EP 36: Tony Cauch: Banker Turned Actor

Banker, reggae musician, MC and actor Tony Cauch is my guest on this episode of Second Act Actors. Tony’s embraced many careers in his life and has now retired from banking to pursue his creative passions full time, as he tells me in our interview.

Tony and I discuss why he chose banking over music earlier in his life and whether the millennial generation felt obligated to choose ‘traditional’ careers because they grew up seeing their parents hate their jobs. Tony tells me what surprised him about starting to work as an actor and the ‘culture shock’ that he experienced when he realised that he was no longer the decision-maker in the room.

We then talk about the importance of creativity and how uniquely human it is to be driven by the desire to create and enjoy art, music, and theatre, and Tony shares his words of wisdom to anyone who feels stuck in their day job.

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Timestamps

[0:37] Tony’s career in acting, MC’ing, and banking

[3:30] The ‘look at me!’ bug and why Tony went into banking

[5:20] What Tony’s brought from banking to acting

[6:40] How Tony made a gradual switch from banking into acting

[8:30] What made Tony feel comfortable enough to pursue acting in the ‘second stage’ of his life?

[9:30] Tony describes the ‘culture shock’ of starting to work as an actor

[10:45] “I wasn’t really all that serious about it”: Tony’s formal acting training and the difficulty of acting in an accent

[13:56] How hard can it be to act with a parrot?!

[16:15] Where Tony’s at with his music career

[18:50] The story of how Tony discovered reggae

[20:18] Tony explains why creativity is so important