TV Talk: WTAE-TV reporter Sheldon Ingram guest stars on ‘Law & Order: SVU’

It’s not unusual to see a Pittsburgh news anchor play a reporter or anchor in a fictional movie or TV show shot in Pittsburgh — Sally Wiggin and Ken Rice were in “Striking Distance;” Mike Clark was in “Abduction,” “Unstoppable,” “Southpaw” and “Concussion” ­— but veteran WTAE-TV reporter Sheldon Ingram wants to play anything but a reporter.

“It’s too close to reality,” Ingram said. “Everybody who knows me, knows I’m a football fanatic. I played collegiate football and semi-pro and I’ve never watched a movie about football. I’ve never watched a movie about the broadcast news industry. I know it so well that there’s nothing that a movie can tell me that I haven’t seen or experienced in real life.”

Ingram got his first major acting showcase on NBC’s “Law & Order” crossover season premiere event, which aired Thursday on Channel 11.2, MeTV (the Pittsburgh Steelers game is on WPXI-TV, Channel 11.1).

Ingram guest starred in the 9-10 p.m. hour of the three-hour “Law & Order: Organized Crime,” “Law & Order: SVU” and “Law & Order” extravaganza, playing the deputy mayor of New York, whom Ingram describes as “a fly in the ointment.” Ingram, who shot his three scenes over 10 days in mid-August, shares the screen with “Law & Order” franchise veterans Mariska Hargitay, Chris Meloni and Camryn Manheim — but he wasn’t starstruck by them.

“It doesn’t have the same ‘Wow!’ effect on me as with someone else because I’ve interviewed so many celebrities and entertainers over the years,” Ingram said. “The other thing is I went into that situation with a tremendous amount of gratitude to be able to be on that stage, to give them the best I had to offer to make this memorable, impactful and meaningful.”

This acting role isn’t a one-off.

“Acting has always been a hidden desire,” Ingram said, “something I’ve always kept tucked away in the closet, but it’s something I’ve wanted to do since college.”

Prior to coming to Pittsburgh in 1992, when he worked at the ABC affiliate in Norfolk, Va., Ingram appeared on stage in a production of “A Soldier’s Play.” The director of that stage show approached Ingram in 2020 and asked him to be in “Cast in History,” a series of monologues by actors portraying historical Black Virginians, which is posted on YouTube (Ingram shows up 56 minutes into it).

After that, Ingram decided to get serious about acting and took online acting classes taught by acting teachers in New York, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh. He even worked with an acting coach who’s based in Ireland. In May, he felt ready to post his demo reel at sheldoningram.com and start auditioning for roles.

Just last weekend, Ingram traveled to Fairmont, W.Va., to film a small role in the upcoming Lifetime movie “A Rose for Her Grave.”

He also has a role in Lee Daniels’ Netflix movie “The Deliverance” that filmed in Pittsburgh over the summer and stars Andra Day and Glenn Close.

“I’m the voice of the demon whenever he possesses the boy,” Ingram said. “The script called for a gravelly voice, and I really had to train my voice. I have a baritone voice, but I had to work to get it down into a deep, demon voice.”

A locally made indie film he shot a role for in summer 2021, “Thanks to Her,” has its world premiere during the Reel Q: Pittsburgh LGBTQ Film Festival 37 at Row House Cinemas in Lawrenceville at 7 p.m. Oct. 7.

Directed and produced by 2019 University of Pittsburgh film production/communications grad Sam McCoy, “Thanks to Her” originated as a short film and was expanded into a 91-minute feature film about two high school girls, one who instigates a fight and another who breaks it up. Ingram plays the school principal who negotiates a peace between them.

McCoy said she recognized Ingram from his reporting work on WTAE when she received his audition tape.

“I actually was kind of nervous to do a callback with him,” said McCoy, who now lives in Brooklyn. “But he was so personable and so kind and so genuine. He also was really humble in the way that he approached the character, asking all of the right questions that he needed to about the personality, his interest in the two characters in the scene that he’s in and the backstory. Not only was I really (made) confident by his initial tape, but within his initial questions with the callback, I knew that he was someone that I wanted to be a part of the film. His acting was brilliant. It really took little direction to get him to go in the direction we needed him to.”

Ingram said he cleared his extracurricular acting with his WTAE bosses a year ago, and he said they were fine with it “as long as I’m not playing a reporter and not doing anything that would embarrass WTAE, which I’m totally in agreement with.”

Ingram has no intention of quitting his day job at Channel 4.

“It’s just about me wanting to multitask as a storyteller,” he says. “Pittsburgh Action News 4 is my heart. Everything plays off of that. That’s the meat and potatoes for me. That’s the alpha. Anything I do in addition to that is just me wanting to get the most out of my artistic ability and do as much as I can at one time.

“I’ve always wanted to be a television reporter, since I was 14, and I’m doing it and I’ve been blessed to be able to do it as long as I have,” Ingram continued. “But why stop there? Take another bite at the apple, go ahead and try acting, go to a different dimension of storytelling. Do both while you can. Why limit yourself?”

Ingram remains a devout football fan, but tonight he’ll forego the Steelers game.

“I’m watching ‘Law & Order,’ man,” Ingram said. “I will be at home with my exotic Bengal cat, Condu. It’s gonna be me, her and some popcorn.”