Dec’s living the Hollywood dream.
Declan Michael Laird is just a nipper of 20, but he’s already packed more into his two decades than many of us do in a lifetime. As a youngster, he was signed to Greenock Morton’s youth team. He dreamed of playing football professionally, but an injury put paid to that.
He then tried out for the TV show Junior Apprentice. Sir Alan Sugar’s loss is showbusiness’s gain, because for the last two years Declan Michael, from Kilmalcolm, has been trying to make it big in Hollywood. An acting scholarship has led to parts in a play on Hollywood Boulevard, a TV pilot and a short film.
It all began when he was on holiday with his parents in Los Angeles and tried out a free acting workshop at the Stella Adler Academy, one of Hollywood’s most respected star schools. He impressed them so much that he ended up being offered a full scholarship to the Academy. The last person to manage that feat was Robert de Niro. So, Dec, are you telling me you’re the new Robert de Niro?
“Hahaha! No, I’m not saying that,” he says. “But when I got offered the scholarship and was told the last person to get it was de Niro I thought I was being pranked!”
Let’s face it, it’s all a long way from River City. But Declan Michael has a lot to thank the Shieldinch soap for. He was in the show for five episodes. It was his first audition and he got the part. He was on his way.
He’d never even considered acting as a career. It was thanks to one of Sir Alan’s ‘people’ that he decided to give it a go. “I got quite far in the Junior Apprentice right down to the last stages before the final selection,” Declan Michael says. “One of the producers said to me I had a knack, a charisma, for being on camera and told me to consider acting.”
I’m intrigued about what his Apprentice business was.
“Well, when I was at school I always fancied myself as a bit of a Del Boy. When our school tuck shop closed, I saw an opportunity and bought 400 Snickers to sell from my PE bag!” he laughs. “But then the headmaster caught me and shut me down!”
At the age of just 18, Declan Michael found himself on a flight to LA to take up that scholarship.
“I was so excited. Then when I landed at the airport, reality set in and I realised I was going to be on my own,” he confesses.
Luckily mum Michelle was on hand, but only for the first couple of weeks.
“It was quite an emotional goodbye at the airport,” he admits. “She told me later that she cried all the way home on the plane! But Ross King has helped me to settle in and taken me under his wing.”
Life in Los Angeles took a bit of getting used to.
“You know, Ross always calls it Lala Land and he’s right. I always think it’s not even America, LA is its own wee world. And 80% of the people live in lala in their heads!”
Dec says one of the strangest aspects is the people you run into. You can be walking down the street or in the supermarket and Tom Cruise walks past you. It’s kind of surreal.”
Only one celeb has left him starstruck.
“My mum was visiting me. We were in the Beverly Center and I’d just been to H&M. So I was walking around with my David Beckham carrier bag and we went into Starbucks and who was in the queue behind us but Becks!
“I don’t normally ask anyone for photos. But with him, I just had to. He was great, gave us a hug and offered to buy our coffee for us.”
He loves the LA way of life. But he misses a few home comforts, too. “Oh, I still have a square sausage and black pudding roll when I come home,” he says. “Nothing like it!”
There’s a huge expat community in Lala and every week Declan Michael plays in a Brits football team with Vinnie Jones.
“He has a tough exterior but he’s really a big teddy bear!”
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