Sean Cameron Michael

Versatile character actor Sean Cameron Michael is one of South Africa’s most prolific and successful exports to Hollywood. Having consistently worked during the past four decades on over 130 TV, film and theater productions, he recently received a 2022 SAFTA (South African Oscars) nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Feature Film for his work on the multi-award winning Fried Barry (2020).

Michael’s breakout performance was back in 2008 as controversial French UN worker Charles Solenz in Fox’s multi-Emmy and Golden Globe nominated 24 feature 24: Redemption (2008). Over 12 million viewers tuned in for the premiere.

The actor has continually held his own opposite industry heavyweights including the late Oscar-winner William Hurt in BBC Films’ award-winning The Challenger Disaster (2013) and Mads Mikkelsen in Universal’s western The Salvation (2014). The film premiered at Cannes to a ten minute standing ovation.

Michael is perhaps best known for playing series regular Richard Guthrie in two season’s of Michael Bay’s hit pirate series Black Sails (2014). He was considered for an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, as well as a SAG-Aftra award, two years in a row for his portrayal.

After being awarded an extraordinary ability green card in 2015, Michael relocated to Los Angeles and became a permanent US resident. Since then he has guest starred opposite Gary Sinise in Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders (2016) (CBS), Of Kings and Prophets (2016) (ABC), as well as the lead villain in CBS’ Scorpion (2014) opposite Robert Patrick.

Michael won Best Performance by an Actor at the Boston Sci-fi Film Festival as the lead in Broken Darkness (2017). He recurred on the Mark Wahlberg produced Shooter (2016), Blood Drive (2017) and MacGyver (2016), whilst on the big screen he starred in Universal’s reboot of The Mummy (2017) (opposite Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe) grossing over $450M worldwide. Michael also narrated Nicholas Sparks ‘ ( The Notebook (2004), Message in a Bottle (1999) ) #1 New York Times bestselling audio-book Every Breath.

In 2019 he played the lead in the multi award-winning political thriller The Last Victims (2019) which premiered at PAFF in Los Angeles. He went on to win Best Actor at the South Film and Arts Festival in Chile. Michael then recurred on Deep State (2018), Vagrant Queen (2020) and played a supporting role in the Netflix Original The Last Days of American Crime (2020) opposite Michael Pitt and Edgar Ramirez.

In 2020 he starred in Triggered (2020) (Samuel Goldwyn Films) and recurred on History’s The Cars That Made the World (2020).

Recent work includes Catch Me a Killer (2024), Bradley Cooper’s FDR (2023) and Leonardo DiCaprio’s Theodore Roosevelt (2022). He was a series regular on Die Byl (2016) and Ludik (2022), recurred opposite David Tennant on Around the World in 80 Days (2021) and won Best Supporting Actor for Stay Safe (2021) .

The actor will next be seen in “Masinga: The Calling”, “BoogieHeads”, Spiral and the 80s remake of Street Trash . Michael is also attached as a lead in Broken Brothers, the A.S.T. film franchise and Bloody Proposal. He serves as a screenwriter and exec producer on the Netflix Original feature Collision (2022).

Michael has been a proud SAG-Aftra member and judge for the Television Academy of Arts & Sciences (Emmys) and the International Emmy Awards for the past ten years.