- I'm an Aries.
I'm a triple Aries.
It's my Moon, Sun, and rising,
and Aries are known for being confident.
(bright music)
(Nathan chuckling)
I am definitely an Aries.
I was about three, or four, or fiveish.
All of our family would come down
to Houston, Texas where I'm from,
usually like Thanksgiving or Christmas.
And just the cousins,
we would make this
choreographed dance routine,
and we would be characters,
and we would gather everybody,
and we would perform in the living room.
(inspirational music)
We thought it was funny,
and we thought it was cool,
and we thought that we
were doing something.
At that young, young age,
I watched people on TV and I loved it.
(upbeat dance music)
I love watching "iCarly."
That was a really fun one for me to watch.
And then "Wizards of Waverly
Place" with Selena Gomez.
I used to be obsessed with Selena Gomez
as a little kid, okay?
I love getting to watch people perform,
and I'm like, "I wanna do that."
(curtains rustling)
(easygoing guitar music)
So when I was five years old,
I went to this summer daycare thing,
and they were doing plays for every grade,
and my grade, which was kindergarten,
was "Chicken Little" and
so I auditioned for it.
Help!
Help, the sky is falling!
It was definitely something
I've never experienced before.
I just loved getting to make people laugh,
make people smile, and
make people clap, too,
and ever since then, that's when I knew
that I wanted to get into acting.
After "Chicken Little,"
it was really just a bunch
of school plays and theater programs.
It was fun do, I loved
playing those characters,
and I did learn, and it did help,
for sure, boost my confidence.
In my heart I knew,
like, I wanna be on TV.
Eventually when I was 10 or 11,
I'm like, "Mom, I really
wanna go out to Hollywood,
"and I really wanna be on Nickelodeon.
"I really wanna be on a kids' network.
"I really wanna perform."
And so when I was 11, 12, my
mom finally agreed to do it,
and we found this training
program from a mutual friend.
We did scenes, we ran through improv.
Everything you needed basically to know
to have that foundation
to move out to L.A.
And then at the end of the nine months,
we, with all the scenes that we prepared,
we went out for a showcase
and that's where I signed with
my amazing agent and manager.
And then the next couple of
months, we moved out to L.A.
(camera clicking)
It's like moving to a whole new country.
That's what it's like moving to L.A.
(chill R&B music)
Everything's different
in a way.
Being at the new school,
I didn't really have any friends,
or I didn't really know anybody.
It was definitely hard for me.
I'm a social person, and so I unenrolled,
and then I did online school.
So I just started getting
to do more workshops,
more classes, more extra-curricular stuff.
I did martial arts for a little bit.
Yeah, I know.
I did some tap dancing for a little bit.
I love tap, by the way.
♪ I said hip hop ♪
♪ Hip hop hop ♪
(audience laughing)
♪ This is how I hip hop ♪
♪ Hip hop ♪
(audience laughing)
And then using those skills I learned,
I would apply them in my
auditions, in the audition rooms,
and it was like that over and over again
for three years straight.
It was a lot of noes before a yes,
and I was thankful for
any yes that I could get.
I had a small, little speaking
role on "Henry Danger."
- [Man] Carlos.
- Shh, Carlos.
(audience laughing)
- N-I-R, souvenir.
- Correct.
(bell dinging)
- And I was like, "Wow,
this is what it's like
"to be a Nick kid.
"I wanna be on Nickelodeon."
I was there for a week,
and I fell in love,
until finally I got an
audition for "All That."
Atten-hut!
I am Master Sergeant Smith,
and I'm here to guide you
through the very intense
course of kindergarten!
(woman chuckling)
(upbeat music)
The audience process
for "All That" was really,
really interesting.
I vividly remember, like,
please come prepared with
one to three characters
around 30 seconds each.
So I just did some of my improv characters
that I love to do.
So our first book is
"Charlotte's Web" by--
(body thudding)
Oh, my God!
