then,
if I thought that I'd be where I am today,
I would have said I could only have dreamed that
it would have gone this way. I'm really grateful for
Real World. Gosh, it's been fifteen years now. I'm really
grateful for what the show did for me, and you know,
(02:08):
basically for giving me the confidence to pursue entertainment because
I've been acting since I was little, but growing up
in Colorado, I just didn't know any professional actors, so
it didn't really I never let myself dream this big,
and I never let myself believe that I could actually
be an actor and an entertainer in my life. And
(02:30):
so you know, that's something that Real World sort of
pushed me in the right direction.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
With that, we'll get back to real world and a second,
but however, you have to mention Colorado. I'm a proud
see you bup. So I'm class of twenty eleven. So
I broadcast news, so I gotta say, go, buffs.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
There you go.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
If I could have done it over again, I went
to University of Northern Colorado. If I could have done
it over again, I would have maybe gone to see you.
But then then again, I don't want to say that
because then things might have been different and we wouldn't
be talking right now.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
So never mind, I take it.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Back, absolutely absolutely, Well, make sure happy.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
So I got to talk about this because you started
out you said that you got started acting.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
When you were a little kid.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
So what was the what what got you interested in
before meing? How did that passion involve in the desire
to go and pursue a career in our field?
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Yeah, since I can remember.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
And it sounds cliche, but I think it's cliche because
it's so many people. You know, if you're crazy enough
to pack up your belongings and move to LA or
New York or Chicago or you know wherever in my
case now Atlanta. Uh, to pursue a career in entertainment,
you have to it has to be something inside of you,
(03:45):
and it has to be something that you can't deny.
And for as long as I can remember, I would
gather my brother and my sister. I would gather the
neighborhood kids. We would watch movies and we would act
out the movies in front of the TV.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
And I just love.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
Something about entertainment. And I loved what movies could do
for people. They exposed people to new ideep ideas and
ways of thinking and being and and it's They've always
just fascinated me. So for as long as I can remember,
I wanted to be a part of movies. I was
in theater in high school and I did musicals and
(04:20):
theater and and and.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
I kind of I thought that that was it for me.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
I went to college for business, and it was in
college that my best friend came up to me and
he said, hey, Mike, you you used to audition and stuff, right,
And I said yeah. He said, Uh, there's an open
casting call for a reality.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Show called Real World. Will you come with me to
the open casting call?
Speaker 4 (04:45):
And I believe it was at cu and yeah, and
I think and that I'm pretty sure. And I so
he's like, it's an open casting call, will you come
with me to help me get on the show, And it's.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
That classic Hollywood story. I with him to help him
get on the show.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
I ended up talking to the casting director and several
months later, through a pretty rigorous casting process, they invited
me to be on the show.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
And it's amazing. It's amazing.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
So it's amazing to hear that you had an opportunity
and to go from that and also be going to
get to the back to the MTV. I got a
shout out because all kid, you know, it's great. It's
twuelth great.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
For me, Okay, yeah, no, yeah, it's it's Uh.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
I think there's something magical about the theater and there's
something magical about using your imagination and and.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
I love theater.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
For a while, I would do I would try to
do a play every couple of years in Los Angeles
once I moved there from Colorado. I did a couple
of shows at the Santa Monica Playhouse and uh, and
those were a lot of fun. It's been it's been
a a couple of years for me now that I've
that I've been a part of something like that, so
I would, But I'm working now full time on the
(06:00):
CBS show that you mentioned, Beyond the Gates here in Atlanta,
so I'm that's sort of taken up on my time for.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Now, and we'll get to Beyond the Gates a little bit.
But first, as many you know, empty a lot of
MTV alumni from both the Real World and The Road
Rules went on to compete on the Challenge and became
may stays. So why decide to compete not to compete
on the long running competition shop.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
So as soon as I had moved to Los Angeles,
I started auditioning through my manager and then I got
an agent. And around that time, I think I had
booked one or two TV gigs and maybe an indie movie,
one or two indie movies. So I was just sort
of carving out my my path in Los Angeles and
(06:46):
they invited me to be a part of the Challenge
and I said, hey, you know my agent at the time,
I said, hey, they want me to be part of
this challenge? What do you think about that? And he said,
in this day and age, like you can get away
with one reality show. You can get away with one
reality thing. If you do more than that, you become
(07:07):
a reality star. He's like, do you want to be
an actor or do you want to be a reality star.
I said, I want to be an actor, and he said,
there's your answer. So unfortunately I didn't do the challenge.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
And the thing is being missy because you could have
gotten to to CT and Johnny and Wes and car
Maria and Bath and I.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
Say unfortunately, Yeah, I say unfortunately because it would have
been a lot of fun. And I love that stuff.
I love obstacle courses. I love I'm an adrenaline junkie.
I'll jump out of planes, I'll you know, I'll bungee jump,
I'll race, you know, cars and boats and horses like
I just I love the physicality of all of that,
And so I would have loved the competition element.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
I think of the challenge. But then again, I think
things are a little different now.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
I think, you know, you have Zac Efron having with
his travel show, you have Chris Hemsworth with his unscripted show.
I think the lines have blurred a little bit more
in the last several years with reality TV and Hollywood.
But back then, I think he's right. I would have
been pigeonholed into just being a reality TV person and
(08:16):
people wouldn't have taken me seriously.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
I know, But who knows about Traders or Mark Long?
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Does All Stars six with other people like you or
Scott Herman, people who've been waiting to go on a
challenge or two just for All Stars, just for the
sake of it, Because I would love to see you
on that.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
All right, Well maybe maybe if I do, I'll let
you know.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Alrighty, alrighty, you already hear first, folks. However, the challenging
loss was Prime Times Game. Because you have worked on
sets of several popular TV shows, including To Have and
Have nots Hawaii.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
If I have a teen Walton, this is us.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
So what were some of the lessons that you learned
from your time on those sets that helped you grow
as an actor? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (08:55):
I think every job you grow as an actor because
you're working with new people, you're inhabiting a new character,
you're in a different world.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
I loved working on this as US. I thought that
that was that was great.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
I was the new Manny on the show, and I
all my scenes were with Justin Hartley, and working with
him was was really cool. He's such a nice guy,
giving actor. He has his new Tracker series on right now,
and I'm really proud of him. I think, you know,
working on Days of Our Lives was was really my
first taste of daytime and that pace and how fast
(09:30):
it was.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Working on Hawaii Fi, I lo oh.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
I got to go to Hawaii and take surf lessons
and that was a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Working on what other TV gigs, Major Crimes was cool.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
I was I was the bad guy and after the
episode aired, my you know, I took somebody hostage in
the show. After the episode aired, my mom calls me
and she said that she just spoke to my grandmother
and they were both crying, and my grandmother wanted to
know if I'm if I'm a mean person in real life,
and I'm like, preak, No, it's act. It's acting, you know,
(10:02):
It's yeah, it's I learned something new every time, and
I've definitely I look at some of my early auditions
from fifteen years ago, and some of them are good.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Some of them I'm like, oh, why did I do that?
