Cormac Cullinane calmly took the call from his manager who delivered the good news that he had landed his first TV gig on the new TNT drama "Public Morals." But once he hung up the phone, he couldn't help but celebrate.
"I tried to play it off cool, but the second that we hung up, me and my mother started running around the house screaming because we were so estatic," Cullinane told Headlines & Global News in an exclusive interview.
The good news didn't stop there for the 13-year-old actor. His co-star and "Public Morals" creator Edward Burns let him in on a little secret when they first met before shooting: executive producer and Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg had specifically picked out Cullinane for the role of James Muldoon, the teenage son of Burns' detective Terry Muldoon of the Public Morals Division.
"I didn't respond at first because I was very, very confused," he said, laughing. "Then [Burns] came out and told my mom and she did not speak a word. It was literally one of the greatest moments of my life."
"Public Morals" tells the story of New York City's Public Morals Division in the early 1960s. Det. Muldoon and his squad walk the line between morality and criminality as they contend to avoid temptation themselves. James also toes the line between behaving as a young man should and seeking a life of crime.
"I'm at a crossroads in my life. I'm on the road toward a criminal life and my dad is really trying to prevent me from going that way," Cullinane said. "There are so many little things that can influence me. I get in trouble at school and I do generally bad kid things but it's not because I want to p--- off my dad. It's just what I'm doing at this stage in my life. I don't want my dad to hate me."
Like his character, Cullinane comes from an Irish-American family but maintains a good relationship with his own Irish-born father who helped him prepare for his "Public Morals" audition.
"As soon as I got the breakdown [for the character] I felt a connection. My dad took me in and dressed me up in this old, dirty t-shirt with his huge work boots, ripped jeans and made me do 100 push-ups just five minutes before I went in there to help me get into my body," he said.
Cullinane was born in New York but at age 4 moved to Ireland with his family. They returned to the United States at age 8, moving back to Queens, N.Y. where he took up acting around age 11. He shares a background of growing up in the city like Burns, whose own experiences inspired some of the stories on the show.
"It's phenomenal," Cullinane said about working with the prolific New Yorker. "These are his experiences. After we've finished filming the scene, he tells me the story of what happened when he was a kid and it's amazing. He's just a real guy. There's nothing fake about him."
"Public Morals" has also educated the native New Yorker about the gangs that ran New York City in the 1960s. He learned something new with ever script he read. "It was so different from now" Cullinane said
When he's not acting, the young performer has an incredible talent for learning how to play a number of instruments. He began playing the piano at the tender age of 2 and picked up the guitar from his mother, who has played for more than 30 years. He also can play the trumpet, the organ, the ukulele, bass and "a little bit of violin."
"We had a piano and I would listen to songs and then I'd be able to play them. Each [instrument] sort of built off each other," Cullinane said. "Then I started finding instruments. My aunt had an accordion, so I picked that up. It just built until I had this cornucopia of instruments."
Outside of the arts, Cullinane enjoys spending his time at Brooklyn Zoo NY, a training gym for parkour. A friend he met making an independent movie invited him to the facility once and he quickly started learning the basics.
"It's so much fun. You walk in there and the ceiling is like 50 feet high and music is blasting. It's like a playground for adults. They have this thing called the spring floor that triples your jump. They foam pits. It's the best place and it's such a good community," he said.
Getting my flips in all directions at the Brooklyn Zoo! #brooklynzoo #brooklynbeast #nyc #parkour #freerunning #actor pic.twitter.com/KbcfEBtt43
— Cormac Cullinane (@Cormacullinane) July 15, 2015
Cullinane hopes to keep acting in his future even though his mother almost pulled the plug just shy of his audition for "Public Morals." The two had come to agreement when he started going on auditions that they would do it for a year and if it didn't work out, they would "shut it down." When the year was up, Cullinane urged his mom for just a little more time.
"Then that went on and then I got 'Public Morals.' She said, 'Cormac, we're not shutting it down!'" he said, laughing.
"Public Morals" premieres tonight, Aug. 25 at 10 p.m. on TNT.
