Gary Tanguay is one smart fella. The longtime Boston television personality, who recently lost his job as a result of sweeping cuts at NBC Sports Boston, is keeping abreast of what’s going on in the market — who’s coming, who’s going, who’s moving sideways. If something opens up, and he thinks he’s right for it and the suits think he’s right for them, Tanguay will be staring back at you from your flatscreen before you know it.

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But it’s not uncommon for Boston media types to have side gigs, and Tanguay, a 56-year-old native of Maine whose trademark is his deep baritone of a voice, jet black hair and the ever-present black glasses that are normal for him but retro to everyone else, is no exception. It’s just that his side gig isn’t teaching a course at UMass-Lowell or doing a weekend call-in show at WEEI. Gary Tanguay is an actor, a professional actor, with nine credits at IMDB.com including Oscar-nominated films like “Knives Out,” and being shown the door at NBC Sports Boston invites a fairly obvious question: Having been liberated from the daily toil of local television, is he tempted to turn down the next news or sportscasting gig in order to pursue full-time acting?

“Oh, God, no,” he said. “I have a family to support.”

And that’s true. Tanguay and his wife Randi have three children — daughters Harper (18) and August (9) and a son, 15-year-old Van. Tanguay also survived a recent health scare, making a full recovery from a Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma diagnosis in 2018 that rocked his world. A cancer scare is probably a very good reason not to give up your day job, even if Tanguay doesn’t actually have a day job at the moment.

And yet when you talk to the man about his acting — real acting, as in being on location while top-notch directors are lining up the next shot and various Ben Affleck-Matt Damon-Chris Evans types are pacing the room in search of the motivation that’s needed to bring their characters to life — that’s when Gary Tanguay speaks faster, louder, with so much urgency you’d think he was a hockey player pacing the room in the run-up to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. That’s when you wonder if acting has been the full-time job all along, with sportscasting as the side gig.

It’s what makes Gary Tanguay a different cat than every other person in Boston media.

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It should be noted that Tanguay was reluctant at first to do this Q&A session with me, because, again, he doesn’t want anyone to think he’ll turn down the next media opportunity that comes his way. So take note of that, Boston TV executives.

And then, just like that, he said, “Oh, screw it. Let’s talk.”

So we talked.

What are the differences between acting and broadcasting?

I love acting and I love broadcasting. They’re both performing. They’re both performances. When you’re on the air now and you’re talking about sports, it’s a performance. Acting is the same thing.  And the great thing about the way sports media has gone is that everybody is a performer now … I remember one time when I did a student film at Tufts University. They do some great work over there. I got to play George Wallace — Governor George Wallace of all people, right? So I’m doing a southern accent, and I’m talking about that with this actress, her name is Ursula Burton. You can look her up on IMDB. She’s been in a million things. She’s a brilliant actor. She said to me, “Gary, it’s all the same. You’re in front of the camera, lights, acting, whatever. It’s all the same. Don’t overthink it.” And she’s right.

Name some of the various sports personalities who would make great actors.

I think some of the best performers are in sports media. I think Stephen A. Smith is a great performer. (Mike) Felger is a performer. (Tony) Massarotti is a performer. I think Felger is a phenomenal performer. Phenomenal. And Mike Francesa. And Mad Dog! Mad Dog Russo would be a great actor! Can you imagine Mad Dog Russo as a character actor? He’d get a lot of work. I think Danny Ainge could be an actor. You can ask him the toughest question, and it doesn’t faze him. He’s got the best poker face in town. How about this: Bill Belichick would make a great bad guy. He could be a villain. Some of these guys, the way they act at the podium, when you think about that, that’s acting. It really is. How about Bill Parcells? He used to put on a performance every press conference, and he was always great. Media people would go to his press conferences who didn’t even need to be there.

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Could I be an actor?