Speaker 4 (10:16):
But I feel like that's every every actor, you know,
every actor is going to be critical of themselves and
every actor is going to grow hopefully as they work
more awesome.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
So we brought up you brought up Days of Our
Lives and daytime telegon fans. I've loved you as Klea
McKinnon on the Bay, Charlie on Days of Our Lives
and of course currently as Bradley's Minnie Smith on Beyond
the Gates. So what are some of the similarities and
differences between all three of these unique characters.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
Yeah, I'll start with differences, because there are some pretty
stark differences. On Days of Our Lives, I was Charlie Dale,
and he started out as as a nice guy but
quickly realized that he's spying on the He's spying on
everybody Salem for his mother, who is a crime boss,
uh you know, from a crime boss family, Eva Viatally.
(11:09):
So he's secretly part of the Vitally crime family.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
And he is a bad guy and.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
He sexually assaulted somebody years ago, and then he but
he falls in love with Claire Brady, and then his
mother tries to get in between them, and then he
classic soap opera, he kidnaps his mother and ties her
up with Christmas Lights and so he was he.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Was not a nice guy. It was fun to play
a bad guy.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
But he got to work with Samar Brown as well.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, she's lovely.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Uh, she's she's so giving, so sweet, and I loved
working with her so much.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
And then and then, So that's on one side of
the coin.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
On the other side of the coin, you have Caleb
McKinnon on the Bay, and Caleb is a sweetheart. I
joined the Bay in season five, so the Bay had
already been going on for a couple of years.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
I joined as a love interest in season five.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Season six you saw more of me, and then seasons
I think season seven, I was a series regular seven
to eight, and then we filmed nine and yeah, it's
just I think with Kleb, he was the exact opposite
of Charlie. He's a sweet guy, a nice guy, hard
on his sleeve, loyal, and that those characteristics I would
(12:30):
also attribute to Smitty on on Beyond the Gates.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
I'm grateful for the Bay because.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
They gave me an Emmy for acting and as Supporting
Actor Emmy after season six, and it allowed me to
portray an LGBT character that I'm proud of and I'm
doing those that as well.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
On Beyond the Gates, I play Smitty.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
He's a journalist, an investigative journal list. I like to
think that he's kind of like has a little bit
of Clark Kent in him. I'm a huge Superman fan,
and the fans have started calling me Clark Kent, like
from the Clark Kent of Beyond the Gates, and I
love that because why not. He also is very loyal.
(13:19):
He has two adopted children, He's married to a congressman.
And beyond just the character, the show itself is the
first brand new daytime soap in twenty five years. It
is breaking ground with in so many different ways, with
(13:42):
the casting and with the storylines, and with everything in
terms of diversity representation, and just making a soap that
feels like a twenty twenty five show. I think because
it's a brand new show, the writers and creators are allowed,
not allowed, they are They have the tools to create
(14:05):
brand new storylines that are more exciting than, in my opinion,
some of these other storylines that have been recycled on.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
These shows for so many years.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
Because the writers are beholden to those characters, they can't
just you know, they don't have a blank canvas with
this show. Everybody had a blank canvas, and so many
you know, movers and shakers came from other daytime shows
to sort of create this together. Michelle Valjean, Julie Carruthers,
Sheila Duxworth really championed this at CBS and and you know,
(14:38):
it's been a it's been a fantastic experience so far.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
And you got to work with a lot of incredible
people too, Tomorrow Tuney, Kevin Linstrom, John Lindstrum, Katie McClain,
and I just heard recently that Craig Vaughn's on his
way too.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Yes, yes, yeah, all of those people.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
I mean Tomorrow Toney is phenomenal, which is so sweet,
and I think that her involvement with this show has
truly made a difference to the essence of what this
show is and the DNA of the show. When you
have you know, number one on the call sheet just
(15:15):
leading with kindness and hard work. You know, she knows
her shit every single day and she expects everybody else to,
but she also leads with empathy and kindness and trying.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
You know that I think.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
Has really lent to how the show has grown over
the past year. The show we've now been filming for
an entire year, and I think now everybody has sort
of found their footing in terms of the characters and
the tone and the world. Because Daytime is different than
a lot of other TV that's out there, and actors
(15:52):
that haven't done daytime before they have to sort of.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Get used to the speed, get used to the genre
of the cameras everything else.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
So I think we have now and it feels like
the show has found its groove.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Yeah, it's also about a very talkative social media base.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I'm on Twitter, I'm on Instagram, and a lot of
people are commenting about some of the hot storylines. So
what does it feel like to be part of this
ground floor beyond the gates?
Speaker 3 (16:19):
I think.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
I think as an actor, you always want to create
work that people see.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Right.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
There was a time where I would.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
I would you know, I would do these small plays
and I would be acting for forty people.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
There were times where I would do these.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
Small indie movies and who knows how many people saw them,
and it felt fine. But I think to be a
part of a show that has people commenting so much
and interacting so much, and a show that means a
lot to people in terms of, like we talked about representation,
(16:59):
I think it's it's a.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Dream come true. It feels it feels nice.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
And my first six months on the show, everybody loves Smitty.
He was in a marriage where he was the nice
guy and everybody there was like, hashtag team Smitty, hashtag whatever.
Now we're in a storyline where Smitty's kind of being
selfish and.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Being a little he's he's being.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
Kind of a brat in terms of not allowing his
marriage to heal and not allowing his he and Martin
to sort of find their way again. And so now
people are definitely vocal on social media like Smitty, stop
being a little baby, like get your shit together, basically.
(17:50):
And that's fun too, because you know, if people are commenting,
then they're watching, and if they're watching, then hopefully the
show will continue to gain new fans and you know,
and continue and build a legacy.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Absolutely, And I got to say this, you guys are
doing awesome. And I really hope twenty twenty six we
see some Emmy nominations for all of you.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
I hope, So, I hope, so your lips to Guy's ears.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
All righty, So we got to leave the daytime world
and talk about the world of production. So could you
describe how you started Manifest Productions to my audience?
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (18:26):
Great, So in this was maybe twenty thirteen. I think
I had been living in la for a couple of years.
