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You may not know Michael Cyril Creighton by name, but there’s a great chance you’ll recognize his face. Whether you’re a 30 Rock fan, or you saw last year’s Best Picture-winning Spotlight, or you’ve made the supremely smart decision to binge HBO’s High Maintenance, you’ll remember Creighton as an invaluable character actor who can bring it with both comedy and sweet, sensitive drama.
This month, Creighton is enjoying his biggest movie role to date, in the Netflix original film Coin Heist. In the film — which stars Pretty Little Liars‘ Sasha Pieterse and The Fosters‘ Alex Saxon — a quartet of high schoolers who plot to rob the U.S. mint in order to save the school after it’s bankrupted by scandal. Creighton plays the kids’ teacher, Mr. Rankin, who ends up suspicious of these angel-faced little schemers.
We recently sat down with Creighton to talk about Coin Heist, its John Hughes connotations, and some of his most notable roles.
Decider.com: Starting with Coin Heist which, by the way, I thought was a totally cute little movie and it’s just like…
Michael Cyril Creighton: Like a nice wholesome…
Right?
Family friendly movie, right? It’s nice to be in something that like, literally my entire family can watch and I don’t have to warn them about anything other than I’m mean.
What was it like playing that sort of kind of like High School authority figure? Which I feel like is such like, almost like a stock character or whatever but like…
Yeah. I loved all those stock characters from The Breakfast Club and of course I like think of all the teachers in Carrie and stuff like that. It was fun. When we first started, I talked to the director [Emily Hagins] who is so lovely and so talented. She’s 24 years old. It’s her sixth movie.
Wow.
I don’t know if you know her story but when she was twelve she made a feature length zombie movie called Pathogen that got into South by Southwest, and there was a documentary about her making it. So this is her sixth feature film, and she’s 24, so that’s crazy. But when we were filming, I was like, “So, you know, [my character is] just trying to keep them on the right track and sort of keeping [the students] to a higher standard right?” And she was like, “Yes, but through their eyes and through the audience’s eyes, he’s sort of a villain. And I was like, “Oh. Well, okay.” You know, because I was approaching it from the point of trying to understand his motives and trying to understand why he was so hard on them, and I of course thought it was because he was trying to keep them to a level he thought they were capable of. But it’s fun to actually play the villain. So, once I got permission to do that, it’s fun to be that kind of character. It’s not something I’ve done before. I mean I’ve played you know, a nasty store-keep plenty of times. But not sort of an authority figure who’s like on their tail. It was fun.
And even when the film has your character kind of pop up unexpectedly…
Pops up everywhere. You know, kids on twitter are going crazy about the movie because the leads have a big following from their previous work. So it’s really fun to see all the names that they’re calling Mr. Rankin.
Oh my God.
I think they’ve been calling me, like, so annoying, such a prick, a ball bag.
A ball bag?
They’re all really good descriptors of him.
I know we’ve talked a little bit about the film being sort of John Hughesian, in a way…
Yeah!
Were there like specific Hughes movies that it reminded you of? Or even other movies that you’ve watched.
It’s reminds me a lot of The Breakfast Club for sure, and I was really impressed cause I love all those John Hughes movies. Um, I think it’s great that Blanche Baker is in it, from Sixteen Candles. Dakota’s mom [played Molly Ringwald’s] sister.
Oh, wow.
With something like a movie that premieres right on Netflix and I don’t know about the releases on the other things you’ve made and such, is it interesting to have this very sort of small movie that you’ve done be immediately available to everyone where it’s not just ‘oh this is going to be at a festival,’ ‘this is going to open in one city,’ and eventually it will make it one to whatever…
It’s kind of interesting that it’s just kind of there, for everyone across the whole world. It’s not just an American Netflix release, it’s everywhere. That’s kind of neat, to have it kind of flurry attention and I think the target audience for that is really responding to it and that’s all you can ask for really. It’s not really a movie for forty year olds although it can be enjoyable for them I think that, like my little cousins who are like early teens went bonkers for it, they loved it.
30 Rock: “Brooklyn Without Limits”
I now want to back up to the 30 Rock episode…
Oh, way back up.
Which I feel like is … do you find that is one of the things you’re most
recognized for?
For a while it was, yeah. That was my very first job, like my very first TV job. My very first TV audition, my very first TV job.
What kind of audition process was it?
I met the casting director at a party. The casting director was Katja Blichfeld from High Maintenance, and she was like “There might be a part that’s right for you on the show that I’m working on,” and I was like “What show?” and she said 30 Rock. And because we met on sort of normal social circumstances, I was able to be a human being and not like a thirsty actor you know? (laughs). I think a day later she called me in for it and then I was cast a few days after that so it was very fast and very simple. It was a great way to make my television debut since it’s such a great show. I get to work with Tina Fey and Jane Krakowski, who is so lovely.
How was filming with them?
