Who is Mike Santini in The Chair Company? Character explored in depth 

Created by Tim Robinson and Zach Kanin, The Chair Company, is a comedy thriller show featuring Tim Robinson, Lake bell, Sophia Lillis, and others. The show premiered on HBO on October 12, 2025 and has eight episodes.

The Chair Company has zany humor and focuses on Ron Trosper, played by Tim Robinson, who is a project manager at the property development firm Fisher Robay. He gets involved into a conspiracy after a workplace incident about a chair manufacturing company prompts him to investigate. Even though the show is still rolling out new episodes weekly, The Chair Company has already won critical and commercial approval.

Noted for its elements of cringe humor, quirky characters and plot, and surrealist themes, The Chair Company promises viewers a unique comedy experience. The show has a host of characters and Mike Santini is one of them. Played by Joseph Tudisco, Mike Santini is a restaurant security guard who teams up with Ron to investigate.

Details about Mike Santini in The Chair Company explored.

The Chair Company begins on a simple premise that quickly snowballs into an intriguing and hilarious investigation. The show centers around Ron Trosper, who has the perfect life. He is in a happy marriage with his wife Barbara (Lake Bell), his daughter is about to get married, and his son is applying for college. Even Ron is excited to climb the company ladder and oversee the creation of a mall.

However, things fall apart when he has an embarrassing accident. He falls down due to his broken chair during a highly important meeting in his company. Seething with rage, he wants the manufacturer of the chair to apologize.

However, he is unable to locate the company and Trosper believes it to be a conspiracy, deepening himself into an investigation about the mysterious company that manufactures chairs. In this journey of his, he meets Mike Santini, who hits Ron on his head one night and threatens him to stop his investigations.

The absurdist show soon reveals that Mike Santini is just a security guard at a local diner and was paid by a mysterious man to scare away Trosper. Soon, Santini and Trosper decide to band together and quickly become inseparable as they investigate the shady company.

Santini’s character is portrayed by Joseph Tudisco, who has been in the entertainment industry for many decades but has always taken up supporting or guest roles. However, in The Chair Company, Tudisco has an important role as Santini and Trosper are at the center of the investigation.

Tudisco has appeared in Law and Order, Mr. Robot, The Sopranos, The Post, and more. He has also coached a junior varsity football team at a high school.

In The Chair Company, there are a host of guest stars and Tudisco’s Santini appears at the very end of the first episode, making it seem like the character is another guest appearance. However, Santini becomes an important character in the series.

Mike Santini has many layers in the show and even though he begins as Trosper's right hand man in his investigation, viewers soon see the softer side within Santini as the show goes on and his character is fully realised.

Joseph Tudisco talks about his character Mike Santini on The Chair Company

The offbeat comedy series has gained a lot of praise from critics and viewers and even though Tudisco was someone who stayed on the side due to the smaller roles in his career, he is now enjoying his central role on The Chair Company and is delighted by the positive reviews of the show and his character.

In an interview with Esquire, Tudisco talks about his role in the new comedy series. Grateful about getting the role, he states,

“This kind of thing doesn't happen to a lot of people...I just find it very amazing that I'm here in this.”

According to Esquire, even though Tim Robinson’s Ron Trosper is the central character who provides humor in the series, Joseph Tudisco does a great job at lending quirkiness to his character, Mike Santini. Talking about how he approached his character and his antics, Tudisco recalls his growing-up days in Brooklyn, New York, and states,

“Mike Santini is a difficult character, but very simple...There was a lot of people like him in my growing up—people from the neighborhood. I'll think back and I go, ‘so-and-so used to be like that.’ 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.”

Tudisco has been in this industry for a long time and he mentions that one needs to have “stick-ability” to stay relevant in this business and eventually, one will land the perfect part.

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