The scene-stealing sitcom star on how Tina Fey rescued his career with a role in TV’s kookiest comedy, and what he’s really like behind the memesMuch like the shows he started out performing in on Broadway, Tituss Burgess’s own life story is full of fairytale-style twists. On his last day playing the small role of D’Fwan, a hairdresser and reality TV star on Tina Fey’s 30 Rock, he went home to his studio apartment in Hell’s Kitchen, New York. “I remember getting on my knees and sobbing,” he says down the phone from New Jersey. “I was sad but I was praying that I would be blessed with another series-regular role, because I felt like I had finally found a purpose.” Instead, Burgess was evicted from his home and moved to a basement flat in Harlem, putting his TV career on hold. “Five years later, I get a text from my manager, and she goes: ‘When was the last time you spoke to Tina Fey? Because either you’re about to get a job, or this is a cruel joke.’”His agent had received a breakdown for a character in a new ABC series (working title: Tooken) that seemed uncannily similar to himself: a down-on-his-luck actor and Broadway fanatic named Titus. Was Fey recruiting him for a lead role in her new show? Burgess still had to audition, having never been a series regular on network TV, but he landed the role, “and on my first day of filming, I was told to report to 52nd Street between Eighth and Ninth and that someone would take me to my trailer. My hand to God, my trailer was right outside of the apartment where I had prayed. It makes me teary thinking about it now.” Continue reading…
Via: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt's Tituss Burgess: 'I’m the most boring of the rainbow of gay men'
Categories: English News