Here's What It Actually Takes to Be a Nickelodeon Star, According to Nickelodeon Stars
Growing up in the '90s, I always wanted to be a Nickelodeon star. Real kids like me were making people laugh on All That and trying to win both Toys "R" Us Geoffrey Dollars and Nintendo 64s on Figure It Out - and I wanted to be a part of it. Alas, that dream died like Nickelodeon Studios in Florida. C'est la vie. So what does it take to actually be a Nickelodeon star? Would my childhood self have even been able to hack it? How often do you have to go to set, learn your lines, and get your hair and makeup done, all while going to school?
While attending the second annual U.S. Nickelodeon SlimeFest in Chicago earlier this month, I spoke with two Nick stars - Knight Squad's Daniella Perkins and Owen Joyner - to learn the ins and outs of what it actually takes to be an actor on Nickelodeon. Spoiler: It's a lot of work.
What is the audition process like?
If you think auditioning is just waltzing into an L.A. studio, reading some lines from the script, and then waltzing out until the producers call you, you might want to get the slime out of your eyes and face the facts: That's not typically how things work.
For Owen, who is from Oklahoma and didn't want to move out to L.A. unless it was "meant to be," he'd submit his auditions on tape, and if he got a callback, he'd submit those on tape as well, and then he'd fly out to L.A.
"The only time I would go out to L.A. is for producer callbacks. So, you usually get a producer callback, and if you go past that, it’s what’s called a screen test," Owen told Seventeen. "That’s when you have to sign contracts and negotiate and everything before you go to the screen test, and then you screen test and then that’s the last step. And that’s how it’s been for me." (FYI, this isn't something that's unique to just Owen. On Netflix's Beyond Stranger Things special about the making of Stranger Things, we're shown Finn Wolfhard's audition tape. He notes how he's sick and, based on the pillows in the background, appears to be in a bedroom, doing the initial audition.)
Both Daniella and Owen explained to a noob like me that a screen test is the same thing as a chemistry read, which is when you read scenes with other actors being considered for a role opposite yours. This can really seal the deal on nailing a role if the right people are paired up and come across as believable onscreen together. There's also a thing called mix-and-match, which tends to come before a screen test, to narrow down the competition even more.
Just because you don't immediately flow with your scene partner - Daniella mentioned to Seventeen how she and Owen didn't really talk during this stage - doesn't mean all hope is lost. Obviously, things worked out for the teens on Knight Squad, because they ended up co-starring on the show together as the adorable Ciara and Arc.
On the other hand, you and another actor can instantly click, but not end up reading together until much later. This is what happened with Zombies stars Milo Manheim and Meg Donnelly. Meg told Seventeen back in 2018 that during the chemistry read, "Milo and I instantly became best friends, and we weren’t even paired up together ... When we were paired up with different people, the two of us were talking the whole time, so it was kind of funny. But when they eventually paired us up, it was so easy to do the scenes with him, it was really cool."
How long do you have to wait before learning if you got the part or not?
Each project is different so the waiting game can vary from immediately to months, but for Daniella, she heard back about Knight Squad after about two days. Owen also said it was about two days before he learned he was cast as Arc on Knight Squad, but things were different for him when he auditioned for Nickelodeon's 100 Things to Do Before High School (which wrapped two years before Knight Squad premiered).
"I went in for the screen test [for 100 Things] and I had to [then leave] ... to go and finish up paperwork [with the agency I'd just signed with]," Owen explained. "So, I went there, and then they had a folder - and this was immediately after the screen test - and it said, 'Congrats, Chrispo,' which was my name of the character. And I was just sitting there looking at it like, 'Are you guys joking?' So, I heard immediately."
Meanwhile, Daniella explained how a lot of her work has been for Nickelodeon - she starred on the mockumentary Legendary Dudas in 2016, guest-starred on both The Thundermans and Nicky, Ricky, Dicky & Dawn, and co-starred with Jace Norman and JoJo Siwa in the TV movie Blurt - so she hasn't had a ton of different network experiences to compare with her Nickelodeon ones.
But she did share how drawn out the audition process can be at times: "I've been pinned for stuff and then I’ll get called in that they’re continuing on with me for like, a month. It’s so long." So, each situation is unique to the individual; no audition process is a one-size-fits-all experience.
Once you get the part, what does work look like day-by-day?
If you don't like getting up super early, maybe the acting life isn't for you. Daniella had to get to set about an hour earlier than Owen, because her character's hair and makeup took longer to do than his. "If his call time is 7, I’m there at 6 or before that," she said. "Then if I’m being the princess, that takes even longer than just my curly hair, because I have to put a wig on me and everything. So, waking up just to get there is like 5, 'cause I live further away."