You have a personality. You could be a bartender in a movie. A lot of it is just being comfortable in front of a camera. Look, a casting director once told me that for every Ryan Reynolds you need 20 Gary Tanguays. Or in your case, 20 Steve Buckleys. The bartender. The guy at the newsstand. The best friend. The lawyer. You know, you’re tending bar and Liam Neeson comes in and you say, ‘Hey, what’s up?” And he says he’s had a tough day. You could totally do that scene. Maybe we’ll do a buddy cop movie together. I just don’t know if any bad guys would be afraid of us.

What’s it like to work with veteran career actors?

I did a movie with Rosamund Pike. It’s called “I Care a Lot.” It’s going to be in the Toronto Film Festival this fall. And I have a scene with her. She was in “Gone Girl” with Ben Affleck. She’s tremendous. And I’m sitting there on the set with her. We’re at Leonard Morse Hospital in Natick, in the same wing where my wife was born by the way. We were using it as a movie set, and I’m supposed to be interviewing Rosamund’s character. And this was when I was going through chemotherapy treatments. So my head was shaved. And they liked the shaved head. So when this movie comes out and you see it, my head will be shaved. And she comes in, she’s very polite, she’s lovely, British accent, and we sit down to do this scene. And her character, she plays a con woman, and she goes into an American accent and she locks in with her eyes, and that’s when you know, you just know, what it’s all about. She’s good. She blew me away. She was so in character. And that makes you a better actor, because acting is reacting. My job was easy. All I had to do was react to her. She was fantastic. Same thing with Jason Clarke, who played Ted Kennedy in “Chappaquiddick.” He’s another one. He’s brilliant. We did this scene that was shot at the Boston Public Library. We started at 6 in the morning, rehearsing. And then we shot part of it in the morning and then the rest in the afternoon. And, you know, Jason is from Australia, they have him wearing the fake teeth, and he has the Kennedy accent, and he looks at you and he’s … he’s right there. And then they yell, “Cut,” and he goes back to an Aussie accent and he says, “How about those Patriots?” Just like that.

So, actors talk to you about sports?

A lot of them do, yes. A lot of them are sports fans. Rosamund’s son is really into soccer, so she’d talk to me about soccer. And I did “Gone Baby Gone,” I wound up not being in the movie, they didn’t need my scene, but all Ben Affleck could do when we weren’t filming was talk to me about Pedro Martinez.

You grew up in the town of Roxbury, Maine, which has a population of less than 400, and went to nearby Mexico High School. Were there acting opportunities for you growing up in small-town Maine?

I was pissed off in second grade at Abbott School in Mexico because I didn’t get the role of Santa Claus in the Christmas play. Instead, they gave it to this other kid, Michael Quigley. He was the biggest kid in the class so that’s why he was Santa Claus. I ended up being cast as an elf. But, really, I should have been Santa Claus. In seventh grade, I was in “Young Dracula.” In eighth grade I was in “Tom Sawyer” and I played the reverend. At Mexico High School we did “Bye Bye Birdie,” and because my voice was so deep I played the mayor. And I can’t sing. I just can’t sing. My voice was strong. Teachers were always complimenting me on that even when I’d be whispering. But I would try to sing in “Bye Bye Birdie,” and the musical instructor, her name was Karen Jenkins, she was saying, “Gary, God love you, but it’s not working.” So I lip-synched in a high school production of “Bye Bye Birdie.” My friend Bernadette Bolduc, her dad owned the junkyard next door to us, she still teases me about it all these years later. You can’t make this shit up, man.

If you could play one part in a film classic, what would it be?

Oh, easy — “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Gregory Peck’s role as Atticus Finch. Without question. And Jeff Daniels chewed it up on Broadway. He was so good. And then Ed Harris came after him. I actually memorized the Atticus Finch courtroom monologue for an acting class I did. That’s one of the great courtroom scenes ever. I memorized it more than 20 years ago. “Mayella Ewell was beaten, savagely, by someone who led almost exclusively with his left. And Tom Robinson now sits before you, having taken the oath with the only good hand he possesses — his right.” Just amazing.

Give us one more.

