MILESTONES: Local actor’s stock soars

For an actor, having your name up in lights on Broadway means you’ve arrived.

Getting to hold much of the world’s financial fate in your hands at the same time, well, that puts you on even more exclusive turf.

“You press something that’s like the Staples button, and it literally closes the market,” says Michael Kelly, 39, recalling his big moment last month. “Then your signature goes out across the whole tower.”

That would be the glittery Nasdaq tower, which looms over Times Square from its perch on Broadway between 42nd and 43rd streets. For Kelly, it is the spot where Good Work Is Its Own Reward meets The Sudden, Sweet Smell of Success.

When the Brookwood High grad was tapped to ring the Nasdaq’s closing bell Oct. 13 due to his standout performance in the new movie “Changeling,” notice was served: The markets might be in turmoil, but Kelly’s stock is soaring.

No matter how much he tries to, uh, short-sell himself.

“Would they have wanted Clint there to ring the bell instead?” Kelly chortles. “You’d better believe it!”

That would be Clint Eastwood, who directed “Changeling” and looms over moviemaking with four Academy Awards of his own and many more for actors in his films.

Angelina Jolie (with John Malkovich) is the determined showstopper in “Changeling,” the true saga of a mother of a missing child who leaves no stone unturned trying to prove that the corrupt circa-1935 Los Angeles Police Department has “found” the wrong boy. But it’s Kelly as the decent Detective Lester Ybarra who ends up solving the mystery onscreen. And stealing much of the accolades off of it.

In its mostly middling review of the film, The New York Times singled out Kelly’s “excellent, blessedly understated” turn. Entertainment Weekly’s influential “Oscar Watch” column pushed him for a Best Supporting Actor nod for his “star-making performance.”

Even Carrie Bradshaw has taken notice. When Kelly learned of the EW column, “He had just come out of a costume fitting with Sarah Jessica Parker at Barneys,” says mother Maureen Kelly, who works at the Atlanta Regional Commission. “He listened to his messages and his manager read it to him.”

Parker is producing the pilot of “Washingtonienne,” a potential HBO series about a close-knit group of female friends (Hmm …) caught up in the D.C. political/social whirl. Kelly plays the president’s right-hand man.

Get along with all your “Mr. Big Government” jokes.

“I finally end up being the leading man,” Kelly exhales happily.

Pretty impressive for a guy who grew up in Lawrenceville running cross country instead of treading the boards. One theater class at Coastal Carolina University was enough to convince him not to become a lawyer. (“I said a lot of lawyers are acting,” Maureen Kelly says, recalling her initial startled reaction). After graduation he moved to New York, where, amid the usual bartending and bike messenger stints, he began finding steady work on TV (“Generation Kill”) and in film (“Dawn of the Dead”).

Frequently cast as a cop or bad guy, he wasn’t complaining. That’s just the nature of guest star work, especially on TV, Kelly says. Plus, it got him on “The Sopranos.”

The part was an FBI agent who only had two lines. Eventually, he and his partner dogged Tony across a half-dozen episodes in the final two seasons. But that’s not why he initially took it.

“You want to be able to tell your grandkids you were on possibly the greatest show ever,” says Kelly, adding only half-jokingly, “And it gave me an element of street cred here.”

He kinda needs it, because even after 15 years in New York, “whenever anyone asks me where I’m from, I say Atlanta.” He’s a Sunday regular at a sports bar that shows Falcons games and says it “killed” him when TBS largely stopped carrying the Braves.

On the other hand, that leaves him more time for costume fittings at Barneys. And should acting ever lose its luster, Kelly could have something even better to fall back on.

Ringing the closing bell was a big moment for him, sure. But it was just as big for the markets, which had staged the largest single-day stock rally since the Great Depression that day.

“I’ve had all my friends who work in the financial district e-mailing me,” Kelly says. “Saying, ‘Hey, can you go back and do it again?’ “

“Milestones” covers significant events and times in the lives of metro Atlantans. Big or small, hugely celebrated or known only to a few —- tell us of a milestone we should write about at: jvejnoska@ajc.com or mail it to Milestones, c/o Jill Vejnoska, 72 Marietta St. N.W., Atlanta, GA 30303. Please include your phone number and/or e-mail address.