Kevin Chamberlin is a Tony Award-nominated actor and has been making waves on TikTok with his viral videos. His latest, “I Wanna Be in a Marvel Movie,” showcases his love of the MCU. He and his producer, Sam Kite, sat down with us to discuss their TikToks, their experience with the Ratatouille musical, and what superhero they’d love to see in a musical.
GVN: So, we’re here to talk about some of the TikToks you guys have been doing over on TikTok. But before we get into that, could you guys talk a little bit about yourselves for our audience, so they have a better idea of who you are and how you started working together?
KEVIN CHAMBERLIN (KC): Well, I basically have been in the acting business since I graduated from college – from Rutgers University in ‘85. And I’m basically a Broadway actor, but I do a lot of TV and film as well. And your audience might know me from Disney Channel when they were growing up, on Jessie. My first big film was Die Hard With a Vengeance. And when I was in New York doing Addams Family, the musical on Broadway, I met Sam and he is in digital advertising. And we hit it off and became great friends. He moved out to Los Angeles soon after Addams Family, and he and I started collaborating on my social media. It started with Twitter and Instagram, and then we moved over to TikTok right when Biden won.
We made a Biden/Harris video using the theme song from Jessie. And then we started getting a lot of attention with Ratatouille the Musical. And then we started doing some more musical videos. Our first one was “Turtleneck and Blazer,” which was written by another guy, Austin Archer. And “Mustache Respect.” And because of Sam’s love of comic books and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, his passion for that and my newfound passion, really, got us writing the song “I Wanna Be in a Marvel Movie.” Which is, ultimately… I was actually up for a Marvel series recently and it was between me and another guy, and the other guy got it. And so, I really would love to be in a Marvel movie. And so that passion came into the song. And I come from musical theatre roots, so I wanted to write an “I Want” song – a classic “I Want” song. It’s been really fun collaborating with Sam. And he’s my director and producer and writer.
@chamberlin_kevin We got that #MustacheRespect 🎶 by @yourpal_austin 👯 @timdhooper @chattypilot #fyp #king #kevinchamberlin #austinarcher
♬ Mustache Respect by Austin Archer Kevin Chamberlin – Kevin Chamberlin
SAM KITE (SK): It’s hard to follow all that. I work in digital advertising. I work for an agency called Part IV and we do a lot of social and digital stuff for Disney and Marvel and other film studios. So, my experience for coming up with TikToks for brands, I started to do for Kevin. I was just like, “Hey, your entire audience of fans are all on TikTok.
So, we should just make fun videos together.” And I had produced a feature film and a couple of short films that were in film festivals. And so, I really wanted to direct more. So, Kevin let me direct some stuff. And then it started going viral, and then we started hitting millions and millions of people. And so we kept doing it. I think he got a million followers overnight.
GVN: Overnight?
SK: Yeah, our first TikTok video, I think. It was the very first one. He wasn’t verified, we just posted it. And then we shared it on his Instagram, which he had some following on. And then, yeah, it just kind of went viral overnight. And we got like 20 million views in like a couple of days with that TikTok. And so we were like, “I guess we’re onto something.” So, we kept making stuff. And since we started – we started in November. And then when Ratatouille the Musical was coming out, my boss actually sent me a message, and was like, “You guys should pay attention to this Ratatouille the Musical thing. It’s kind of fun and happening on TikTok.”
So, I got Kevin to write his song for it. And then that hit like five million people. And then Ratatouille the Musical started becoming like an even bigger thing. And then The New York Times started calling. And CBS This Morning started calling. And so, Kevin kind of was the first celebrity to really kind of engage with a TikTok trend that way. And because of his musical theatre roots – he has three Tony nominations. So, he was kind of instantly blast to the front of it. And then it happened, and it became a whole big thing. And now, it’s probably gonna be nominated for an Emmy. That was just like a thing we did just in the afternoon during the pandemic and it became into this whole big thing. So, I’m hoping that the Marvel movie song gets him a part in a Marvel movie, to be honest.
GVN: On that note, if Kevin Feige called you today, Kevin, and offered you any role you wanted, what’s the pie-in-the-sky role?