I had done I was on a Disney show. I
think I had just booked Cloud nine on the Disney Channel,
the Disney Disney Snowboarding movie. And a friend of mine
(18:46):
from college in Colorado came out to stay with me,
and he was the subject of a documentary about child abuse.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
And I never.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
Knew that any of this happened to him, but he
came out to stay with me, and we had a
couple of shots at tequila and he opens up to
me about when he was seventeen years old, how he
came out to his parents and they sent him to
this reform camp in the Dominican Republic, and while there.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
He was physically and mentally abused.
Speaker 4 (19:15):
And this filmmaker was doing a documentary on this camp
at the same time he was there, and it wasn't
just about him coming out, like there were people at
this camp for all different reasons. One girl had anxiety
and she would act out in school. One girl they
her parents caught her having sex with this boy before marriage,
(19:35):
and they were super Christian. Just for a lot of reasons,
they were sent to this school. And I ended up
meeting this filmmaker and we had coffee out of Starbucks
and at the end, her name's Kate Logan. And at
the end of our meeting, I said, Kate, it's so
nice to meet you. How can I help, like with
(19:57):
this documentary. I think everybody needs to see it. I
think everybody needs to hear this story.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
How can I help?
Speaker 4 (20:03):
And she said, well, Mike, this is my first feature film.
I have all this amazing footage. I don't know what
to do with it. And I was like, well, I
don't know how to produce, but I'm going to figure
it out. And I just taught myself how to produce,
and I had some amazing people sort of joined the fight.
Tom DeSanto being one of them. He's a friend of mine.
He produced X Men and Transformers and I had known
(20:25):
Tom through some charity organizations and I told Tom about
the documentary and he said, Mike, I'll produce this with
you and overnight, He's calling me like, okay, Mike, you
have your e Ando insurance right, And I was like, yeah,
of course we do. And then I would google, like
what is e Ando Insurance? And then he's like, hey, Mike,
you guys did this right with all this paperwork, And
(20:47):
I'm like, Tom, of course we did. And I would
google how to do it, and I taught myself how
to produce for this movie and we ended up ended
up selling to Showtime and it was a great little
documentary and it made me feel good and I was like,
you know what I want to of course I'm acting,
of course I'm you know, I'm pursuing that full force.
(21:09):
But in my spare time, I want to be a
part of telling stories that are maybe scripted, maybe unscripted,
maybe about you know, certain social causes that I care about,
And so I started doing that. I formed back then
it was Chuberman Productions with my producing partner, Viniechibber, who's
(21:30):
a great friend. We just decided to get rid of
the company and now since then, I've formed Manifest Productions
and I'm producing my own movies and it's going well
so far.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
And I'm an ology for that because The thing is,
it takes time to produce stuff like I never thought
about below when I entered the world with media when
I graduated in twenty eleven, I never thought I would
start blocking. I so look at and then having in
confidence to do podcasting in this next year marks fifteen
years is a content creator for me.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
So I'm in all of you. What you've done for yourself.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
Congratulations, congratulations. Fifteen years is a long time. I mean
we've basically been in. If you're if you're acknowledging real
world as the impetus of me sort of entering Hollywood,
then we've been at this both for fifteen years.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
And cheers too, and cheer to us because two of
my heroes are Reagi's environment Walters.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Both them they parted and they've had a fifty year career.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
And I think I'm just getting started, and you, my sir,
are just getting started as well.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
Yes, yes, yes, I hope so and yeah, I just like,
like I said, I want to continue making stuff that matters,
stuff that I care about, adding to representation and opening
people's hearts and minds when I can with certain projects
that all means a lot to me, is very important
(22:58):
to me. And so whether I do that on screen
or behind the screen, helping other people tell their stories,
as long as I can continue doing that, I'm I'm
gonna happy. I'm a happy Mike, Absolutely, Mike.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
And also, I know you have a lot of projects
to talk about, but I picked out three of them
and I would love to tell you.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
And I would love for you to talk about that. Sure,
let's talk about Kidnap for Christ.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
So Kidnap for Christ is the film that I just
told you about with Kate Logan. So that was technically
the first documentary I ever produced about child abuse at
this reform camp. And then after that I followed Kate
Logan to her next film was called An Act of
Love about the Methodist Church and marriage inequality. And then
(23:45):
after that I did my first scriptive film with Vinnie Chibber,
which was called Folk Hero and Funny Guy with Wyatt Russell,
who's now.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
The new Captain America.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
And let's see Alex Karpovski, Milanie Lynsky, Meredith Hagner who
was in Bad the Bad Monkey Show that just came
out and she was fantastic. So we premiered at Tribeca
and and that was great.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
So that was.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
That was a really nice first scripted film for our
production company.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Awesome And then probably the most important films for R
the Algebet part of the our community, ALGEBT community, the
Death and Life of Marsha P.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Johnson.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
So for that one I worked with David France.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
He was nominated for an Oscar for How to Survive
a Plague, that really really important documentary. I forget which
year it was, but it was it was right before
he then did the Death and Life of Marsha P.
Johnson and uh and and with that one, it follows
Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera and their roles in
(24:57):
fighting for LGBT equality after Stonewall, and the film itself
is sort of a look at their lives and at
Marsha P. Johnson's life in particular, but then also about
the transformation and evolution of the LGBT civil rights movement
in the United States. And that movie was very important
(25:20):
to me because I think today.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
There are certain rights and.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
Certain aspects of life that the lgbt Q community enjoys
that we absolutely would not have had had activists not
fought the good fight in the you know, fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties.
(25:49):
So so I think, you know, I think that it's
not lost on me that my rights stand, you know,
in my abilities.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
And what the resources I have.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
Were built on the shoulders of those that came before me,
starting you know, with with you know, in the in
the late fifties, sixties, and then continuing to when I
was born in the eighties, and then even today. You know,
there are a lot of people that fought very very
hard at a time where you could be fired from
(26:25):
your job, you could be killed in certain parts of
the world, you can still be killed for your sexuality,
which is awful and and so yeah, that's that's why
I was very very proud of of that movie as well.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
And that and that film will definitely is going to
be musk watched for everybody.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
It should be.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
Yeah, it was a Netflix original when it came out,
it also premiered at Tribeca, and I was very very
proud of it.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
What I'm very proud of you was Lost in America
because the thing is you had them several big names
attached this, halle Berry, Jewel, Tiffany Hattish.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
Yes, So for Lost in America, it's another documentary. It
is it follows. We went to thirteen different cities in
the United States and we got to know homeless people.
