Blue’s Clues Star Steve Burns Says ‘Each Waiter’ Made ‘Extra Cash’ Than He Did on Hit Nickelodeon Collection

The beloved star, who nonetheless brings his Millennial followers consolation along with his partaking movies on Instagram — typically simply “listening” — opened up about how a lot serving to Blue discover clues and remedy mysteries actually paid, and the way he did not even know what he was auditioning for when he confirmed up.

Making an look on Rainn Wilson’s Soul Increase podcast, Burns referred to as Blue’s Clues “my aspect hustle endlessly.”

He defined that even because the present was turning into a blockbuster success for Nick Jr. — finally spawning an ever-expanding line of branded merchandise — “Each waiter I ever knew made extra money than I did for the primary many seasons of that present.”

So if that was his “aspect hustle,” how did he pay the payments? “My actual gig was, I used to be a voice-over man,” he informed Wilson. “I fell into that early.”

He mentioned that the business voiceover work “type of sustained me, however man, it was grim.” On the time, Burns mentioned he “lived in a hallway [in a NYC apartment]. I constructed like a bit of shelf in a hallway between two tiny bedrooms.”

As for a way he fell into Blue’s Clues, Burns informed The Workplace alum that it occurred “solely accidentally.”

In actual fact, he thought he was auditioning for one more voice-over roll when he first auditioned for what would grow to be Blue’s Clues, a hybrid live-action/animated collection that noticed Burns because the solely actual determine in an illustrated world. All the way in which up till the second he walked in, Burns was pondering it might be the precise reverse.

He joked that the one live-action auditions he was taking at the moment early in his profession have been “severe actor auditions” for reveals like Regulation & Order and Murder: Life on the Avenue.

When he received the phrase about this new Nickelodeon present, the then 22-year-old thought it “was going to be the voice of a cartoon on a kids’s tv present.” However that is not what it was in any respect.

“I went to the audition, and once I received there, there was a digital camera within the room, and I believed, ‘Oh s–t, I higher do one thing,'” Burns mentioned. “And so I appeared on the script, and I figured … I’m going to behave the s–t out of this.”

He admitted that had he recognized it was for a reside efficiency position beforehand, he by no means would have gone, “not solely as a result of I used to be a pretentious younger man on the time — that was a part of it — but in addition as a result of kids’s tv had by no means occurred to me.”

“I didn’t even know any children, you understand? And I simply [thought], there’s no manner I can try this,” he added. “I might have mentioned ‘No, no, that’s a mistake.'” Fortunately, he did not, and regardless of having lengthy hair and a cigarette pack in his audition, he did land the half.

He shared a little bit of the magic he created in that audition, with loads of it carrying over into the present, together with his signature transfer of stepping nearer to the digital camera to create an intimacy with the younger viewers.

Whereas he by no means anticipated to be on-camera in a children present, Burns definitely did “act the s–t out of it” for six years, choosing up a Daytime Emmy Award nomination in 2001, earlier than he finally stepped away from the present, leaving his younger followers shocked.

Burns has beforehand opened up about his depressive episode shortly earlier than and after his departure, however the actor dug deep with Wilson about his inside struggles.

He shared that daily he would ask his viewers if they’d assist him, but it surely wasn’t till he requested that query in his actual life that he started to show issues round. Till that second, he was in what he referred to as “the grey” as he handled every kind of rumors, together with that he was useless — rumors he mentioned a few of his household even believed at instances.

“[That] was one thing I might hear from individuals. ‘Oh, I believed you have been useless. Didn’t you die?'” he recalled. “And when it persists for 10 years, it appears like a cultural choice … you begin to really feel such as you’re imagined to be.”

He mentioned he slipped into what he is dubbed “the grey” of his life for a couple of decade, gaining 50 kilos, by no means leaving his home, and simply embracing the concept that if he was “useless” … “finally I began enjoying alongside. You realize, that was the technique … perhaps I’m.”

With the help of remedy, Burns made his manner again into the general public eye, reconnecting with each his unique Blue’s Clues followers, and even with the revival present, Blues Clues & You! He is written for the favored new present, hosted by Josh Dela Cruz, and even appeared on-camera as his fictional alter-ego.

In 2021, because the world was coping with the emotional pressure of the COVID-19 pandemic, Burns appeared on social media with a message for his longtime followers who grew up with him, acknowledging that his exit from Blue’s Clues was fairly “abrupt.”

He mentioned that the time away had allowed all of them to develop up and transfer on, however he wished them to know “that, in spite of everything these years, I by no means forgot you. Ever. And I am tremendous glad we’re nonetheless pals.” Since that point, he is made common drop-ins on his social with calming movies the place he asks his followers how issues are going, after which quietly “listens” as they share.