Biography
Born April 27, 1964 in Kirkland Lake, Ontario, Michael Mahonen is an award-winning actor, screenwriter, director and film producer whose work has been seen in over 160 countries around the world.

As a child Michael didn’t have a particular interest in acting and looks back on his first acting experience as something he wasn’t the least bit interested in or inspired to do. “It was some sort of Charlie Brown show in grade three or four,” he says. “I was given the part of Charlie, and I remember having to be forced to learn my lines at the last minute and was quite bored with the actual work aspect. I liked just hanging out with the other kids when we rehearsed. The poor teacher was so frustrated with me and my lines and was quite nervous about the whole thing from what I remember.”

For some unknown reason, however, Michael felt prompted to take an acting class in seventh grade. Once a week he made the trek across town in the middle of winter, to attend an evening acting class held by a man who had arrived in town looking for employment. The class ended abruptly, but the teacher took him aside and told him that when it came time to think of what he wanted to do for a living he should seriously consider acting.

After spending two years at Northern College in Kirkland Lake, where he played on two provincial college championship basketball teams, Michael took a year off school to contemplate his future while working at various jobs such as living in the bush planting trees, construction and house painting. The seed of acting that had been planted back in seventh grade returned to Michael’s mind. He moved to Toronto and auditioned for the Theatre Arts Program at George Brown College and was accepted. Peter Wylde, head of acting at the school, had a profound influence on Michael as an actor and a person. Wylde also directed a production of “Hamlet” in which Michael had the title role.

After graduating from George Brown in 1989, Michael auditioned for a young company being formed for The Citadel Theatre in Edmonton. Auditions were held across Canada for actors under the age of 35 and Michael secured one of fifteen coveted positions in this prestigious group. His first job as a professional actor, he played the role of James Keller in "The Miracle Worker," and the roles of Lucius and Popilious Lena in "Julius Caesar." A whirlwind of leading roles in theaters across Canada followed, including "Biloxi Blues" at Stage West in Calgary, "D Street and Broadway" at Toronto’s Factory Theater, and "Bordertown Cafe" at Theater New Brunswick.

In 1990 he was chosen for the role of Gus Pike, the teenage ship-wrecked orphan, on Disney’s’ Emmy-award winning television program Avonlea. Although he was originally scheduled to appear in only two episodes, the character he created won the praise of the critics and was so endearing to viewers that Gus was written into two more episodes in season two and his contract was extended for two additional seasons. He garnered 3 Gemini Award nominations in 1993, 1994 and 1995 for his work on that series.

He starred opposite Billy Dee Williams in his 1992 film debut as Arvo Leek, the jazz trumpet prodigy, in Giant Steps.

A significant role in Michael’s acting career came when he auditioned for the part of Lee Colgan in the CBC miniseries Conspiracy of Silence. Bernard Zuckerman, Executive Producer, auditioned over 400 actors for the part. Under the direction of the late Frances Mankiewicz, the film focuses on the chilling 16 year silence of an entire town that knew the identity of the four assailants who murdered a young native girl, Helen Betty Osborne, in The Pas, Manitoba. Central to the plot is the life of Colgan chronicled out from the age of 17 to 33, and the living hell he experienced from the night of Betty’s slaying.

A strong work ethic combined with abundant physical and mental endurance was necessary for him to manage the unusual circumstance of shooting two very different projects at the same time in 1991. Playing the appealing, down-to-earth teenager Gus Pike on Avonlea by day and the 33 year old guilt-ridden, self-destructive Lee Colgan on the award-winning CBC mini-series Conspiracy of Silence at night resulted in double Gemini nominations in the same year. During Conspiracy, Michael’s character ages over 15 years from a teenager to alcoholic adult, and his compelling performance captured the Gemini win for Best Actor in a Television Mini-Series or Film.

In 1994 Michael co-starred with Michael Riley in The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios, a breakthrough television special based on an award winning short story of the same name. Michael played the character of Paul , a young man dying of the AIDS virus after contracting it from a blood transfusion a few years earlier.
By this time Michael was splitting his time between Los Angeles and Toronto, returning to Canada on several occasions to perform various roles in theater and also to film episodes for the final two seasons of Avonlea. In the summer of 1994 he played the role of Jacob Mercer in Salt Water Moon, part of David French’s Mercer family saga set in Newfoundland.

He guest starred in numerous American and Canadian television projects including an episode of Star Trek: Voyager entitled “Nemesis” in which he played the recognizable humanoid, Brone. He also guest starred as John Jewitt in the epic television series A People’s History of Canada.

In 1997, Michael starred in the world premiere of Judith Thompson’s Sled at Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre then returned to film, co-starring in the cult thriller Captured. He went on to record The Red Badge of Courage for CBC Radio and was seen in the television productions of Whoopi Goldberg’s Strong Medicine and Canada’s acclaimed series, This is Wonderland. He went on to make several more films including a cameo in the 2008 mystery-drama Blindness starring Julianne Moore.

In 2003, Michael began work on his first feature film, Sandstorm©, a fact-based drama about the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China. He wrote, directed and produced the entire project for under $5,000 with an all-volunteer cast. Screened as a work-in-progress at film festivals around the world, the work received 29 awards including Best Feature Film, Best Drama, Best Director and Best Screenplay. Set for theatrical release in New York and Los Angeles starting September 4, 2009, the film will be also be released on DVD with English, French, Spanish and Mandarin subtitles and will include a Director’s Commentary and Director’s Interview.

Presently, Michael has several other film projects in development all under the banner of his U.S. based production company Requisite Films (www.requisitefilm.com). The mission for Requisite Films is to produce entertaining and enlightening films of integrity that awaken conscience and inspire compassion.