Rotemi Rainwater directed that one. And the interesting thing about
Roteemi is when he was nineteen, he was homeless. He
lived on the streets. Now you know, he's older, he
(27:28):
has a family, he has two beautiful little girls. But
he felt like he had a special way of reaching
some of these kids that were living on the streets
because he himself was homeless. So he traveled around and
gathered their stories. And what the film does is it
sort of talks about why kids are on the streets,
(27:52):
what resources are available to them or not available to them,
and how you know it specifically some of them are
trying to get off the streets, and how some of
them are just you know, living their life day to day,
trying to survive on the streets. And because of I
(28:13):
think the the raw nature of Rotimi's ability to gather
these interviews with these kids, it attracted the attention of
people like you, said halle Berry Rosario Dawson Jewel. Rosario
and Jewel are both executive producers on the film.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Tiffany Hattish, we interviewed.
Speaker 4 (28:31):
Her halle Berry we interviewed her about her time at
a battered women's shelter.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Rosario Dawson.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
We interviewed her about what she the activism that she
does for the homeless community and youth. And John bon Jovi,
we interview him for the film Jewel. Jewel's interview is
one of my favorites in the movie because you know,
she's a Grammy winning artist and by all accounts, she
is a successful singer songwriter. When she was younger, she
(29:00):
she was living on the streets, and she talks about
washing her hair in the bathroom of a Wendy's before
a job interview. And to hear a Grammy winning artist
talk about that, it really.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Puts things into perspective.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
And once Jewel agreed to be an executive producer and
shared that story with us, I knew that the film
was going to be very, very very special.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
And it is a special film.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
But however, before we get before we conclude our conversation,
you got to talk about your latest film, Unexpected Treasures.
So could you please describe that to my audience and
let roll and preview its.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
Yeah, So, Unexpected Treasures is a scripted alien, quirky alien
adventure movie that we shot in Joshua Tree.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
April of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
We just premiered this summer at Comic Con in San Diego,
which was Adrian come true because I remember going to
Comic Con almost a decade ago and sitting in the
audience and watching people speak, thinking to myself, Oh my god,
one day I want to be on a comic Con panel.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
These are my people talking about.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
Science fiction, comic books, and nerd culture, like these are
my people.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
And exactly, yeah, that's my dream.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Theater nerds, you know.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
So the fact that now I was able to speak
on a panel and have a movie at comic Con
was phenomenal. In the movie, I play Sam, He's an
alien and he meets Hartley played by Olivia Blue And
the film is directed by JP Ungaretti and produced by
(30:51):
Christina Heller, written and produced by Christina.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
His wife.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
And yeah, it felt like it was just a little
almost like a Joshua Tree summer camp where we all
got together and.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Just happened to make a movie. It was. It was
a lot of fun. I had never played an alien before.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
I had telepathy powers, so that was cool having superpowers
in the movie. And yeah, it's available now on streaming
on Apple and Amazon for streaming or for purchase.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
And we got to talk about your Instagram because I
think you're in You are probably one of my favorite
Instagram accounts to follow because of all your adventures. I
love that scuba diving one you to add on. And
then of course that firework. I was so concerned for
your safety.
Speaker 4 (31:39):
Yeah, yeah, I did not expect that to happen. It's
some random firework. It was. It was a sort of
a gag gift for somebody's birthday, and.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
We didn't know that it was gonna We put it in.
Speaker 4 (31:52):
A little fire pit and we lit it and then
we were going to do the cake and have like
maybe a little bit of sparklers going on, not realizing
it was going to explode ode and all of you,
all of what you see in that video is genuine.
We were scared for our lives a little bit.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
I was scared for you and forever in Kansas City,
please do not bring anything to a barbecue like that.
Fair and I will not bring that to one in Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Deal.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Alrighty, so last question, are you ready?
Speaker 3 (32:26):
I'm ready for the last question?
Speaker 2 (32:28):
All right, Yeah, are you ready?
Speaker 3 (32:30):
Was that The question not yet a question.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
The question is where can my audience find you on
Beyond the Gates and not to mention, connect with you
on social media? And where can we find more information
about Manifest Productions?
Speaker 3 (32:51):
Perfect great?
Speaker 4 (32:52):
So Beyond the Gates is airing every day, every weekday
on CBS in the one to two pm slot depending
on where you live, so please check it out. It's
also on Paramount Plus to stream, which is where I
like to watch it because you can click through and
it has less commercials. Let's see the bay is available
(33:16):
on Amazon to be Peacock, all those places, and like
I said, I join in season five, so if you
want to start somewhere starting season five, no one, just kidding,
maybe start four so you know the characters.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
And then let's see what else.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
Oh. Info about me is on Instagram. I'm just Mike
Underscore Manning. There might be another Underscore, but just type
in my name and you'll get it. I'm wearing a
Dalmatian costume.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
If that helps. My website is.
Speaker 4 (33:48):
Mike Manning dot info and my production company's website is
Manifestproductions dot com. That's Manifest with two ends like my
last name, So m a N N I F E
S T Productions with an S dot Com.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Alrighty guys, if you missed an episode of the Jake
Steak with Jacob Elly Start podcast, this is our channels
on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, I Out Radio, Spotify, and
Speaker Jake Stake with Jacob el Shart j A t
O b e ol y A c h e R.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Now are you on social mediause?
Speaker 1 (34:17):
I'm on social media too, Facebook, Instagram, Threat, Twitter, and YouTube.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Jacob Ali Shar j c O b e l y
A c h a R.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
And want to find out what happened on America Scott Talent,
some of my interviews with a daytime people such as
Mac gon Well, visit Jake stats, Shake dot com once
get Jakes's shack dot com.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
And I got to say this.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
I'm so excited to reveal the Jake Steak with Jacob
el Shart podcast has been honored by the American Business
Awards for Silver CBE for Best Interview Talk Show. I
want to thank all of the judges for selecting me.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Mike.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
It was such an honor to have you here. You're
no stranger to this podcast. I'm so proud of you
and I cannot wait to see what you do next.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Thank you, Jacob. Well now we're friends, so now I
can say Jake, thanks.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Are you anytime? My friend and guys, Thank you so
much for watching, Thank you so much for listening. Till
next time, have a great one. Everybody, go ahead bye,
Hell, Hello everyone, and welcome back to the latest episode
of The Jakes Take the Jacob Elisher Podcast. I'm your host,
Jacob Alisher, the chief content producer and writer of jakestak
dot com, a pop culture entertainment news website. If you're
watching us on YouTube, please give us a thumb stup
and please subscribe. If you're watching us on our audio
platforms or listening to us, give us a five star
(00:41):
writing and download this episode and more episodes. I am
so honored and thrilled to welcome welcome our next guest.
