Mike Migliara’s second act: Helping aspiring actors crack the code of casting
Mike Migliara, BFA 14, leads a casting workshop at the Screen Acting Academy, where aspiring actors gain insights into the art of casting and performance.
With more than 24 years of experience in film, Mike Migliara, BFA 14, has good reason to be passionate about the medium: he’s worked in the casting department of more than 35 films and has coached dozens of actors as the founder and director of the Screen Acting Academy. It’s a job he doesn’t take lightly.
“In many films and TV shows, the principal actors will be great, of course, but it’s up to the casting department to find those sideline actors who will really shine in their role,” he says.
Indeed, the crucial contribution of casting skill to film production is finally being recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, as of 2026, with a new Oscar for best casting. The BAFTAs introduced its best casting award in 2020.
With locations in Calgary (where Migliara is based) and Ottawa, the Screen Acting Academy prepares Hollywood hopefuls with skills training and career-management coaching.
Coaching came naturally to Migliara, who also worked privately with notable actors before launching the Academy. Those stars include Michael Mando, who played Nacho Varga in Better Call Saul, and Tim Rozon who is best known as Doc Holliday in Wynonna Earp.
Migliara has helped cast actors for films such as Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (directed by George Clooney), Lucky Number Slevin, the 2008 reboot of Get Smart, and The Spiderwick Chronicles.
The hard lean into the film industry came about easily for Migliara, who fostered his love for the performance as early as his teens.
Migliara has coached a number of notable actors, including Tim Rozon, known for his work in Wynonna Earp and Schitt’s Creek.
Answering when opportunity knocks
Growing up in an Italian family in Montreal, Migliara’s first theatre experience was in high school, when he was cast in productions by the late Carlo Gozzi, the 18th-century commedia dell’arte dramatist.
“That’s when I got the acting bug,” he recalls, adding how hosting his own unnamed radio show at that age also gave him the confidence to perform. Later, at Dawson College, he hosted another radio show, called Mike Mig’s Madness.
Migliara had always loved movies and when he enrolled in the cinema program at Dawson College, it felt like a natural step. He says it was enriching to learn how so many elements come together to make a film, from sound to lighting to cinematography.
When he satisfied his acting itch by entering Concordia’s Department of Theatre soonafter, something didn’t feel right. “I didn’t want to hear any lectures,’ he recalls. “I just wanted the script and to memorize my lines.”
He admired the work ethic and mentorship of instructors who left a mark on him at Concordia before he dropped out, including Gerry Gross, Ted Little, Peter Batakliev and Robert Reid.
When Migliara left Concordia, he soon found work at a casting agency where, on his first day, he walked by both Robert De Niro and Ed Norton. There was a sense of snagging life by the lapels and seeing where it would take him.
“When I see an opportunity, I grab it, that’s who I am,” he says.
As a casting director, Migliara tends to look at the film as a whole and what is needed for everything to go smoothly. “The entire composition of the cast and crew is hopefully as harmonious with each other as possible,” he says. “That’s the goal — everybody is important in a film.”
Amid his bustling work in casting departments, Concordia was never far from Migliara’s mind. After spending more than 20 years in casting for dozens of feature-length and short films, he returned to the university to finish his BFA in theatre in 2014.
“Coming back to Concordia really cultivated my imagination, and I got to know the industry parlance of theatre and film really well,” he says.
Working first as an acting coach in Montreal, Migliara found a new passion: improving an actor’s ability to bring that inherent truth to their performance.
“I love cultivating the talent — that magical power, of dissolving the audition room and making everyone forget the actor is actually acting,” he says.
First located in Ottawa, Screen Acting Academy branched out to Calgary in 2022 when Migliara headed west for personal reasons.
He plans to expand further, notably to Vancouver. “It’s going to be a challenge,” he admits, “and you hear it on Shark Tank all the time, how expanding a business is making it vulnerable, but that’s what I want to do next with the Screen Acting Academy.
“I just want to protect actors and make sure that they get the best fighting chance in the most competitive field in the world. And even after they get everything right, they still have luck to look forward to. And certainly, I wish them all the best of luck.”