Kelly Ripa's Son Gave Her a Job on a Film School Project Assigned by a Professor She's Known for Years
Michael Consuelos recently asked his mom Kelly Ripa to help out with his film school project — but it turns out the assignment was given by a professor who Ripa knows very well.
On Sunday, the Live with Kelly and Ryan co-host announced on Instagram that her 22-year-old son, who is currently a student at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, had asked her to be a producer on his film project.
“When your son gives you a job…….💕🎬💫👁 #filmschool #tvshow #producer” Ripa, 49, captioned a photo of herself and Michael smiling.
The following day, Ripa discussed her new “gig” on her talk show and revealed that she actually had a very special connection to Michael’s professor — he was a director on All My Children for 11 years and was responsible for casting Mark Consuelos as her husband on the show!
“The professor of this class is the professor that directed — he wasn’t a professor at the time, he was a director — he directed the screen test between Mark and me at All My Children,” Ripa explained to her co-host, Ryan Seacrest.
“So when Michael was touring all the film schools … he got into several film schools and he was trying to make a decision and he kept waiting for a sign, something to hit him in the head,” she continued. “Because wherever he was, that’s what he liked, so he kept waiting for the sign.”
That sign finally came to Michael while he was touring New York University’s campus with his mom and ran into Christopher Goutman, who now works as an Academic Director and Assistant Professor at the Tisch School.
“We’re walking down the hallway and I hear a voice I know [say], ‘Consuelos!'” Ripa recalled. “He turns around and I see Chris Goutman, who was our director at All My Children … I worked with him for 11 years.”
“And he goes, ‘You have to come here because I am literally the reason you exist!'” Ripa went on. “And that’s how he made a decision!”
Ripa starred as Hayley Vaughan on All My Children from 1990 to 2002. Consuelos, 48, officially joined the soap opera’s cast as Hayley’s husband Mateo Santos in 1995. The pair then tied the knot a year later, in 1996.
The actress has previously admitted that the moment she first saw her now-husband, she knew he was the one.
“I saw my husband in a photograph before I saw him,” Ripa told Bruce Bozzi for his SiriusXM Radio Andy show “Lunch with Bruce” in Aug. 2018. “I knew when I saw his photograph.”
“They had been looking for this character for some time. They were looking really for a Latino actor,” Ripa recalled. “And so I had auditioned every Latino actor in the city and around the city and then California. And then all of a sudden, Judy Blye Wilson, who was the casting director at All My Children, said, ‘I found him.'”
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At the time, Consuelos had just graduated from college and was a “green” actor who hadn’t done much work.
“[Judy] showed me his picture and … at that point, I was not a hopeless romantic. I never thought about getting married, it never occurred to me that I would grow old with someone. I just thought I would be living my single girl life in the city,” Ripa explained. “When I saw him, the photograph of him, I saw my entire future with him flash before — like I saw it. And I don’t believe in any of that and now I do because of that moment.”
More than two decades later, the couple are still blissfully in love and have three children together. (In addition to Michael, they also share son Joaquin, 16, and daughter Lola, 18, who is currently a first-year student at NYU.)
It appears Michael may be following in his parents’ footsteps, too. The NYU student landed a guest role on Riverdale in Aug. 2018 as the young Hiram Lodge — a perfect fit as the adult version of the scheming mobster is played by his father.
The film major is expected to graduate from NYU this coming spring.