He is an Emmy winning actor, writer, producer, and founder
of Manifest Productions. You got to start on the real world,
you see, and after using that, he jumped.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Off to the Hidden Springs, Teen Wolf, Hawaii, five Oh Why,
and This is Us.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Daytime TV fans know him as Caleb McKinnon on The Bay,
Charlie Dale from Days of Our Lives, and more recently
Bradley Smithy Smith on Beyond the Gates. He's also produced
Son of the South, Lost in America, Kidnap for Christ,
and A Depth and Life of March MP Johnson. Now,
so this recording has three hundred and eleven thousand Instagram polish,
(01:23):
so I'm one of them. To please help me welcome
the fabulous Mike Money to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Thank you for having me, Jacob, and for that amazing introduction.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Thank you so much. You're soon welcome.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Mike is such an honor and privileged to have you
and guys, I told him before we got started.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
He's one of our generation's best success stories when it
comes to going from reality television into the entertainment industry.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
I mean I if you would have asked me back then,
if I thought that I'd be where I am today,
I would have said I could only have dreamed that
it would have gone this way. I'm really grateful for
Real World. Gosh, it's been fifteen years now. I'm really
grateful for what the show did for me, and you know,
(02:08):
basically for giving me the confidence to pursue entertainment because
I've been acting since I was little, but growing up
in Colorado, I just didn't know any professional actors, so
it didn't really I never let myself dream this big,
and I never let myself believe that I could actually
be an actor and an entertainer in my life. And
(02:30):
so you know, that's something that Real World sort of
pushed me in the right direction.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
With that, we'll get back to real world and a second,
but however, you have to mention Colorado. I'm a proud
see you bup. So I'm class of twenty eleven. So
I broadcast news, so I gotta say, go, buffs.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
There you go.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
If I could have done it over again, I went
to University of Northern Colorado. If I could have done
it over again, I would have maybe gone to see you.
But then then again, I don't want to say that
because then things might have been different and we wouldn't
be talking right now.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
So never mind, I take it.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Back, absolutely absolutely, Well, make sure happy.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
So I got to talk about this because you started
out you said that you got started acting.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
When you were a little kid.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
So what was the what what got you interested in
before meing? How did that passion involve in the desire
to go and pursue a career in our field?
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Yeah, since I can remember.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
And it sounds cliche, but I think it's cliche because
it's so many people. You know, if you're crazy enough
to pack up your belongings and move to LA or
New York or Chicago or you know wherever in my
case now Atlanta. Uh, to pursue a career in entertainment,
you have to it has to be something inside of you,
(03:45):
and it has to be something that you can't deny.
And for as long as I can remember, I would
gather my brother and my sister. I would gather the
neighborhood kids. We would watch movies and we would act
out the movies in front of the TV.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
And I just love.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
Something about entertainment. And I loved what movies could do
for people. They exposed people to new ideep ideas and
ways of thinking and being and and it's They've always
just fascinated me. So for as long as I can remember,
I wanted to be a part of movies. I was
in theater in high school and I did musicals and
(04:20):
theater and and and.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
I kind of I thought that that was it for me.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
I went to college for business, and it was in
college that my best friend came up to me and
he said, hey, Mike, you you used to audition and stuff, right,
And I said yeah. He said, Uh, there's an open
casting call for a reality.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Show called Real World. Will you come with me to
the open casting call?
Speaker 4 (04:45):
And I believe it was at cu and yeah, and
I think and that I'm pretty sure. And I so
he's like, it's an open casting call, will you come
with me to help me get on the show, And it's.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
That classic Hollywood story. I with him to help him
get on the show.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
I ended up talking to the casting director and several
months later, through a pretty rigorous casting process, they invited
me to be on the show.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
And it's amazing. It's amazing.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
So it's amazing to hear that you had an opportunity
and to go from that and also be going to
get to the back to the MTV. I got a
shout out because all kid, you know, it's great. It's
twuelth great.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
For me, Okay, yeah, no, yeah, it's it's Uh.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
I think there's something magical about the theater and there's
something magical about using your imagination and and.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
I love theater.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
For a while, I would do I would try to
do a play every couple of years in Los Angeles
once I moved there from Colorado. I did a couple
of shows at the Santa Monica Playhouse and uh, and
those were a lot of fun. It's been it's been
a a couple of years for me now that I've
that I've been a part of something like that, so
I would, But I'm working now full time on the
(06:00):
CBS show that you mentioned, Beyond the Gates here in Atlanta,
so I'm that's sort of taken up on my time for.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Now, and we'll get to Beyond the Gates a little bit.
But first, as many you know, empty a lot of
MTV alumni from both the Real World and The Road
Rules went on to compete on the Challenge and became
may stays. So why decide to compete not to compete
on the long running competition shop.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
So as soon as I had moved to Los Angeles,
I started auditioning through my manager and then I got
an agent. And around that time, I think I had
booked one or two TV gigs and maybe an indie movie,
one or two indie movies. So I was just sort
of carving out my my path in Los Angeles and
(06:46):
they invited me to be a part of the Challenge
and I said, hey, you know my agent at the time,
I said, hey, they want me to be part of
this challenge? What do you think about that? And he said,
in this day and age, like you can get away
with one reality show. You can get away with one
reality thing. If you do more than that, you become
(07:07):
a reality star. He's like, do you want to be
an actor or do you want to be a reality star.
I said, I want to be an actor, and he said,
there's your answer. So unfortunately I didn't do the challenge.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
And the thing is being missy because you could have
gotten to to CT and Johnny and Wes and car
Maria and Bath and I.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
Say unfortunately, Yeah, I say unfortunately because it would have
been a lot of fun. And I love that stuff.
I love obstacle courses. I love I'm an adrenaline junkie.
I'll jump out of planes, I'll you know, I'll bungee jump,
I'll race, you know, cars and boats and horses like
I just I love the physicality of all of that,
And so I would have loved the competition element.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
I think of the challenge. But then again, I think
things are a little different now.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
I think, you know, you have Zac Efron having with
his travel show, you have Chris Hemsworth with his unscripted show.
I think the lines have blurred a little bit more
in the last several years with reality TV and Hollywood.
But back then, I think he's right. I would have
been pigeonholed into just being a reality TV person and
(08:16):
people wouldn't have taken me seriously.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
I know, But who knows about Traders or Mark Long?
