Kel Mitchell From ‘Kenan & Kel’ Reveals the Story Behind His ‘All That’ Audition and It’s Amazing
Kel Mitchell may not be cracking jokes on Saturday Night Live like his comedic partner, Kenan Thompson but, the comedic actor still has a place in 90’s history.
Kel Mitchell is known for working as a child/teen actor on Nickelodeon’s break out series ‘All That,’ and ‘Kenan & Kel‘ during the 1990’s.
Recently, he has worked on several Disney and Nickelodeon kid shows but, mostly working under the radar in Hollywood. The orange-soda-loving-actor, recently did an /r/AMA and revealed interesting facts about himself including his fondness of olives and his continued friendship with Kenan.
But, one of the most interesting highlights of the recent interview was the story behind the audition that changed his life forever.
It was: I was in, what was I? I was a sophomore, in high school. I remember I had finals that week, uh-huh, and I also had my audition at the end of the school day. And usually my mom would take me, cuz she was my manager at the time, to the auditions, but my dad had to take me cuz my mom was busy with my younger sister. So my dad took me, and we got lost, and it was HILARIOUS. So we got there late. And so, uh, when I got there, they were kinda packing up, haha! So they let me come in, I did my monologue, but because I had finals I went blank and forgot my monologue, and then they were like “Well hey, do you want to just walk outside in the hallway and take a breather and practice it and come back in?” You know?
And so I did that, and then as I was about to walk out and go do that, I knocked over one of the cameras, there was a cord and I knocked it over, and I played it off like I did it on purpose, and I caught it and did this funny thing with it and cracked up laughing, yeah! And I came back in, did my monologue, killed it, and they asked me if I could do any characters, yeah, and I just went bananas. I did a whole bunch of impersonations of my uncles, and friends, and teachers, and they were just cracking up laughing. I actually did Ed in there too, because the Ed voice was something I was doing before I was even on TV! So they really loved that.
And THEN… like a couple of weeks went by, you worry you probably didn’t get it, but I remember I was praying in my bedroom one night, and I remember thinking Man, i would love to get that show and then the phone rings, and my mom picked up, and I remember her SCREAMING and running around the house, and she was like “HEY! we’re going to LA” and that was for the second audition, the callback. Flew to Los Angeles, and it was even more kids! It was like, down to the final 20 before they can get to the 7! And I got it, hahaha! I got the role, it was pretty cool. I got in there.
Kel Mitchell’s audition shows that you never know where any opportunity can take you!
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