KC: Kingpin.
GVN: Kingpin? Oh, oh, that’d be good.
SK: I agree. Or the Thing.
KC: Or the Thing, yeah. I’d have to get back to the gym.
SK: Or Captain Marvel’s dad. It doesn’t really matter.
KC: As a character actor, you know, I can play anything. That’s the wonderful thing about being a character actor. The older I get, the more roles and scenes are available for me.
GVN: Really?
KC: Yeah. Unlike, you know, the lead handsome man who, as they age, they kind of age out of their type and become character men. I’ve just been a character actor my whole life.
GVN: What was the experience making the Marvel TikTok like? How long did it take you guys to make it?
KC: We started writing the song first. That was… From writing the song to the final cut, it was about two months.
GVN: Two months?
SK: Yeah, and most of that was post-production on the video. We wrote the song in like forty-five minutes, just randomly on like a Saturday afternoon because Kevin had been up for this part in this Marvel show and didn’t get it. And we wanted to write a new song because we had written… There was a death hoax about Kevin. And a lot of our comments on TikTok were all like, “I thought you were dead,” “Aren’t you dead, bro?” And so, we wrote a song about it called “I’m Not Dead,” where he literally is like – all the comments flash up on the screen, and he sings this Broadway number about “He’s alive! He’s still here!” And it got kind of a lot of attention. So, I was like, “Hey, we should just start writing more songs together.”
And we were working on a song idea, and then he said, “You know, I just wanna do something really personal. Like, I wanna be in a Marvel movie.” And I was like, “Yes!” And so we just made it a love letter to Marvel, kind of. And the video – we kind of broke the song down for our beats, and figured out, you know, we already had the plot kind of built out in the song, with the Thor’s Hammer and the Lois and Clark bit. So, we kind of knew how we were gonna shoot it. But then all of the transitions are specific references to Marvel. There’s an “ash away” from Infinity War; there’s the Ant-Man shrink; there’s a color change from WandaVision. So, those are all kind of little references to Marvel things, visually.
GVN: What’s the reaction been like so far to the video?
KC: It’s been incredible. An outpouring of… I wish everyone had a direct line to the Marvel casting directors because apparently every one of my comments is like “Dude, you need to be in a Marvel movie. Why haven’t they cast you yet?”
SK: Yeah, I hope Sarah Finn listens to this interview and goes and watches the video.
GVN: I wanna talk about the Ratatouille musical for a second. Were you both involved with that?
KC: Yes. Sam heard about it first through his digital ad company, Part IV. Your boss –
SK: My boss told me about it, yeah. And then Kevin wrote the song in like forty-five minutes.
KC: I hadn’t seen the movie since it originally came out in 2006, I think it was? And the first song that really popped out, or the first song placement, was that Chef Gusteau’s “Anyone Can Cook” monologue. And I was like “This is the perfect place for a song.” And I literally wrote it in forty, forty-five minutes. Sat down at the piano, and put on a chef hat, and filmed it. And when we posted it, it was really on a lark, and the next day, it had over a million hits. And then… For some reason, we hit the zeitgeist moment because The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and CBS This Morning called within twenty-four hours. And something had really happened where this thing just exploded.
And I think it was partly because I have a big Disney following with the show Jessie. And people just started talking about it. And then Seaview Productions called me and said, “We’re interested in doing this as an Actor’s Fund benefit concert.” And so, that kind of gave it even more momentum.
SK: And Kevin was the first person they called when to actually produce it.
@chamberlin_kevin @ratatouillemusical 🎶 Anyone Can Cook 🎶 #Gusteau #ratatouillemusical #kevinchamberlin #theatrekid #musicals #broadway #ratatouille #fyp #composer
GVN: Really?
SK: Yeah, he was the first actor they approached because we kind of basically… We kind of took the Ratatouille thing and because Kevin’s song was the biggest song of the whole trend, we kind of forced them to cast him. So, they really had no choice. Which was really cool because he was in The Prom on Netflix. So, like, he had just come off The Prom, and then Ratatouille happened. And so, it was just kind of this great thing where the TikToks and the real world and his career were all kind of like colliding in this really perfect moment.