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Does All Stars six with other people like you or
Scott Herman, people who've been waiting to go on a
challenge or two just for All Stars, just for the
sake of it, Because I would love to see you
on that.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
All right, Well maybe maybe if I do, I'll let
you know.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Alrighty, alrighty, you already hear first, folks. However, the challenging
loss was Prime Times Game. Because you have worked on
sets of several popular TV shows, including To Have and
Have nots Hawaii.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
If I have a teen Walton, this is us.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
So what were some of the lessons that you learned
from your time on those sets that helped you grow
as an actor? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (08:55):
I think every job you grow as an actor because
you're working with new people, you're inhabiting a new character,
you're in a different world.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
I loved working on this as US. I thought that
that was that was great.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
I was the new Manny on the show, and I
all my scenes were with Justin Hartley, and working with
him was was really cool. He's such a nice guy,
giving actor. He has his new Tracker series on right now,
and I'm really proud of him. I think, you know,
working on Days of Our Lives was was really my
first taste of daytime and that pace and how fast
(09:30):
it was.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Working on Hawaii Fi, I lo oh.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
I got to go to Hawaii and take surf lessons
and that was a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Working on what other TV gigs, Major Crimes was cool.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
I was I was the bad guy and after the
episode aired, my you know, I took somebody hostage in
the show. After the episode aired, my mom calls me
and she said that she just spoke to my grandmother
and they were both crying, and my grandmother wanted to
know if I'm if I'm a mean person in real life,
and I'm like, preak, No, it's act. It's acting, you know,
(10:02):
It's yeah, it's I learned something new every time, and
I've definitely I look at some of my early auditions
from fifteen years ago, and some of them are good.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Some of them I'm like, oh, why did I do that?
Speaker 4 (10:16):
But I feel like that's every every actor, you know,
every actor is going to be critical of themselves and
every actor is going to grow hopefully as they work
more awesome.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
So we brought up you brought up Days of Our
Lives and daytime telegon fans. I've loved you as Klea
McKinnon on the Bay, Charlie on Days of Our Lives
and of course currently as Bradley's Minnie Smith on Beyond
the Gates. So what are some of the similarities and
differences between all three of these unique characters.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
Yeah, I'll start with differences, because there are some pretty
stark differences. On Days of Our Lives, I was Charlie Dale,
and he started out as as a nice guy but
quickly realized that he's spying on the He's spying on
everybody Salem for his mother, who is a crime boss,
uh you know, from a crime boss family, Eva Viatally.
(11:09):
So he's secretly part of the Vitally crime family.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
And he is a bad guy and.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
He sexually assaulted somebody years ago, and then he but
he falls in love with Claire Brady, and then his
mother tries to get in between them, and then he
classic soap opera, he kidnaps his mother and ties her
up with Christmas Lights and so he was he.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Was not a nice guy. It was fun to play
a bad guy.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
But he got to work with Samar Brown as well.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, she's lovely.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Uh, she's she's so giving, so sweet, and I loved
working with her so much.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
And then and then, So that's on one side of
the coin.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
On the other side of the coin, you have Caleb
McKinnon on the Bay, and Caleb is a sweetheart. I
joined the Bay in season five, so the Bay had
already been going on for a couple of years.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
I joined as a love interest in season five.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Season six you saw more of me, and then seasons
I think season seven, I was a series regular seven
to eight, and then we filmed nine and yeah, it's
just I think with Kleb, he was the exact opposite
of Charlie. He's a sweet guy, a nice guy, hard
on his sleeve, loyal, and that those characteristics I would
(12:30):
also attribute to Smitty on on Beyond the Gates.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
I'm grateful for the Bay because.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
They gave me an Emmy for acting and as Supporting
Actor Emmy after season six, and it allowed me to
portray an LGBT character that I'm proud of and I'm
doing those that as well.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
On Beyond the Gates, I play Smitty.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
He's a journalist, an investigative journal list. I like to
think that he's kind of like has a little bit
of Clark Kent in him. I'm a huge Superman fan,
and the fans have started calling me Clark Kent, like
from the Clark Kent of Beyond the Gates, and I
love that because why not. He also is very loyal.
(13:19):
He has two adopted children, He's married to a congressman.
And beyond just the character, the show itself is the
first brand new daytime soap in twenty five years. It
is breaking ground with in so many different ways, with
(13:42):
the casting and with the storylines, and with everything in
terms of diversity representation, and just making a soap that
feels like a twenty twenty five show. I think because
it's a brand new show, the writers and creators are allowed,
not allowed, they are They have the tools to create
(14:05):
brand new storylines that are more exciting than, in my opinion,
some of these other storylines that have been recycled on.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
These shows for so many years.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
Because the writers are beholden to those characters, they can't
just you know, they don't have a blank canvas with
this show. Everybody had a blank canvas, and so many
you know, movers and shakers came from other daytime shows
to sort of create this together. Michelle Valjean, Julie Carruthers,
Sheila Duxworth really championed this at CBS and and you know,
(14:38):
it's been a it's been a fantastic experience so far.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
And you got to work with a lot of incredible
people too, Tomorrow Tuney, Kevin Linstrom, John Lindstrum, Katie McClain,
and I just heard recently that Craig Vaughn's on his
way too.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Yes, yes, yeah, all of those people.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
I mean Tomorrow Toney is phenomenal, which is so sweet,
and I think that her involvement with this show has
truly made a difference to the essence of what this
show is and the DNA of the show. When you
have you know, number one on the call sheet just
(15:15):
leading with kindness and hard work. You know, she knows
her shit every single day and she expects everybody else to,
but she also leads with empathy and kindness and trying.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
You know that I think.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
Has really lent to how the show has grown over
the past year. The show we've now been filming for
an entire year, and I think now everybody has sort
of found their footing in terms of the characters and
the tone and the world. Because Daytime is different than
a lot of other TV that's out there, and actors
(15:52):
that haven't done daytime before they have to sort of.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Get used to the speed, get used to the genre
of the cameras everything else.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
So I think we have now and it feels like
the show has found its groove.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Yeah, it's also about a very talkative social media base.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I'm on Twitter, I'm on Instagram, and a lot of
people are commenting about some of the hot storylines. So
what does it feel like to be part of this
ground floor beyond the gates?
Speaker 3 (16:19):
I think.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
I think as an actor, you always want to create
work that people see.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Right.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
There was a time where I would.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
I would you know, I would do these small plays
and I would be acting for forty people.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
There were times where I would do these.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
Small indie movies and who knows how many people saw them,
and it felt fine. But I think to be a
part of a show that has people commenting so much
and interacting so much, and a show that means a
lot to people in terms of, like we talked about representation,
(16:59):
I think it's it's a.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Dream come true. It feels it feels nice.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
And my first six months on the show, everybody loves Smitty.
He was in a marriage where he was the nice
guy and everybody there was like, hashtag team Smitty, hashtag whatever.
Now we're in a storyline where Smitty's kind of being
selfish and.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Being a little he's he's being.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
Kind of a brat in terms of not allowing his
marriage to heal and not allowing his he and Martin
to sort of find their way again. And so now
people are definitely vocal on social media like Smitty, stop
being a little baby, like get your shit together, basically.