While Owen is only in hair and makeup for about 25 minutes, Daniella is in there for an hour or longer.
After hair and makeup is done, you "film, film, film, film, film until lunch," as Owen put it. But "film" doesn't always mean actually filming. The cast will run through scenes and lines with their dialogue coach, making sure they have their lines memorized. They'll rehearse the scenes over and over, and then they'll shoot them. "We'll do that for like seven hours, and then we’ll eat, do it for another seven hours, and then go home," Owen explained.
"And then you come back and do it the next day," Daniella added.
Because Knight Squad was a multi-camera show, that means they only filmed two days during the work week and just rehearsed on other three. (For reference, both 100 Things to Do Before High School and Legendary Dudas were single-camera series, which filmed every day.) On rehearsal-only days, they have production run-throughs, making sure everything goes as smoothly as possible and there are no surprises when it comes time to actually start recording.
I feel like it's also important to note that both stars were quick to mention how great the food was on set, especially on filming days. If you've always heard how amazing craft services is, you're definitely not being lied to; it really is that good.
How does school work when you're on set all day?
When you're both a minor and an actor, you need a legal three hours of school every single day. According to the California Child Labor Laws for the entertainment industry, "Youth who are at least 16 years old but are not yet 18 years old may remain at the place of employment for a maximum of 10 hours per day," noting how "when school is in session, [the youth] may work no more than 6 hours, with at least 3 hours of the remaining time being spent in schooling and at least 1 hour in rest and recreation."
Basically, the entertainment industry can't make kids under 18 work for more than 10 hours every day. Since Owen filmed 100 Things years before Knight Squad, and it was a single-camera show, he could only film 10 hours a day. The same deal happened for season 1 of Knight Squad, because Owen was still a minor, as was Daniella.
"For season 2, we finished rehearsal and went straight home, which is like 4 o’clock. But when we did season 1, we’d be done at 4 o’clock, but stay ‘til 7 o’clock because we had to do school," Daniella said.
If this sounds like a super long day and a ton of work, that's because it is (even the iCarly kids talked about balancing school and work back in the day). Reflecting on his time filming 100 Things, Owen shared, "But for 15 [years old], or 13, running around, filming every single day, it was kind of stressful, on top of getting school done and stuff."
To compare how this experience goes for child actors on non-Nickelodeon shows, Miles Brown, who plays Jack Johnson on Black-ish, said during an interview on Conan how it was hard watching his adult co-stars, like Anthony Anderson and Tracee Ellis Ross, get to leave set when they were done filming, while he and the other kids on the show were stuck there for school. "We have to stay extra hours, like you don’t understand. We stay late!"
If you think child actors are out living their best lives without having to deal the stress of school, guess again.
Schooling can get kind of complex on filming days but there's a type of workaround so the child labor law is still obeyed, yet there's enough time to adequately film everything. According to Owen, "For filming days, since you have to have three hours a day [of school], after rehearsal, you’ll sit there, and you’ll bank hours. You can bank up to 10 hours, and then you use that for filming days."
How do you have time to learn your lines when you're dealing with so many other things?
Both Daniella and Owen state learning lines is much easier than people think it would be. Filming for TV is much different than doing a school play: You only need to know a certain amount of lines for a scene being filmed at a time, versus having to know an entire script from start to finish.
The actors do so many rehearsals and run-throughs, that when filming days come around, they're totally set and ready to go. Plus, they're only doing about half a page to two pages at a time, not the full take. If there are five actors in a scene and you're only covering a tiny part of it, odds are you're not going to have a ton of lines to memorize all at once.
"We're each speaking maybe three, four times?" Owen said, "so [memorizing lines is] much easier than it [seems]."
So, what did we learn? Being an actor seems like a dream job - and it can be! - but it's also a ton of work that people who aren't in the business don't necessarily realize.
If you read this entire article (first of all, thanks!) and still want to be an actor, Daniella and Owen have some important things to share with you.
There's no job security. Unless you're Mariska Hargitay and have been on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit since the dawn of time, your show will eventually end, your character may not return, or they'll recast you. That's a hard truth to accept, but you should be ready for it to happen. Shows get canceled all the time for a myriad of reasons. Henry Danger is in the middle of its fifth season as of this writing, while Knight Squad lasted only two seasons. To compare, Drake & Josh got four seasons while iCarly had six.
Besides learning new skills to pad your resume with, such as guitar or drums, aspiring actors also need to have thick skin and be OK with rejection. "You never know when your yes is gonna come," Daniella said, "and you have to be able to hold on and keep faith within yourself and keep on going."
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