(people laughing)
What was that?
And I didn't know what was
going on until I got a callback,
and I'm like, "Did I just
called back for this?"
I'm like, "Okay."
And then I tested at Nickelodeon,
and I tested in front of a
bunch of Nickelodeon executives,
and big Nickelodeon people.
- [Woman] Good morning, Jamie.
Are you ready to do your
recording here with Reece?
- So ready.
Only problem is (coughing) I'm sick.
(people laughing)
And it was just fingers
crossed from there,
until they called back,
but they said they
wanted me to test again.
They wanted me to have new stuff, though.
They wanted to see what else could I do,
and so I was like, "Okay,
is this a good sign?
"Is this a bad sign?"
I didn't know how to feel,
but I knew that I was still excited.
At the second test, I
tested with Chinguun.
I love ChinChin.
And we played a card game together.
It was Crazy Eights.
So I did the test at Paramount Studios.
I have fingers crossed.
I hope I did great.
They're seeing me for a second time.
- [Woman] The hat suit was amazing.
- It was?
I mean, of course it was, duh!
(people laughing)
Okay, I'm going to stop
talking now, thanks!
And I walked out of the
testing room thinking,
(sighs) "I could have done better.
"I really could have done better.
"I hope I didn't make
a clown out of myself."
And as we're ordering the Uber,
that's when my mom gets a call
from my manager and my agent,
and that's when they said,
"Hey, Nathan, how do you think
you did on the audition?"
I'm like, "I don't think I did very good.
"I so could have done better."
And they're like, "Oh, well, guess what?
"You got the part!"
And that's when I was like, "What?"
Me and my mom, we both
started crying on the sidewalk
outside of Paramount Studios
while waiting for an Uber,
and it was just really emotional.
I was like, "I can't believe it."
I worked so hard for 3 1/2 years,
that I finally booked something.
I finally booked "All That."
And as me and my mom
(inspirational piano music)
are crying on the phone,
that's when Chinguun and
his mom pass by in a car,
and Chinguun's like, "Hey, Nathan!"
He's confused because
I'm crying, you know,
on the side of the street.
And then two weeks later,
that's when I met the rest
of the cast, and I'm like,
"These are gonna be my
best friends now, forever."
- Hi, Cam, I'm Nathan.
- Two names now.
- [Nathan] I love the cast so much.
- (laughing) Shut up!
- [Nathan] They're my best friends.
They're my partners.
- Carl, why, what the heck?
- We love getting to hang
out with one another.
You should be going out
with Fluffy like this.
I'm so blessed to have booked this part,
and I'm so thankful every single day,
and it's perfect because
I'm not just required
to play one character every
single episode, you know?
It's a new character every
single week basically.
I love getting to play
Ariana Grande, of course.
It's "Story Time with Ariana."
it all just started off as a joke
between me and my friend, Amira.
We watched this Ariana Grande interview,
and we're like, we would always
just go "yuh" to one another.
We would just go, "Yuh!"
Yuh.
Yuh, and it just turned into a thing,
and I was like, "Hey, maybe I
can do an Ariana impression."
Yuh.
"All That" has definitely been
really everything I ever wanted to do.
I just knew that I always
wanted to do comedy.
(emotional piano music)
The first thing I would say to someone
who wants to get into this
is the first thing you need to do
is know that you wanna do it.
Stay committed, stay dedicated.
I feel like everyone wants
to be an actor, you know?
Everyone wants to be on
TV in some sort of way,
but you truly have to
be in love with acting.
And to test your dedication,
try signing up for school plays,
signing up for local theater, all of that.
There's gonna be a lot
of people who hate on you
for doing what you love to do,
and it's for stupid, petty reasons.
You just have to be confident in yourself
and remind yourself that,
"I like what I'm doing,
"and I'm sure other people
like what I'm doing as well,
"so I'm gonna keep doing it."