It was great, they were super nice. I mean, Jane Krakowski was incredibly nice. I stepped on her at one point because I was trying to get to my mark — I had never been on a set like that before so it was all very new to me — and she took responsibility for it and was like “Oh no, it’s my fault.” I’m like, “It wasn’t but that was very nice of you.” [laughs] You know, Tina Fey was very busy, she had many hats on, but she was very kind to me. It was a great way to start, I think it’s a great way to start a career in film and television for sure.
Do you find that starting in something that was that high profile as 30 Rock gave casting directors a little bit of a sense of what they?
I think the next thing I booked directly after that, which was basically the same part on Orange is the New Black. So, it definitely gave people a sense of something I can do. I want to take those opportunities but also fight against them.
What was your role on Orange is the New Black?
I was the shopkeep who caught Trish, from season one with the cornrows, shoplifting. So very similar tone and feel, except maybe not as hilarious as the 30 Rock role. That was a great next job, So then I would have to think about, maybe I don’t want to be the shopkeep again for a little bit, you know? But I feel like I’ve been very lucky considering that I’ve been considered specific. Within that specificity there is a lot of variety that I’ve been able to play.
[Stream 30 Rock‘s “Brooklyn Without Limits” on Netflix.]
High Maintenance, “Helen”
So the casting director on 30 Rock was Katja and the web series High Maintenance was sort of the next role [of yours] that people really got into. And you wrote the teleplay to that episode.
Yeah, I wrote the script for that, and the whole time I was also writing my own web series — [Jack in a Box] that I won a Writer’s Guild award for and that I did for about four years. That was my way of controlling how people saw me and playing to my strengths but putting a lot of great variety in that. But then getting to do High Maintenance, it was getting to show myself in a completely different way, in a way that’s more interesting to me as an actor, playing into the vulnerability and the softness of the personal life of a strange, broken young man. I love playing the nasty characters and the smug, witty characters but I also think it’s so satisfying to bounce between the two things, and I have some access to that vulnerability so it works out well.
Having done as many web series as you have, has it evolved in the terms that something that is a viable opportunity to get yourself to a next level as opposed to farther back when it was just doing something for yourself or other people?
I would say that if I track how I started getting attention and how I started getting seen by people, I can track it back to when I created the web series, Jack in a Box. I think that was something that I made to get experience on camera, get experience writing with and for other people, even people I normally wouldn’t be able to work for, and sort of just take hold of the opportunities and make them for myself. I would say that was incredibly valuable and is the reason why I’m working so much now. I can track it back to the work I did on that web series. With the other web series I’ve done, you never know what’s gonna happen with them so I just try to do ones with people I like and look interesting. The Outs, which I did, that was a great, vile character and that was really fun because I think Adam [Goldman, creator and star of The Outs] is just incredibly talented. But I wasn’t doing it because I was like “This will make me famous.” I was doing it because I was working with people I liked and it was a fun character. I don’t think you ever really know what’s going to happen, so I just try to do work that I respond to with people that I respect.
Is writing your own stuff sort of the goal, like if you picture what your ideal project is, is it that? Is it writing something that you’re also in?
That would be ideal, if I could make myself write again. [laughs] It’s a very complicated relationship with writing, as I’m sure most people have. I am still lucky to work enough without writing my own projects. I would work more if I was writing more stuff for my ownself. In my early 30’s I was writing a lot myself because I didn’t have any other opportunity to work. I feel like I’m going to start to push myself to do that a little more because it feels like it will be good to keep me busy in between things.
[Stream High Maintenance‘s “Helen” on HBO GO.]
Spotlight
I wanted to talk about Spotlight too. How did that come about?
I was doing a play at Playwright’s Horizons, it was a play called Stage Kisses. Someone saw the play and recommended me to Tom McCarthy, who’s the director. Then they saw me, I got the material for it and they saw me. It was just me and the casting assistant in the room. I did it once on tape, and then I just waited. I was like “I’ll do anything else I have to do, I’ll do a Skype call.” Because I knew it was a role I really wanted to play. And then I just waited a bunch and it happened, it was very quick. It was very slow in between auditioning and finding out, I think it was like three or four weeks; then I got the part and a couple days later I was in rehearsal for a day with Rachel McAdams, and then a week later I was filming it, meeting the guy I was playing, so it all happened really quick.
So you met the guy you were playing?
I did yeah, we’ve become friendly. We met for about five hours a few days before I shot. And we have stayed in touch throughout this whole experience. It’s been a couple years now.
Is that something Tom McCarthy wanted you to do, to meet with the guy?
They said if you want to meet Joe, I knew he was a real person but I didn’t know what his situation was or where he was at that point, so they said if you wanted to talk to him, I’m sure he’d be open to that. So, we set up a phone call, we talked for a little while, and I decided I had to go to Boston to have a fitting anyway, so I put myself up and stayed for a night and spent like five hours with him the next day. And thank god I did, you know I wasn’t really trying to figure out how he spoke, it was just trying to get to know him and I think through our conversations and his openness, I was able to get his essence and kinda put it in me in a way I didn’t think was there, because he’s happy with the performance and people who know him say it’s very similar to him. That was my number one concern in doing that, was that I wanted to do him such justice, and that implied that’s the case.
