Glenn Keogh is living proof that the years of your life you devote to college do not necessarily dictate how the rest of your life will be spent. Originally hailing from Blackrock in Dublin, by the time he was 24 years old, he had already enjoyed a promising, but ill fated football career, and was a qualified accountant. Once his college years (spent in Griffith College Dublin) were behind him, he did as many Irish do and moved across the pond to Australia.
It was during his Aussie years that he began to have the inevitable doubts that plague the average twenty-something – do I really want to work a 9 to 5 job for the rest of my life? He pin-points this time as when he ‘caught the acting bug’, so to speak. He left his job at an Australian tech company to study acting for four years and hasn’t looked back since.
Keogh’s acting career has certainly been diverse – from a stint in long running US soap opera ‘Days of Our Lives’ to more recently a part in the 2014 blockbuster ‘Transformers: Age Of Extinction’. Fans may also have spotted him during guest appearances in popular US televisions shows like ‘Sons of Anarchy,’ ‘New Girl’ and ‘Criminal Minds’.
Despite working comfortably as an actor for many years now, when asked about the prospect of relying on acting as your sole income, Keogh offered caution to anyone considering it. “You have to look at the statistics”, he explains, “say in Los Angeles, of the 130,000 actors in the union, only about 6,000 of those are working regularly enough to make a living.”
It’s figures like these that lead Glenn to implore any young Irish person who is hoping to establish themselves as an actor to be wise and get a qualification in another field to fall back on, should their dream not come to fruition.
Taking his own advice, Glenn’s career has taken yet another change in direction in the last two years, as he involved himself in the Lucey Fund. Similar to uStart, the Lucey Fund aids entrepeneurs who wish to launch a startup, but do not have the connections in the technology industry or skills that they need.
Where uStart provide startups with cash to spend as they feel necessary, the Lucey Fund focuses on putting entrepeneurs in touch with the right people within the industry.
“It’s an exciting new venture but at the same time it’s linked to my tech roots”, says Glenn. It does not however mean a retirement from acting is on the cards, as he intends to keep taking acting gigs as they come.
In fact, his agent is currently ‘putting out the feelers’ for an Irish role, which would be a first for Glenn.
Gary Grimes
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