Tituss Burgess On ‘Kimmy Schmidt’ Role: “I Had To Audition To Be Me”

You may have heard that Tina Fey, co-creator of Netflix’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, wrote the role of Titus with actor Tituss Burgess in mind. After all, Burgess had appeared on two episodes of 30 Rock (as D’Fwan, a member of Angie Jordan’s entourage, in the Real Housewives spoofs “Queen of Jordan” and “Queen of Jordan 2: Mystery of the Phantom Pooper”). But as Burgess himself revealed last night when he was a guest on The Late Late Show, he had to audition for the part even if Fey wrote it for him.

Burgess tells host James Corden and his fellow guest Anna Faris that he had auditioned for the part and hadn’t heard anything for weeks and was sure he didn’t get the role. “I was sitting in my basement apartment,” Burgess says of the day he heard from his manager (“I don’t know how [Tina Fey] knew that or if she knew that,” Burgess says, alluding to his character’s run-down abode on the show), and was enjoying a pizza for dinner when he got the call — which he then dropped on the floor when he heard the good news. “My dismay for having tossed a perfectly good pizza trumped my being excited that I got the role,” Burgess laughs

Watch the clip below, and stream Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt on Netflix.

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