With the pace of doing a movie, did you find it different than doing a TV show in terms of how quickly or not as quickly had it been moving?
It moved pretty quickly, it moved pretty quick. We shot most of my stuff in one day. We shot all of my stuff in one day, like the park and the cafe and there’s one little scene in a diner where I’m not talking, that was another day in Toronto. It was fast but I felt like there was a lot of time to get it right. Tom gave us the time to get it perfect, so we did it a lot. I had not done something where you had to be so emotional off the bat right away, and doing that for nine hours was intense but really sort of exciting and satisfying because you have no time to think, you’re just doing it. There’s no build-up to that, you see him, that’s where he’s at and it’s over. That was kinda cool, you just have to make this full person in a very short amount of time. So, that’s a lot different than playing a character on TV where there’s maybe a few scenes to lead up to who this person is but I didn’t find it terribly different.
What was it like when the movie comes out and the reviews are so good, and I know a lot of reviews pointed you out specifically as a great member of the ensemble and those scenes of [McAdams’] were always pointed out as some of her best scenes in that movie. What was that like?
I mean I don’t know, I try not to let it make me, you know, a monster [laughs] or go to my head. It was very nice to be in an ensemble that deep full of people, famous and not famous who were all just incredible, I think. Taking myself out of the movie I think it’s some incredible work from all of those actors. To be singled out was obviously lovely, but surprising and it felt great. I also loved, I felt like a lot of homage to the people who played the survivors, Jimmy LeBlanc and Neal Huff. I like that we got the attention because that story at its heart is really about the survivors. Not to take anything away from the journalists who are phenomenal and did brilliant work but it’s nice that the survivors got something in the deal.
[Stream Spotlight on Netflix.]
High Maintenance, “Ex”
Circling back to High Maintenance this year and being able to go back to that character and have it be the season finale, so there was a little sense of occasion to it, what was that like? Was that something that once you heard that the show was getting picked up by HBO, was that something you were eager to hopefully get back to?
I love that character, I would love to revisit him any possible time that I can, he’s just really fun to play and I think audiences really respond to him well. I didn’t know, when I heard they were going back to HBO, I had no idea if I was going to be on it or not and then at one point in the summer before we shot I got a text from Ben that was like ‘can you start growing your beard?’ And I didn’t know what that meant but I was like ‘sure can!’ (laughs). And then I didn’t read the script until a couple days before we shot it. I didn’t know what they had written, I didn’t know what this guy’s story was going to be, and when I read it I was just so happy that we got to see everything that we wanted from him in a way that I felt was really satisfying to play and really satisfying to the audience. I was thrilled, I mean any opportunity to work for them, to play that character is a dream. To play it on that level, you know, it was a full story on him, and I like knowing what happened to him.
I do too.
I’m curious where he is now, he’s out there and about now, so that’s interesting.
Do you feel like you got the message of the dire need for La Croix to the masses outside of New York City?
You know I had never actually drank a La Croix until I read the script, and they’re like “Here’s a La Croix,” and I was like what’s this? And they were like “We’ll help you find out, don’t worry.” I didn’t realize it was such a big thing. I will say, I will never drink the coconut La Croix ever again in my life, because in the scene where I get stoned and giggle, we did that a bunch of times. I probably had drunk ten full coconut La Croixs as well as about seventeen lemon bars, I was eating some peanut butter out of a can, which you don’t see, and then smoking this fake weed, which was so gross. So, when I’m coughing in that episode, those coughs are really real because it’s so gross. There was a take where I threw up in my hands, which luckily didn’t make it in, but it was like I was so full of coconut La Croix and I was coughing because I was taking a hit and I coughed into my hands and for a while I was convinced they were going to use that take. [laughs] I was like “That’s it, that’s the take. It’s out there somewhere.” Luckily there’s no blooper reel for the vomit.
But it was also great to play the character and interact with other people. The first time we did it, it was just Ben and the person who played my mom, who’s great, and the Task Rabbit. And now this [episode] where I get out and interact with Justin Vivian Bond…
What a great scene that was.
They told me I’d be really happy with who they cast as a psychic and I was like don’t tell me because that’s the first thing we shot. The first scene we shot is the last one with Viv, and I said don’t tell me, so I didn’t know who was playing that part until then. I was excited because it couldn’t have been a better human being.
I feel like that scene, too, was a great New York scene that isn’t very ostentatious about it. But if you are a New Yorker and you know those corners of New York, that scene’s going to be extra special.
Right, right, right.
I think that’s very cool.
Yeah. It is very cool to act with Viv who I have been a fan of since I, you know, landed in New York.
That’s fantastic.
Yeah, it’s really wonderful.
