Power's Michael Rainey Jr. Shares The Best Advice 50 Cent Has Given Him

we were just in this trailer like chilling chopping it up and like this one thing he told me he was like don't ever feel too you know entitled to where you deprive yourself and that always stuck with me because it's like I could I could literally count on my hands like I'm like the amount of situations I've been in where I felt like I should you know I should have this like I should be I'm entitled to this whole time there's a big blessing out there that I'm blind to because I'm so entitled to this and I'm depriving myself to a way bigger blessing so like hi everyone and welcome to New Money where we talk to movers and shakers about how they made it I'm your host Rosemary Miller here with Michael Rainey Jr an actor best known for his role as Tariq St Patrick on power thank you so much for joining me today Michael thank you for having me thank you for having me I'm excited absolutely so Michael you've been an actor your entire life yes I have since I was around like eight I say eight but like like it really really started when I was like nine going on 10 I did my first movie when I was nine so yeah like around like 9 going on 10 that's really when it kind of like really started moving moving for me yeah and how'd you get started was it you who wanted it was it your parents you know it's weird like you know as a kid like you watch TV obviously and you're like oh like look at Nickelodeon look at Disney and like I like I would love to be a part of this obviously but like it was just always a throw in my mind I never really like was like oh my I want to be on TV like oh I want to be on Disney like and then it just happened like one day I was in the city with my mom we're going to get lunch and a lady named Gina from Generations uh that's a talent agency at the time she literally just walked up to my mom and said like your son has a great face for like acting or modeling like does he is he like does he do any of that and she was like no and then um like a week after we ended up um they they had a meeting in the office and after that they just started getting me like auditions for like um Sesame Street I did like a little commercial for Price Choppers and things just started like you know like rolling in and then yeah and then after that it was just you know motion the rest is history okay what was your financial situation like at that time I mean growing up I mean it wasn't like like we didn't have anything like we couldn't eat or anything it was like you know just regular like you know regular living like we weren't Rich we weren't like you know poor it was just you know regular just regular living and then you know I joined the family and made a change gu yeah and so how did your first few gigs go like was that the moment where the money started coming in or what it's so funny all right so my first few gigs were um like I said the commercial for priz Choppers I did like a photo shoot for Target then I did this music video for an Italian singer named tisano fero and it went like super crazy in Italy and then an Italian director named Sylvio moino he saw that video and was like I don't know how he got in contact with my mom but he got in contact with my mom he's like I saw your son in a music video and like I need him to be a part of my movie like I want him to be the the the star one movie and my mom thought it was like a joke at first and then um obviously she like she went around asked questions and um it was you know legit and then we ended up going to Italy for like 10 days and then came back home and then went back to Italy and I ended up living there for a year and a half filming that movie so like stuff just started happening fast you know like literally just like like this it was it was crazy so why did they want an American kid a black American kid in their stuff I have no I that's what that's the first thing I always thought like how do you see a music video like I wasn't even saying I wasn't speaking or anything like you literally just see my face like maybe just like expressing emot emtions and like that I'm like how do you like come to like conclusion you want me in your movie just from music video but um the role was um he was like a mulato kid like he was an Italian kid his his his dad was Italian and his mom was African and um yeah and then and the kid actually spoke like full Italian so I had to learn Italian for the film and everything and um yeah I I still don't understand why he chose me but I guess it was a good choice yeah it was a good choice so as you kind of like basically fell into acting was there anything else you ever wanted to do with your life um really like the first like I've always been in love with like Arts like all type of art like you know visual art musical like everything so from a kid like I was in love with music first like music was my first love like I'm a producer now as well so I make music still to this day but music was my first love and then obviously you know like sports you know the young kids you know we love sports and then um you know it came to to to a point where I was like I don't really have time to play play sports cuz you know the acting kind of really um kind of really took over but for the most part I really was just like into music and art before like the acting acting really started and then everything just started coming together so what do you mean by the acting acting see like I would say like I said like I never really thought of like really wanting to be on the screen like obviously I would watch and be like oh it would be cool to be a part of it but then you know it just started happening and then yeah it's just the rest of his history M and when did you realize okay my career is really taking off what projects were you working on or what attention were you starting to Garner um obviously power was you know my that's like you know the a life-changing role for me but I would say like around like season three of power I like during the Hiatus when we uh finished filming season 2 um I did uh Barber Shop 3 the next uh the next cut and um after that movie I feel like uh the writers and and and everyone at Power like they kind of saw like me and A different light and that's kind of when they started like you know like building