Our Boy

Michael who? my friend asks.

Bunin. Local guy, now doing well in Hollywood—he’s in the cast of the TBS comedy My Boys (new season begins July 30); he plays Kenny, a sports-memorabilia-store owner and single guy ...

“Never heard of him,” my friend says.

... and he’s made guest appearances on other shows: CSI, Las Vegas, Without a Trace; he had a memorable turn on an episode of Scrubs as Jerry, a patient who thought he was dead. And then there were the dozens of commercials—that was him, tricked by the birds into walking into the sliding glass door in that Windex spot ... it may not be not the fullest resumé in Hollywood, but he has a page on the Internet Movie Database, and ...

Nope. “How much does his signature go for on eBay?”

Well, that’s fame these days. You’re no one until you move the merch on eBay.

Bunin and I are to meet at one of his favorite places, Metro Pizza. I get there early, rev up the laptop. A few minutes later, a waitress sidles up, observes the computer.

“Someone famous?” she asks, holding her tray of dirty dishes.

“Sort of ...”

“Is it the guy in the Windex commercials? He’s in here all the time.”

All the time? He really must be a local.

Bunin arrives shortly. He spots the laptop and heads over.

As with all actors, in person his looks fall somewhere between his driver’s license photo and the professional head-shots his publicist sent over. Mind you, that’s a good thing, chatting with someone when there are no mannered poses or soft-key lighting, and Bunin gets this, too, for he’s dressed in a plain T-shirt, khaki slacks, sneakers and a UNLV baseball cap.

We Q and A.

Seems like you’re a regular here; even the wait staff knows you.

Yeah, whenever I’m back home, this is where come to eat.

You consider this home?

I’m originally from Norfolk, Virginia, but my family relocated here in 1982, when I was 12. My dad started an audio communications business here.

How long did it take you to feel at home?

I liked Vegas immediately. I came from a very humid climate, so the desert landscape suited me fine. Also, I’m a little cautious of Southern hospitality—it was always a very polite way of saying we’re not interested in talking to you—but that’s not the case in Vegas; people do what they do here.

You left for LA several years ago.

About 10 years ago. But I try to come back when I can to visit my family and friends, at least once every three months, but no longer than that. I know where my friends are hanging out, the Hookah Lounge or Paddy’s pub. They can’t get away from me.

You’re more comfortable here than in LA?

I’m comfortable having an interview with you here. I just don’t ever want to be some moron on a red carpet going on about my accomplishments.

We order. Today he’ll have a specialty pizza, the Stockyard—lots of sausage—and we’re eventually joined by one of his friends and performing partners, Dave Goldstein. Goldstein pulls out his BlackBerry and twiddles away. “He’ll be fine,” Bunin assures me.

While Bunin and I have never met, we begin catching it up the way two people who grew up in Vegas before the megaresort era (generally, pre-1988) often do. We run through a range of mutual touchstones: the softcore movies KVVU Channel 5 used to show late at night (we both recall the full nudity in Invasion of the Bee Girls); the days when journalist Ned Day was going after Tony Spilotro; the old Tower Records on Maryland. He’s got serious Vegas cred, this Bunin.

“As a kid, as much as I was into Richard Pryor and Paul Newman, I was shy. In high school [he graduated from Chaparral in ’88] I decided to join speech and debate, and I chose to do humorous interpretation, which was like a comedy event. You had nine tournaments during the school year, plus a county, state competition and eventually the nationals. Anthony Zuiker [who would find fame as the creator of CSI] won the competition two years before me, and he helped me work on a piece together.”

His enthusiasm picks up noticeably.

“That was great, because I got to portray other characters; I broke down a story, and I was getting up in front of a crowd and getting feedback. I mean, it was a rush.”

After high school you enrolled in a theater course.

Originally, I went to UNLV for speech and debate, but I got tired of arguing about food surplus and drug testing, which were the main topics at the time, and then I decided to enroll in a theater course.

Your bio mentions that you enrolled in a theater course for a girl.

[He shrugs good-naturedly and throws his head back.] Yes, that is true. I stuck with theater, but she didn’t. She’s a dentist now. [He mock-fondles his teeth.] That reminds me, I’m due for a dental appointment!

You honed your craft in theater, and many people don’t know this, but there was a funky, underground theater scene back in the day.

Oh, absolutely. In the ’90s, I worked with the Asylum Theater, with Davey and Maggie Winn-Jones, and there was great room for experimentation with them, lots of freedom. There were also some midnight plays we put on at Cafe Copioh [a now-defunct coffeehouse on Maryland Parkway, near the also defunct Cafe Espresso Roma]. Mike Gazal, who owned Cafe Copioh, let us perform there. All the shows we did were originals. Good crowds, good space, and we all wanted it, so we did what we had to do to make it work. The midnight plays are some great memories. One of them was a 10-page play I wrote called Twice in the Head. I later adapted it into a short film. You will be able to see it online in about a month.

But you knew you would have to leave for Los Angeles to achieve the next level ...?

I knew I was going to be an actor, and I didn’t know if I was going to make a living at it. But I had to go. I graduated from UNLV, I was 27 years old, and I was moving to LA. I was just hoping to find enough work to break even. And seriously, you can’t be afraid of failure, if you try ... you don’t fail, and it took awhile, but I started getting work.

Namely commercials?

Right, and some actors might look down on that, but I’m not one of them. If you’re starting out, you’re not in a position to turn your nose at commercials. Give me a product and I’ll pitch it. I’ve done Planter Peanuts, Spam, Budweiser, Saturn, Windex ... they’ve made my bills and allowed me to concentrate on my stage work and given me the freedom to work with my improv group, the Improv Olympics.

How did My Boys come about?

Betsy Thomas is the creator/producer, and for years we’ve just had our weekly card game. Betsy is the girl who can hang with the guys, and she took all the banter and interaction of that and turned it into a show. The show was buried for two years, but it was bought by TBS. Now, I go in with the edge of knowing the creator, and she can suggest to TBS that she’d like to hire me, but it’s up to me to nail the role. But in the end, I felt confident because this show takes place in my world.

Where do you see yourself going if the success of My Boys continues?

Ideally, My Boys will continue, and hopefully I will be able to start working in movies. I am not an actor who wants one or the other; in a perfect world My Boys will continue while I build a movie career and then hopefully end up doing more and more theater.

How do you relate to Las Vegas since it’s changed in the 10 years since you’ve left?

Sometimes when I come back, I say to myself, “Wait a minute, why am I a stranger in Las Vegas?” Things are just different now. Somebody has to impart on a new generation the cafes, experimental theaters or something similar that we had. Someone has to take lead, someone with a track record. I don’t [care] if it’s Dayvid Figler, or Mike Upchurch [a Las Vegan and UNLV graduate who became an Emmy-winning comedy writer in Hollywood] or even me.

I’ve considered opening a place with my brothers in town, and we’ve looked around. If we can have another Espresso Roma, or Copioh, that wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe it could create a spark, with one small place, and it takes off. I don’t necessarily need to be the leader of the wave, but I’d like to be a part of the wave with others that have the same mind-set.

I close the laptop, and as we get ready to leave I make one final suggestion:

“Freed’s Bakery?” Great old place.

“Sure, I’d love to.”

Goldstein looks up from his BlackBerry.

“It’s an old bakery in town,” Bunin assures him.

“Trust us,” I say. Hey, even if Bunin has moved on to a solid basic-cable paycheck and his own page on the Internet Movie Database, he knows a classic haunt when it’s suggested.

Goldstein is game, and with that we’re out the door.

Michael T. Toole is a Las Vegas freelance writer.