Meet Miles Tagtmeyer

Today we’d like to introduce you to Miles Tagtmeyer.

Miles, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I am a Primetime Emmy Nominated Actor. My journey is a nontraditional one that I hope inspires all creative types to never give up on their passion. I first started working as a professional actor in Minnesota when I was eight years old. I grew up working in theaters across the Twin Cities such as The Guthrie, The Children’s Theater, Theater de la Jeune Lune, The History Theater, Youth Performance Company, and Stages Theater Company.

I attended high school at Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists (SPCPA) in downtown Saint Paul. SPCPA is a public charter school catered towards the performing arts. Being in the theater track, I spent half of the day in academics and the other half in theater classes. The purpose of SPCPA was to get out and work; which I certainly did!

After graduating high school a semester early, I packed up and drove out to Los Angeles in 2010. In California, I spent two years at Glendale Community College before transferring to California State University Northridge where I graduated Magna Cum Laude in 2014 with a BA in Communication Studies and a Minor in Economics.

While living in LA, I completed the entirety of The Groundlings School before the age of 23. I’ve also appeared on television shows such as The Young And The Restless, For The People, Disney Descendants: School of Secrets, Major Crimes, and Castle; feature films such as the award-winning Crossing Fingers, Beneath The Banyan Tree, and The Candle And The Curse; national commercials for Taco Bell and FedEx; as well as numerous short films and independent projects. My time in LA did not go without struggles.

While continuing to pursue acting, I worked at GameStop, for an event company, for a school that teaches people how to trade stocks online, as a telemarketer, as a brand ambassador, pretty much any odd job that would support my acting career I took. I even started working as a casting assistant and casting associate for two different offices! But it wasn’t until I started to create my own content that things really took off.

In 2018, I received a Primetime Emmy Nomination for Outstanding Actor in a Short Form Comedy or Drama Series for my role as Liam in Broken; a series I produced and developed. My life has definitely changed since the nomination, and I am more than willing to share my story with others.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Becoming an actor is never a smooth road. Nothing can prepare you for the unpredictability of the entertainment industry. Everything that could happen between an actor and their representation has happened to me.

I’ve been dropped, I’ve dropped reps after not seeing eye-to-eye, agents have split apart losing me in the shuffle, agencies have closed without warning, agents have simply disappeared on me- I even had an agent pass away unexpectedly.

But through all of these experiences, I never lost sight of what I came to LA to do. And that’s what has set me apart from other actors. I never gave up after the first rejection, and I won’t give up after the thousandth.

We’d love to hear more about what you do.
When it comes to creating one’s own content, the thing that sets me apart from others is that I followed through. So many people are all talk and no bite in this town. I had never ventured into producing until Broken.

The idea for creating my own content came out of the fact that I was not getting auditions or working as an actor at the time. So rather than sit around wondering why the phone wasn’t ringing, I decided to create my own opportunities.

I pulled in three of my friends (who were also not working as much as they would have liked) and we began collaborating on the short form series Broken. Broken deals with the stigma surrounding mental health, specifically schizophrenia.

Mental health is an important topic that few fully understand unless they have first-hand experience dealing with it themselves or with someone they love. I took on the role of Liam, a young man suffering from paranoid schizophrenia who’s medication is switched causing him to succumb to his delusions with tragic results.

With no studio or network backing us or Broken, we managed to gather a 30 plus person crew and shot on two RED Cameras, a dolly, a Steadicam, and almost entirely in my director’s dad’s house. We built two apartments and a therapist office all inside of the single home.

We shot Broken in just eight days in January of 2018, often 12 pages per day; a highly aggressive shoot schedule; and went into post the day after filming wrapped. Broken spent less than two months in post and was released online in its entirety on April 13, 2018.

But in the end, all of our hard work paid off. I personally received a Primetime Emmy Nomination for Outstanding Actor in a Short Form Comedy or Drama Series. My co-star Lee Garlington also received her first Primetime Emmy Nomination for Outstanding Actress in a Short Form Comedy or Drama Series for her role as Darlene, giving Broken two Primetime Emmy Nominations.

This proves that if you have the drive and desire necessary, you can accomplish whatever you put your mind to. For the rest of my life, I will be a Primetime Emmy Nominated Actor- a title I earned by never giving up.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
If I had to start over, the only thing I would change is: I would have been born in LA and started acting as a toddler.

That is the only competitive edge that I missed out on by moving here at age 17. But, that’s not how the world works for most aspiring actors. My true answer is Nothing. The trials and tribulations I’ve faced in LA have shaped me into who I am today. Everything that I have done in the past nine years of living in LA has led me to the point where I am now.

The Emmy nomination is absolutely 100% a game changer for me. But who’s to say that I would have earned that title had I done something differently? You can’t dwell on the past or the woulda-coulda-shoulda’s; you’ll go crazy! If you are genuinely a nice person, show up on time, and do your work in a professional manner, people will take notice.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.brokentheseries.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MilesTagtmeyer/?hl=en
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/milestagtmeyer?lang=en
• Other: www.imdb.me/milestagtmeyer

Image Credit:
Russell Baer, Robert Kazandjian

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