on my on my character story in the show and then after that it was kind of like all right now I see now I kind of see where like my career is kind of going like I'm getting like my workload is a lot heavier now like you know they're kind of like they they trust me a lot more with you know with the material that they giv me so I kind of see where where this can go but I definitely did not expect like the character to you know to go from where what he was to obviously not what he is now well you clearly did that you got something to do with that so congratulations I appreciate it I appreciate it how did your life change though with power man my life changed drastically like obviously you know I've been I've been working since I was um since I was young but my mom like she also always did a great job of like kind of like helping me save my money since I was a kid like I didn't know I didn't really know what kind of numbers I was pulling in until I was like 17 18 you know like my mom really did like a good job is like putting money away from me you know when I was young because obviously like at a young age like I don't really know what what I really want to do with that money like yeah so she she really did a good job at kind of like you know just making sure a lot of it was put away for when I reached the age to where it's like all right I could do this with my money I could do that with my money and um yeah I appreciate her for that because I I literally did not know like obviously I knew I was making money but I didn't know you know the numbers I was pulling in until I was 18 or like 17 or 18 17 yeah so did the life changing money happened around power or what um I would say but like I said she was putting money away from me like before that so I guess like it was some of it was still there before power but obviously power was just like a completely different you know machine for me like it was that was completely life-changing for me like so how did you learn once you gain control of your money how did you learn how to manage it um obviously I'm still learning you know I'm still young so I'm still learning how to you know um manage my money but um I really just you know just like take advice from the people that are around me like like I said being on power changed my life not even just like you know career-wise just being on that show being like on set with everybody like every day you know just being around those great people those great minds like I learned a lot you know like obviously from 50 from Omari from from Joseph so you know everything they they they taught me on set I kind of just um I just kind of play it close to me and I keep it with me everywhere I go and F50 definitely told me saave that bread speaking of you and 50 all right there was that little moment where you felt blindsided by not knowing that ghost was coming to an end are y'all good now oh no we super good I was really just pulling a page out of 50s but cuz look I'm I'm going to tell y I knew that you know obviously I knew that the show was going to come to an end way before they announced it you know the we had a talk about it um the studio and n50 and but I really just pulled a page out of 50s book kind of like just trolling everybody cuz like you know like why not stir the pot a little bit so I was like damn they ending the show they not going to tell nobody and then um obviously 50 came back with the yeah we ended your show cuz you don't you don't answer your phone so like you know just like a little back and forth just to get the you know the fans like you know just to have him thinking like what was really going on you know just a little just to stir the pot a little bit so he's one of your mentors oh yeah for sure that's like a father figure in my life like yeah yeah like my I could call him for literally anything like any advice any anything I I need I could literally call 50 like even even my mom even my mom will call 50 like if she say if she sees me doing something that she's not really a big fan of she'll call 50 I'm calling 50 and then she'll call 50 and then trust me I'm getting that code for 50 right after so yeah 50 is definitely like a like a father figure to me like he he gives me he we'll be on the phone for like 3 hours literally just talking about like everything so yeah yeah he's definitely like a like a pop to me for sure what's the best piece of advice 50's given you um it's literally countless but this is um this is something I keep close to me this is when we were this is when like my my character actually started like building in in the show it was like season 3 we were in Red Hook Brooklyn filming on one of the scenes we were just in this trailer like chilling chopping it up and like this one thing he told me he was like don't ever feel too you know entitled to where you deprive yourself and I always stuck with me cuz it's like I could I could literally count on my hands like I'm like the amount of situations I've been in where I felt like I should you know I should have this like I should be I'm entitled to this whole time there's a big blessing out there that I'm blind to because I'm so entitled to this and I'm depriving myself to a way bigger blessing so like well Michael going back to ghost coming to an end what's next for you what's next for Michael um a lot is next for for Michael because you know like the the the platform that P's given us is just is huge so it's a blessing to be in the position I am and obviously like I can navigate in different avenues like me and Giani we we started our production company and um uh obviously moving forward we're going to focus on getting some some more projects under the belt of that we did the podcast at first you know I have a a restur in Jamaica that I own it's called catch22 and I also have a um I'm part of a franchise called herbs Jamaica this it's a dispensary that I own as well so um right now we're actually moving locations to like a bigger space and I'm super excited about that we're kind of like redecorating kind of like rebranding the whole thing and um yeah I'm super excited about that also I'm also you know monetizing my love for cars so I'm going to start a um uh I'm starting a car Channel and I'm going to just be featuring the craziest car builds from all over the world I'm going to be