I Think You Should Leave<\/a> <\/em>comedian Tim Robinson, is packed to the gills with seemingly random guests in every scene. It\u2019s nearly impossible to predict if or when any of them will pop up again, let alone how important they are to the overarching story. Thankfully, Tudisco\u2019s character, Mike Santini, reappears constantly throughout the season.<\/p>\nThe 76-year-old actor is arguably Robinson\u2019s most prominent costar, notching a win for any viewer who instantly fell in love with the tough guy turned absolute softy. He\u2019s also funny as hell. But mainly? He\u2019s just excited to be here. \u201cThis kind of thing doesn’t happen to a lot of people,\u201d Tudisco told me over Zoom earlier this week of the role. \u201cI just find it very amazing that I’m here in this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tudisco’s Mike Santini joins The Chair Company <\/em>after Robinson\u2019s character, Ron Trosper, drops flat on his back when his office chair breaks during a presentation. Ron sets out to demand an apology from the manufacturer, because he embarrassed himself in front of his coworkers, but instead falls deep into an Internet spiral. He can\u2019t seem to reach the chair company, almost as if it doesn\u2019t exist. As his investigation stretches on, one night, Santini pops out of the bushes outside Ron\u2019s office and pops him in the head with a metal pipe\u2014threatening him with more violence if he doesn’t cease investigating the chair company.<\/p>\n\n\nTudisco (left) costars in The Chair Company <\/em>with Tim Robinson as Mike Santini.<\/span> Sarah Shatz\/HBO<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nAs it turns out, Santini is just a security guard for a local diner who was hired for this one-off altercation by a mysterious man he’d never met before. So, the two foes end up joining forces to track down the chair company and figure out what nefarious operation they\u2019re trying so desperately to hide. Robinson is usually the character on screen who acts a fool, but The Chair Company <\/em>allows Tudisco to dispense unhinged chaos as well. His character blasts \u201ccomedy albums\u201d in the car featuring two men cursing at each other at the top of their lungs. He hands Ron a gun to intimidate a suspect in the second episode, and he barks lines like, \u201cWe\u2019re gonna scare the shit out of him, and we\u2019re gonna give that fucking pussy what they did to you!\u201d He\u2019s an absolute wild card, and exactly the wild card player that The Chair Company <\/em>needs.<\/p>\n\u201cMike Santini is a difficult character, but very simple,\u201d Tudisco tells me. \u201cThere was a lot of people like him in my growing up\u2014people from the neighborhood. I’ll think back and I go, \u2018so-and-so used to be like that.\u2019 So, it was almost like, subconsciously, I remembered some of those antics. But he developed because every episode, there was a whole different craziness about him. Some people are bipolar. Mike Santini is quad<\/em>polar.\u201d<\/p>\nTudisco grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where he\u2019s lived for most of his life. \u201cYou know Bath Beach?\u201d he says, zeroing in on his region of origin. \u201cIt\u2019s right off the Belt Parkway tucked in between the Verrazzano Bridge and Coney Island.\u201d He\u2019s worked steadily, mainly as a background player, in the business for over 40 years now, all while coaching a junior varsity football team at Sheepshead Bay High School (with a few undefeated seasons under his belt). Tudisco\u2019s appeared on Law & Order<\/em>, Blue Bloods, FBI, The Sopranos<\/em>, and Boardwalk Empire\u2014<\/em>always as a truck driver, delivery man, Italian mobster, etc.\u2014before finally getting called up for a named role on The Chair Company <\/em>this season. <\/em>Still, a working actor is always proud of the hustle. \u201cI did speak!\u201d he protests.<\/p>\n\u201cI’ve made a lot of friends during the course of my career, and a lot of them have dropped out,\u201d he says. \u201cYou need to have stick-ability, because the harder you work, the luckier you get. It may not happen, but it’s a blast trying to get there, because we’re never as bad as we think we are and we’re never as good as we’d like to be. And to all those people that I’ve gone through the ropes with, they’re still out there and [they know] I love this business.\u201d<\/p>\n
A paycheck is a paycheck, after all, and it takes a hundred people not named Tim Robinson to push one of those HBO series forward until it appears on your TV. \u201cThey have their own satisfaction, those roles, because you’re working and you’re getting a contract and it validates you,\u201d Tudisco says. \u201cThere’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. I enjoyed every bit of it, but\u2026 you always say, \u2018Oh, I’d love to be a series regular,\u2019 never really thinking that it would happen. But you just keep working, and for all those actors out there who are in that same boat, it happens. All of a sudden, here I am.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n“For all those actors out there who are in that same boat, it happens,” Tudisco tells Esquire. “All of a sudden, here I am.”.<\/span> Sarah Shatz\/HBO<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThis Sunday, episode 5 peels back another layer of Mike Santini. We briefly meet his estranged daughter, who he attempts to reconcile with before she turns him away. He also shares more about his bouts with loneliness; he\u2019s come to view Ron as his best friend over these past couple of episodes. It\u2019s a moment for Ron to really zoom out and reckon with the fact that Mike Santini isn\u2019t just a cog in his investigation. He\u2019s a real human being, even when he\u2019s acting insane.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have read some reviews,\u201d Tudisco says with a smile. \u201cI’ve been called the \u2018heart and soul of the show,\u2019 and I’m the \u2018breath of the show.\u2019 It\u2019s amazing.\u201d Those write-ups aren’t wrong.<\/p>\n
For the last few weeks, as the show\u2019s aired on HBO, Tudisco tells me he\u2019s been testing his newfound fame during trips to the supermarket. \u201cWe’ll be standing in line\u2014people in front of us, in back of us\u2014and I’ll look at my wife as she goes, \u2018Don’t you do it,\u2019\u201d Tudisco says. \u201cI’ll just say, \u2018Mike Santini,\u2019 and then just leave it at that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nobody\u2019s recognized him yet, but you never know. We\u2019re only five episodes in so far. As he tells me, excitedly, \u201cI hear some people are starting to binge it now.\u201d<\/p>\n
You Might Also Like<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story contains spoilers for The Chair Company episode 5. Joseph Tudisco appears for the first time at the tail end of The Chair Company\u2019s debut episode, though any viewer could be forgiven for thinking that it would be his only scene. The HBO comedy series, created by I Think You Should Leave comedian Tim […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2145737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[21917,409913,409914,395057,393050,350557],"class_list":["post-2145736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-hbo","tag-joseph-tudisco","tag-mike-santini","tag-ron-trosper","tag-the-chair-company","tag-tim-robinson"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Where-The-Chair-Company-Found-Its-Wildest-Wild-Card.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2145736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2145736"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2145736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2145738,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2145736\/revisions\/2145738"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2145737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2145736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2145736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2145736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}