I’ve always loved Ed Harris’ performance in “The Hours.” Before he — his character is Richard — jumps out the window. And I’ve worked on that monologue too. The scene where he comes in and out of reality. He says he can’t go to the party, and then he reminisces about that morning when he first saw (Meryl Streep’s Clarissa Vaughan character) coming out of the glass door in the early morning, still sleepy, and he says I don’t think our life could have been any better. That is such a great, great scene.

Your acting credits have mostly been limited to newscaster types so far. Any plans to branch out?

I’ve auditioned for other roles. I’ve auditioned for a senator, I’ve auditioned for a detective, and I’ve auditioned for an executive in a business. But I haven’t been cast. I would really love to bust out of that newscaster role. I want to so something else. But I would never turn down the newscaster role.

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What’s next?

Well, like I said, “I Care a Lot” will be at the Toronto Film Festival. I read for one movie, “Shrine,” and then I read for another movie, “Honest Thief,” but I didn’t get those. I think those are in post-production now. I’m available.

Any chance you’d pack up the family and move to Hollywood?

It would have to be an incredible situation where I could support my family. I will say this, and I’ve talked with Chappy (locally-based actor Kevin Chapman) — he’s a good dude — about this. In this day and age, with technology being the way it is, people in this business can live all over the world. All the casting is done online. Streaming. Facebook. Zoom. And especially now with the pandemic and the way Zoom and all this other technology is being used, I don’t think moving to Hollywood is as necessary as it once was.

You also write. How’s that going?

I wrote a screenplay about a female sports TV anchor going through a midlife crisis. Her name is Shannon Rush. I originally wrote it for a male lead and a producer told me that she thought it would be more attractive as a female so I flipped it. It went from a male lead to a female lead. You know what was interesting? The characters weren’t that different. The character didn’t change that much. It was kind of an interesting experiment. It’s at (producer/writer/actress) Amy Schumer’s office. I worked with (writer) Casey Sherman 25 years ago when he was a producer at Channel 4. And now that his books are being made into movies he’s trying to get my scripts looked at. He’s always been a big supporter of mine. A few years back I wrote this film, actually I co-wrote it with a friend of mine, his name is Drew Yanno, and it was a small-town story based on a mill in Rumford, Maine. I thought Donnie Wahlberg would make a terrific lead. And he read it — he’s such an approachable, regular guy — and he showed it to his agents but we couldn’t get anything going. I haven’t really talked with Donnie about my acting but he’s been very supportive of my writing. As has Mike O’Malley. He reads all my stuff and offers notes. I really appreciate these people.

Some out-of-left-field advice for would-be sportscasters?

I tell people, especially young broadcasting students, that if they want to be in this business they should take an acting class. Absolutely. Take an acting class. It should be in the curriculum. If you take an acting class you will be a better broadcaster. In acting classes they force you to lose your inhibitions. One time I was in an acting class and they said you have to find your inner animal. So, for this particular part the animal was a wolf. You’re on the phone, acting like a wolf. Well, if you learn to do that, or if you’re a turtle, if you learn to be a turtle in an acting class, you’re not going to be nervous on television doing sports.

Lastly, take us through your cancer diagnosis, the treatment, and the great news in August 2019 that you were in remission.

My symptoms started during the week leading up to Super Bowl LIII in Atlanta. Dry mouth, coughing, stomach pain. I was waking up sweating. And I had intense heartburn like you’ve never felt before. And it turned out my lymph nodes were going crazy. And I remember being on the set in Atlanta, and I was swallowing all the time. I’d be in mid-sentence and I’d have to swallow, and I’m saying, “What the hell is going on?” And then when I came home I passed out in my bathroom. The following Monday I was at the Dana-Farber, and obviously I can’t say enough about them. And that was amazing. I was halfway through my chemo and Dr. Eric Jacobsen came in and said, “Right now you’re clean.” I was shocked. I went through the other treatments but I’ve been good ever since. I have so much more to do in my life, and now I have the time to do it.

(Top photo: Scott Boehm via AP)