reaching reaching out to everybody that has the craziest cars and I'm going to be featuring them on my channel that's going to be called 22 PSI um yeah for the entrepreneur Michael that's you know that's that's what's going on right now for the person Michael you know I'm just chilling I'm just chilling vibing um I'm actually leaning in to start you know working working really like heavy with my solid help Foundation that's like my nonprofit um we do like we help with like college tuition and you know like uh food drives and you know clothes and stuff like that for you know the less fortunate and um I'm this year I'm kind of you know I'm going to press the button on doing a lot more with that you know I've been doing you know stuff here and there for the foundation but I think now it's time to kind of just like you know just attack it fully and just go crazy and just you know go crazy you know that's really bold by the way especially the music thing because you know people like to pigeon hole you they see you like you're an actor this is what you do how dare you try to cross over and into music what are your thoughts on that what are your thoughts on how the world is going to perceive you I mean you know everyone is going to have their you know their good things to say and the negatives to say but at the end of the day it's like this is something I love you know like music is something I love and I've been doing I've been making music for like for fun for my whole entire life so it's like I'm still doing it for fun but it's just kind of just bringing it to the Forefront you know just letting people know that I'm that I do music that I don't only act and you know there's other Arts that I that I that I enjoy you know so just want to you know show people a little bit more of Michael you know cuz you know Tariq is kind of like he's in the in the light but I kind of want people to know who Michael is rather than just you know toi cuz Michael's pretty cool dude Michael's pretty cool D well tell us about Michael actually aside from just the music and the things you do who are you who are you inside Michael is uh is a Arty car fiend like I love cars and I love art like I love fashion cars and yeah that's literally it like cars is my is my love though like that's my those are my babies right there like I don't I don't even know that how to explain my love for cars like so it sounds like you want to lean into music more so than you want to keep leaning into acting no not necessarily you know like it's a balance you know it's a balance but like I said music has always been my love so like being that I have you know the platform that I have now why not just use it and and you know put my music on on the platform and and have people open the eyes and open the ears to my music and at the same time I'm going still be attacking you know the screen you know I'm still be auditioning and also I'm going to be writing as well like I'm forming My Writers team shout out to Courtney Camp I stole that idea from her so I'm forming My Writers team right now it's about five of us right now and we're currently writing about like two or three projects so you know there just a lot of a lot of things in the works a lot of things in the works and just taking advantage of the position that I'm in you know and and the blessings that God has given me oh Michael I I heard you say say that it's a blessing to be in this position could you tell me a little bit about your spiritual life I'm I'm I'm pretty spiritual I would say I I have like a I don't know I guess I'm you would think you would say I'm spiritual right n in a way yeah I guess I'm spiritual I mean um you know I just I just I'm big on like gratitude and just being thankful and and stuff like that so like I'm just super super gr super grateful for just being in the position I am and obviously I believe in a man up above of so um I thank him every chance I get for my blessings for sure well I'm not going to hold you too much longer but I am curious to know about your work ethic what do you think stands out about your work ethic that you believe has put you in the position you're in right now um I think like the fact that I I kind of have like my hands in like in so many different areas like I said like music producing you know acting and just like are I just feel like a lot of things I do is just like I don't know I'm very passionate about it you know I'm super passionate about the things I do and even like when like when it comes to like fashion stuff like that like I'm I'm super passionate about that you know I just I just everything I I attack I kind of just want to give it my old so you know yeah that's that's how I am we ask everybody this on new money what has been the smartest purchase and the dumbest purchase you've made since you've gotten money my smartest purchase I would definitely probably say some Bitcoin some some ethereum some land um my dumbest purchase I mean I guess like certain people will classify this as dumb but I love cars so like so it's like I I I I I can't ever look at it as a dumb purchase but so uh Porche 911 Turbo S at 23 is kind of crazy but yeah I mean you know when you work you got to kind of treat yourself and that's the that's the way I wanted to treat myself but I would say that's kind of a crazy purchase at this age but you know it is what it is you got to got to enjoy you got to enjoy yourself got to treat yourself I like those answers you're talking to a former cryptocurrency reporter so I like that answer I'm not going to lie when I when I bought that Bitcoin at first I'm like H and now you know like it it hit like the yeah I'm like oh yeah thank God I'm like thank God I did that yeah so we back we back for sure well thank you so much for joining me today thank you for having me I appreciate it for sure of course

Channel: Forbes

Views: 177,992

Keywords: Forbes, Forbes Media, Forbes Magazine, Forbes Digital, Business, Finance, Entrepreneurship, Technology, Investing, Personal Finance, Actor from power, Michael Rainey jr, Power ghost, Actor, 50 cent, what an actor spends his money on, Actors with car collections, CAr collections, Child acting, acting since childhood, power the book of ghost

Id: ntkcwYCQI8U

Length: 16min 44sec (1004 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 26 2024