(17:50):
And that's fun too, because you know, if people are commenting,
then they're watching, and if they're watching, then hopefully the
show will continue to gain new fans and you know,
and continue and build a legacy.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Absolutely, And I got to say this, you guys are
doing awesome. And I really hope twenty twenty six we
see some Emmy nominations for all of you.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
I hope, So, I hope, so your lips to Guy's ears.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
All righty, So we got to leave the daytime world
and talk about the world of production. So could you
describe how you started Manifest Productions to my audience?
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (18:26):
Great, So in this was maybe twenty thirteen. I think
I had been living in la for a couple of years.
I had done I was on a Disney show. I
think I had just booked Cloud nine on the Disney Channel,
the Disney Disney Snowboarding movie. And a friend of mine
(18:46):
from college in Colorado came out to stay with me,
and he was the subject of a documentary about child abuse.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
And I never.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
Knew that any of this happened to him, but he
came out to stay with me, and we had a
couple of shots at tequila and he opens up to
me about when he was seventeen years old, how he
came out to his parents and they sent him to
this reform camp in the Dominican Republic, and while there.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
He was physically and mentally abused.
Speaker 4 (19:15):
And this filmmaker was doing a documentary on this camp
at the same time he was there, and it wasn't
just about him coming out, like there were people at
this camp for all different reasons. One girl had anxiety
and she would act out in school. One girl they
her parents caught her having sex with this boy before marriage,
(19:35):
and they were super Christian. Just for a lot of reasons,
they were sent to this school. And I ended up
meeting this filmmaker and we had coffee out of Starbucks
and at the end, her name's Kate Logan. And at
the end of our meeting, I said, Kate, it's so
nice to meet you. How can I help, like with
(19:57):
this documentary. I think everybody needs to see it. I
think everybody needs to hear this story.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
How can I help?
Speaker 4 (20:03):
And she said, well, Mike, this is my first feature film.
I have all this amazing footage. I don't know what
to do with it. And I was like, well, I
don't know how to produce, but I'm going to figure
it out. And I just taught myself how to produce,
and I had some amazing people sort of joined the fight.
Tom DeSanto being one of them. He's a friend of mine.
He produced X Men and Transformers and I had known
(20:25):
Tom through some charity organizations and I told Tom about
the documentary and he said, Mike, I'll produce this with
you and overnight, He's calling me like, okay, Mike, you
have your e Ando insurance right, And I was like, yeah,
of course we do. And then I would google, like
what is e Ando Insurance? And then he's like, hey, Mike,
you guys did this right with all this paperwork, And
(20:47):
I'm like, Tom, of course we did. And I would
google how to do it, and I taught myself how
to produce for this movie and we ended up ended
up selling to Showtime and it was a great little
documentary and it made me feel good and I was like,
you know what I want to of course I'm acting,
of course I'm you know, I'm pursuing that full force.
(21:09):
But in my spare time, I want to be a
part of telling stories that are maybe scripted, maybe unscripted,
maybe about you know, certain social causes that I care about,
And so I started doing that. I formed back then
it was Chuberman Productions with my producing partner, Viniechibber, who's
(21:30):
a great friend. We just decided to get rid of
the company and now since then, I've formed Manifest Productions
and I'm producing my own movies and it's going well
so far.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
And I'm an ology for that because The thing is,
it takes time to produce stuff like I never thought
about below when I entered the world with media when
I graduated in twenty eleven, I never thought I would
start blocking. I so look at and then having in
confidence to do podcasting in this next year marks fifteen
years is a content creator for me.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
So I'm in all of you. What you've done for yourself.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
Congratulations, congratulations. Fifteen years is a long time. I mean
we've basically been in. If you're if you're acknowledging real
world as the impetus of me sort of entering Hollywood,
then we've been at this both for fifteen years.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
And cheers too, and cheer to us because two of
my heroes are Reagi's environment Walters.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Both them they parted and they've had a fifty year career.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
And I think I'm just getting started, and you, my sir,
are just getting started as well.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
Yes, yes, yes, I hope so and yeah, I just like,
like I said, I want to continue making stuff that matters,
stuff that I care about, adding to representation and opening
people's hearts and minds when I can with certain projects
that all means a lot to me, is very important
(22:58):
to me. And so whether I do that on screen
or behind the screen, helping other people tell their stories,
as long as I can continue doing that, I'm I'm
gonna happy. I'm a happy Mike, Absolutely, Mike.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
And also, I know you have a lot of projects
to talk about, but I picked out three of them
and I would love to tell you.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
And I would love for you to talk about that. Sure,
let's talk about Kidnap for Christ.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
So Kidnap for Christ is the film that I just
told you about with Kate Logan. So that was technically
the first documentary I ever produced about child abuse at
this reform camp. And then after that I followed Kate
Logan to her next film was called An Act of
Love about the Methodist Church and marriage inequality. And then
(23:45):
after that I did my first scriptive film with Vinnie Chibber,
which was called Folk Hero and Funny Guy with Wyatt Russell,
who's now.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
The new Captain America.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
And let's see Alex Karpovski, Milanie Lynsky, Meredith Hagner who
was in Bad the Bad Monkey Show that just came
out and she was fantastic. So we premiered at Tribeca
and and that was great.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
So that was.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
That was a really nice first scripted film for our
production company.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Awesome And then probably the most important films for R
the Algebet part of the our community, ALGEBT community, the
Death and Life of Marsha P.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Johnson.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
So for that one I worked with David France.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
He was nominated for an Oscar for How to Survive
a Plague, that really really important documentary. I forget which
year it was, but it was it was right before
he then did the Death and Life of Marsha P.
Johnson and uh and and with that one, it follows
Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera and their roles in
(24:57):
fighting for LGBT equality after Stonewall, and the film itself
is sort of a look at their lives and at
Marsha P. Johnson's life in particular, but then also about
the transformation and evolution of the LGBT civil rights movement
in the United States. And that movie was very important
(25:20):
to me because I think today.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
There are certain rights and.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
Certain aspects of life that the lgbt Q community enjoys
that we absolutely would not have had had activists not
fought the good fight in the you know, fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties.
(25:49):
So so I think, you know, I think that it's
not lost on me that my rights stand, you know,
in my abilities.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
And what the resources I have.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
Were built on the shoulders of those that came before me,
starting you know, with with you know, in the in
the late fifties, sixties, and then continuing to when I
was born in the eighties, and then even today. You know,
there are a lot of people that fought very very
hard at a time where you could be fired from
(26:25):
your job, you could be killed in certain parts of
the world, you can still be killed for your sexuality,
which is awful and and so yeah, that's that's why
I was very very proud of of that movie as well.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
And that and that film will definitely is going to
be musk watched for everybody.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
It should be.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
Yeah, it was a Netflix original when it came out,
it also premiered at Tribeca, and I was very very
proud of it.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
What I'm very proud of you was Lost in America
because the thing is you had them several big names
attached this, halle Berry, Jewel, Tiffany Hattish.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
Yes, So for Lost in America, it's another documentary. It
is it follows. We went to thirteen different cities in
the United States and we got to know homeless people.
