Mike Schmidt (Films)

Michael "Mike" Schmidt is the main protagonist of the 2023 supernatural horror film , the film adaptation of the popular . He is the film's adaptation of Michael Afton/Mike Schmidt from the video game franchise.
He is a down-on-his-luck man who is trying to care for his younger sister Abby after the deaths of his younger brother Garrett and his parents. After getting fired from his previous job, he becomes a security guard for the long-abandoned Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, where he encounters the ghosts of several dead children possessing the pizzeria's animatronics.
He is portrayed by , who also played Jess Aarons in Bridge to Terabithia, Peeta Mellark in the Hunger Games series, Walter Budwing in Zathura: A Space Adventure, Sean Anderson in The Journey series, Nod in Epic, Shane Fahley in Firehouse Dog and Markl in the English dub of Howl's Moving Castle. As a child, he is portrayed by Wyatt Parker, who also played Joey Bianci in The Ravine, young Aaron in Psychos and Socios, John Crockett in Savage Lands, Jasper Berchtold in A Friend of the Family and Benji in Where the Crawdads Sing.
==Biography==
===Backstory===
In his childhood, Mike had a loving family with his younger brother Garrett. However, one day, he would have to watch as Garrett is kidnapped and taken away by a man, never to be seen again. This would traumatize Mike and leave him guilty for the rest of time. Some time later, his mother would fall ill and die, and his father would also leave the picture for unknown reasons (Mike implying he either just left the family or committed suicide), leaving Mike to take care of his younger sister Abby. At the same time, their Aunt Jane would try to take custody of Abby away from Mike.
In an attempt to learn who kidnapped Garrett, Mike would begin taking sleeping pills so he could keep coming back to the same nightmare: the day he lost Garrett. He believed that, if he visited the nightmare enough times and looked at every single detail possible, he would eventually see the face of the man who took away his brother.
===Five Nights at Freddy's===
Mike would work his way towards becoming a security job protecting others like how wished to have done so for his little brother, and has been taking care of his little sister Abby. However, he would be fired after assaulting an innocent man in front of his son, mistakenly thinking he was a child abductor. After going to career counsellor Steve Raglan, he would be mocked but ultimately receive an offer: the security job at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place, at night. While he initially refuses, once Aunt Jane threatens to bring him to court over custody of Abby, he accepts the offer.
In his first night, Mike falls asleep and has the same dream again, except this time he sees five children behind him. Once he asks them for help, they all start running away, and he trips before he can catch one of them. The next night, he would have the same nightmare, except he catches one of the children, who proceeds to attack him with their hook hand. Once he wakes up, he is visited by police officer Vanessa Shelly and realises the wound from the child somehow carried over to the real world. When the shift is over and both Mike and Vanessa, Aunt Jane's four henchmen - including Abby's babysitter Max - breaking into Freddy's to trash the place so Mike could be framed and arrested. However, they're all killed by the animatronics.
Realising he has no babysitter once Max stops answering the phone calls, Mike is forced to bring Abby with him to Freddy's. He and Vanessa find out the animatronics are friendly to her, and they all decide to have fun before Abby is shocked by Bonnie's guitar malfunctioning. Vanessa reprimands Mike for letting his sister get hurt, and the latter decides that Abby should stay home instead of visiting Freddy's again, just to keep her safe. He leaves her at the care of Aunt Jane while he goes to work, a she mistakes he’s giving her away but not, where he once again encounters the children in his dream, now realising they're the ghosts of the five children who disappeared at Freddy's years ago and are haunting the animatronics. He is attacked by them and wakes up to find himself moments from death. He manages to free himself at the last second, though is seemingly attacked by Foxy.
When he wakes up, he finds Vanessa has rescued him and is taking care of him. At first Mike was furious at Vanessa for knowing how dangerous the animatronics were, especially when Abby played with them and she never told him. But the two talk about how the animatronics want to kill Abby so she could join them, and Vanessa reveals she's the daughter of William Afton, the man who killed the five children and took away Garrett that is now controlling the animatronics, as Vanessa herself is too scared to face him, which is why she wasn’t honest with him. Meanwhile, Golden Freddy brings Abby to Freddy's after killing Aunt Jane. Mike manages to save Abby from Chica, but they are attacked by the remaining animatronics; Abby is being hunted by Foxy while Mike first deals with Chica's cupcake before being attacked by William Afton, dressed in the yellow rabbit costume, who reveals he killed Garrett. They are both rescued by Vanessa as Afton reveals himself to be Steve Raglan before his stabbing his own daughter. However, Abby manages to make the animatronics realise Afton is the man who murdered them. As she and Mike escape with an unconscious Vanessa, the Cupcake causes Afton to have a springlock failure in his rabbit costume as the animatronics drag him away.
Some time later, Mike and Abby continue living their lives with Abby having made new friends. Mike still visits Vanessa, who is comatose, while Abby wants to go back and see the animatronics again.
==Personality==
Mike is a down-to-earth guy just trying to make a living and look after his younger sister, Abby. He genuinely cares for Abby and people he's close to, like Vanessa, even if he sometimes comes across as indifferent to them. This is mostly because of his childhood trauma taking a toll on his mental health, resulting in a lack of energy or investment in anything unrelated to solving his younger brother's kidnapping. He has trouble sleeping, which causes him to be restless and low energy most of the time. When he does manage to sleep, he has frequent nightmares about his little brother's disappearance, even years after the fact. 
He's not afraid to speak his mind or stand up for what's right, but he sometimes acts without thinking. He lost his job as a security guard for getting into a fight with someone he thought was kidnapping a boy but turned out to be the boy's dad. Mike also calls out Vanessa when he thinks she's lying or manipulating him. He does the same with their Aunt Jane, who he believes wants custody of Abby for money.
Mike is sometimes prone to anger, like the aforementioned incident with the father he mistook for a kidnapper. But this is rare. He mostly gets upset only when it comes to finding out the truth about his brother's disappearance or when he finally confronts William Afton. 
==Trivia== 
*He is an adaptation of Michael Afton from the game series, using the alias he used in the original game. However, there are notable differences between the two: 
**The movie Mike has brown eyes instead of blue eyes.
** The movie Mike is unrelated to Afton, while the game Mike is his eldest son.
** The game Mike accidentally killed his brother, while the movie Mike lost him to Afton.
**The movie Mike is American while the game Mike is British.
**Mike Schmidt is the movie Mike's real name and not an alias.
**Mike's introduction to the job is a VHS tape and not a phone call.
**Mike has two siblings in the games: Elizabeth and the unnamed The Crying Child, in the film Abby and Garrett.
*Mike’s family is theorized to take the role of the Emily’s from the games with Garrett taking the role of the Puppet similar to Charlotte Emily and with Mike’s father having an unknown status he could take the role of Henry Emily.
*Kat Conner Sterling confirmed on a TikTok livestream that Max had a crush on Mike.
==External Links==
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