MICHAEL LESLIE: ACTOR & COMMERCIAL MODEL

I began acting in 1994, mostly to take a break from the lab. I had taken a few acting courses to fulfill an undergraduate requirement at Rhodes College, but I had never been in a real performance. I began to take acting classes at UAB, and soon I was addicted. I started appearing in mainstage UAB productions and other performances around Birmingham, and as my acting talent improved I got an agent and began to act professionally. Professional acting and modeling helped to fund the late stages of my graduate career, and had it not been for this relatively lucrative outlet I may well have abandoned graduate school... To protect my published scientific name and preserve my anonymity, I decided to use the name Michael Leslie (my middle name) as a stagename. To this day, much of the theatre community knows little about my true identity. In 2004 I moved to Chicago in an attempt to pursue theatre and commercial work on a more dedicated level.