Rotemi Rainwater directed that one. And the interesting thing about
Roteemi is when he was nineteen, he was homeless. He
lived on the streets. Now you know, he's older, he
(27:28):
has a family, he has two beautiful little girls. But
he felt like he had a special way of reaching
some of these kids that were living on the streets
because he himself was homeless. So he traveled around and
gathered their stories. And what the film does is it
sort of talks about why kids are on the streets,
(27:52):
what resources are available to them or not available to them,
and how you know it specifically some of them are
trying to get off the streets, and how some of
them are just you know, living their life day to day,
trying to survive on the streets. And because of I
(28:13):
think the the raw nature of Rotimi's ability to gather
these interviews with these kids, it attracted the attention of
people like you, said halle Berry Rosario Dawson Jewel. Rosario
and Jewel are both executive producers on the film.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Tiffany Hattish, we interviewed.
Speaker 4 (28:31):
Her halle Berry we interviewed her about her time at
a battered women's shelter.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Rosario Dawson.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
We interviewed her about what she the activism that she
does for the homeless community and youth. And John bon Jovi,
we interview him for the film Jewel. Jewel's interview is
one of my favorites in the movie because you know,
she's a Grammy winning artist and by all accounts, she
is a successful singer songwriter. When she was younger, she
(29:00):
she was living on the streets, and she talks about
washing her hair in the bathroom of a Wendy's before
a job interview. And to hear a Grammy winning artist
talk about that, it really.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Puts things into perspective.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
And once Jewel agreed to be an executive producer and
shared that story with us, I knew that the film
was going to be very, very very special.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
And it is a special film.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
But however, before we get before we conclude our conversation,
you got to talk about your latest film, Unexpected Treasures.
So could you please describe that to my audience and
let roll and preview its.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
Yeah, So, Unexpected Treasures is a scripted alien, quirky alien
adventure movie that we shot in Joshua Tree.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
April of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
We just premiered this summer at Comic Con in San Diego,
which was Adrian come true because I remember going to
Comic Con almost a decade ago and sitting in the
audience and watching people speak, thinking to myself, Oh my god,
one day I want to be on a comic Con panel.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
These are my people talking about.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
Science fiction, comic books, and nerd culture, like these are
my people.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
And exactly, yeah, that's my dream.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Theater nerds, you know.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
So the fact that now I was able to speak
on a panel and have a movie at comic Con
was phenomenal. In the movie, I play Sam, He's an
alien and he meets Hartley played by Olivia Blue And
the film is directed by JP Ungaretti and produced by
(30:51):
Christina Heller, written and produced by Christina.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
His wife.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
And yeah, it felt like it was just a little
almost like a Joshua Tree summer camp where we all
got together and.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Just happened to make a movie. It was. It was
a lot of fun. I had never played an alien before.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
I had telepathy powers, so that was cool having superpowers
in the movie. And yeah, it's available now on streaming
on Apple and Amazon for streaming or for purchase.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
And we got to talk about your Instagram because I
think you're in You are probably one of my favorite
Instagram accounts to follow because of all your adventures. I
love that scuba diving one you to add on. And
then of course that firework. I was so concerned for
your safety.
Speaker 4 (31:39):
Yeah, yeah, I did not expect that to happen. It's
some random firework. It was. It was a sort of
a gag gift for somebody's birthday, and.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
We didn't know that it was gonna We put it in.
Speaker 4 (31:52):
A little fire pit and we lit it and then
we were going to do the cake and have like
maybe a little bit of sparklers going on, not realizing
it was going to explode ode and all of you,
all of what you see in that video is genuine.
We were scared for our lives a little bit.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
I was scared for you and forever in Kansas City,
please do not bring anything to a barbecue like that.
Fair and I will not bring that to one in Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Deal.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Alrighty, so last question, are you ready?
Speaker 3 (32:26):
I'm ready for the last question?
Speaker 2 (32:28):
All right, Yeah, are you ready?
Speaker 3 (32:30):
Was that The question not yet a question.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
The question is where can my audience find you on
Beyond the Gates and not to mention, connect with you
on social media? And where can we find more information
about Manifest Productions?
Speaker 3 (32:51):
Perfect great?
Speaker 4 (32:52):
So Beyond the Gates is airing every day, every weekday
on CBS in the one to two pm slot depending
on where you live, so please check it out. It's
also on Paramount Plus to stream, which is where I
like to watch it because you can click through and
it has less commercials. Let's see the bay is available
(33:16):
on Amazon to be Peacock, all those places, and like
I said, I join in season five, so if you
want to start somewhere starting season five, no one, just kidding,
maybe start four so you know the characters.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
And then let's see what else.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
Oh. Info about me is on Instagram. I'm just Mike
Underscore Manning. There might be another Underscore, but just type
in my name and you'll get it. I'm wearing a
Dalmatian costume.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
If that helps. My website is.
Speaker 4 (33:48):
Mike Manning dot info and my production company's website is
Manifestproductions dot com. That's Manifest with two ends like my
last name, So m a N N I F E
S T Productions with an S dot Com.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Alrighty guys, if you missed an episode of the Jake
Steak with Jacob Elly Start podcast, this is our channels
on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, I Out Radio, Spotify, and
Speaker Jake Stake with Jacob el Shart j A t
O b e ol y A c h e R.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Now are you on social mediause?
Speaker 1 (34:17):
I'm on social media too, Facebook, Instagram, Threat, Twitter, and YouTube.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Jacob Ali Shar j c O b e l y
A c h a R.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
And want to find out what happened on America Scott Talent,
some of my interviews with a daytime people such as
Mac gon Well, visit Jake stats, Shake dot com once
get Jakes's shack dot com.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
And I got to say this.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
I'm so excited to reveal the Jake Steak with Jacob
el Shart podcast has been honored by the American Business
Awards for Silver CBE for Best Interview Talk Show. I
want to thank all of the judges for selecting me.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Mike.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
It was such an honor to have you here. You're
no stranger to this podcast. I'm so proud of you
and I cannot wait to see what you do next.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Thank you, Jacob. Well now we're friends, so now I
can say Jake, thanks.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Are you anytime? My friend and guys, Thank you so
much for watching, Thank you so much for listening. Till
next time, have a great one. Everybody, go ahead bye,
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