PROVINCETOWN – Michael Ornstein probably has the longest commute of anyone on Cape Cod. He lives in Cotuit but flies to Los Angeles where he tapes episodes for TV shows like “Sons of Anarchy.”
“It’s crazy. I go there to work and I’ve got a wife and two babies here,” he says after returning from taping several episodes of “Sons.” “We moved here from New York with a plan, to live in a beautiful place, go off to work and then come home. It’s hard sometimes but all in all, a good thing.”
Ornstein may not be a name you instantly recognize, but odds are you will recognize his face. He’s appeared on many of the top shows including multiple roles on all three “Law & Order” series, “Third Watch” and “Homicide: Life on the Street.” He’s been on “Seinfeld” and had roles in several movies including “Crossing Delancey” and “Snow Days.”
His latest roles put him into several episodes of “Sons of Anarchy” and cast him as Frank Davis in the new “NCIS: Los Angeles.” The NCIS role is a one-shot deal for now but his characters do have a way of coming back. “NCIS: Los Angeles” premiered on Sept. 22 and Ornstein can be seen in the second episode airing Sept. 29
In “Sons” he plays Chuck Marstein, who was in one show the previous year but impressed everyone enough to bring him back for recurring episodes this year.
“Chuck has compulsive masturbation syndrome,” Ornstein says. “He’s a great character.”
Over all, Ornstein says, this has been “the best acting experience in my life.” Everyone is great and perfect to work with from the crew to the cast, the writers, the director.
“I was a fan (of the series) before but this is a whole different ballgame,” he says. “The show has a different kind of energy than has ever been on TV before. It’s like a new musical genre, it’s entirely unique.”
He came to the show through writer Kurt Sutter, a guy he’s friends with from way back.
“He wrote this character and I thought, the world is filled with unique things,” Ornstein says. “Sometimes you read something and say to yourself ‘That can’t happen,’ but you know it can and does. A good artist is willing to try it and sometimes goes way out there.”
That risk-taking, he says, is where a character comes together or falls apart. And he always tries to bolster his characters with the strength of truth, he adds.
“That’s the definition of good acting — watch it and it’s real,” he says. “If it’s honest, people connect to it.”
Ornstein got training in live theater and says that shooting film and TV is definitely a different experience.
“I came up doing plays with a beginning, a middle and an end,” he says. “I would map myself through, working with the playwright and the director and then put it up from beginning to end every night. With TV or film it’s shot in short little parts and you don’t really see it until it’s done and screens. In ways I’m really part of the audience seeing it for the first time when they do.”
For now he’s between roles, which is great since it gives him the time to pursue his other passion, oil painting.
“I’ve always gone between painting and acting,” he says.
It was Ornstein who founded the gallery at Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater at the Julie Harris Stage. He had been cast in “Love Song” a couple of years back and they used his artwork in the set and turned the upstairs lobby into a gallery that has gone on to feature artwork from a rotating group of galleries and artists.
He has ties to Provincetown as well. His family in New York used to go down to Greenwich Village every weekend and then would vacation in Provincetown in the summer.
“We saw the same people in both places,” he says. “What I really dig about Provincetown is how much art has originated there, from Eugene O’Neill and Tennessee Williams to Hans Hofmann. I’d love to do more things there.”
He’s been thinking about things he’d like to do on the Cape and says, “I’m into producing new stuff, plays, in alternate venues. I’d like to help develop brand new plays. I’d like to teach a class or even have a theater that does all that.”
Source wickedlocal.com
Mark Boone Junior: Oh, yeah, I’m a big singer. I really love it. It hasn’t really gotten into the thing too much, but hopefully more in the future. Um, you know, I started riding bikes when I was really young, but I stopped when I was 19 because my mother asked me too, so I stopped riding for 35 years and now I’m just addicted. It is my only addiction…
You guys actually ride your bikes to work now?
Another way for us all to keep updated on the genius himself Kurt Sutter on