Michael Houston never intended to be a cop, but he’s played one again and again during his career in TV and films. Sometimes his characters even had names.

“I’ve worked in most police procedurals shot in New York,” said Houston, who graduated from Rampart High School in 1994, eventually moving to New York City in 2005. “Since we wrapped the film, I just kind of decided to take a different approach; see if there are options out there so I can break that mold.”

The film he’s talking about is “Deliver Us From Evil,” directed by Scott Derrickson (“Sinister”) and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. And if that isn’t enough, the prime July 2 release date signals blockbuster expectations.

Only 10 years into his career, Houston has inhabited the background of quite a few movies and TV shows. “Taking of Pelham 1 2 3,” directed by Tony Scott and starring John Travolta and Denzel Washington. “Inside Llewyn Davis,” a grim paean to the folk music era directed by the Coen brothers. “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit,” an action epic directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Chris Pine.

The A-side lineup of films, stars and directors is even more impressive when you learn that Houston moved to New York without any formal training as an actor.

“I was always participating in the high school musical,” Houston said, including playing the plant in “Little Shop of Horrors.”

He laughs.

After an unfulfilling stint in the plumbing and heating business (“My mother told me to pursue a career in acting rather than as a hobby”), Houston eschewed Los Angeles for New York and the city’s many acting programs. He graduated with a two-year degree in a vaunted Sandford Meisner program. In 2007, he and nine other members of his class created The Collective, a loose co-op of players producing “socially relevant” scripts.

By Houston’s accounting, “Deliver Us From Evil” features him in his first big role: He’s a member of a four-person police unit that includes star Eric Bana. The film riffs on New York policeman Ralph Sarchie’s 2014 book by the same name. The book chronicles the unexpected brushes with demonic possession and other alarming supernatural events Sarchie experienced as he tried to solve criminal cases. Even the trailers are not for the faint of heart.

Still, Houston calls it more unsettling and psychological than gory. “I loved the script,” he said. “After I read it, I thought, ‘Man, this is going to be a scary movie.'”

Sarchie was on set every day, Houston said, and he spoke with him many times. A demonologist as well as a cop now, Sarchie warned the cast that being in a film like this might draw the attention of the underworld. You almost can hear Houston shrug through the phone.

“This is his world and this exists” to him, said Houston, who spent a “crazy” summer with his grandmother that opened his mind to otherworldly possibilities. Sarchie’s story: “It’s hard to say it’s not true. Especially since he has evidence.”

You have to wonder, then, did he ever feel scared making this horror film?

“I was scared,” he said. “And there were definitely moments where it was, you know, unsettling.”

Courtesy photo