And so, I have a really big kitchen in our house. So, we shot his number in my kitchen. And a friend of mine who’s a camera guy on The Walking Dead, he kind of helped. Because he was here on hiatus. And so, the three of us shot the whole number in the living room. And then the director of Ratatouille kind of gave some direction notes that she wanted us to do. But it was just the three of us shooting this whole thing here.
KC: And it was, like, the night before Christmas Eve.
SK: Yeah, yeah, it was right as Christmas was happening. And then it came out on New Year’s Day. So, like, the holidays were basically consumed by Ratatouille.
GVN: How was the feedback from all of that? I know a lot of people that I knew in my personal life were really excited about the Actor’s Fund fundraiser for it.
KC: Yeah, well I think we all needed something. We needed a little musical theatre at the end of what was, really, one of the craziest years we all lived through. And, especially, people who loved the theatre. We were craving being in an audience and watching a musical. And it provided that. It was also the first crowd-sourced musical ever done. And TikTok really exploded during 2020, and it was wonderful how they threw in… Because people posted – there were over 100, 150 different videos of songs, costume designs, set designs. And the way they incorporated that all into the final presentation was so moving to me. It really was a total community coming together to create this beautiful piece that ultimately raised over two million dollars for the Actor’s Fund.
GVN: Wow. You mentioned a little bit about how lots of people were craving live theatre. As an actor who has been performing onstage and onscreen, I’m curious – for you – what’s the difference between doing those different mediums?
KC: Well, the biggest difference is you have control over your final performance in the theatre. Your opening night performance is gonna be the same the next night, and the next night. Whereas, if I do a movie or a television show, I don’t know what is going to end up on the cutting room floor. I could have had a brilliant moment, and it’s gone because the sound wasn’t right, or the lighting wasn’t right, or it’s just running too long. I had, in The Prom, about 70% of my performance was cut. But a lot of people – Andrew Rannells had half a number cut. So it has to be economically told, the story, and sometimes you end up on the cutting room floor.
GVN: You’ve done a bunch of iconic roles to a certain group of people. Musicals like Seussical and The Addams Family get done a lot regionally. And I’m curious if you’ve ever gone to see any of those productions.
KC: I have. I haven’t seen an Addams Family, yet. But I’ve seen probably over thirty productions of Seussical. It’s always very moving.
GVN: What’s it like – is it weird seeing other people do a role that you originated?
KC: No, I think it’s wonderful because everyone has their own interpretation of it. And because it’s all, usually, high school age and under, doing it, it’s very moving to me because it reminds me of doing the shows in high school that I did. And I mean, if I got to meet the person who originated a role in a show I did in high school, my mind would have just been blown. So, I love, I really love going to see amateur productions. It’s really fun. And I’m looking forward to going to an Addam’s Family production.
GVN: I love that musical. I keep wanting to see one locally, and it just never works out. And I’m so excited to see one when they all come back here, after all of this ends.
KC: I’ve gotten messages from about thirty different schools and community theatres where their production was canceled. But it’s in the top five of licensed Broadway shows now.
SK: Seussical and Addams Family are like the two top licensed shows. Which is funny that he was in both of them.
GVN: Does that give you an ego? Like, how does that feel?
KC: It makes me proud of the work we did. It’s interesting because both shows were not very well-reviewed. The Addams Family was a populist hit, but not a critical hit. And Seussical was, you know, we only ran six, seven months. And it lost all of its money. But they have since made a lot of money back. We just had a little twentieth-anniversary Zoom call with the original cast. So, over those twenty years, I’m sure they’ve made their money back.
GVN: I have one final question that I think is gonna tie all of this together. And that is: what superhero would you most like to see in a musical, and why is it not Spider-Man?
SK: Whoa, that’s actually funny you ask that because Kevin and I went to the very first preview of the Spider-Man musical. The first produced show ever that anyone ever saw, we were there. And it was my Christmas present that year because I wanted to see it so bad. And he pulled some strings and got us tickets, and we went to that production. It was the one where the guy got stuck for like an hour and a half, hanging upside down. And I remember Michael Riedel, the Broadway critic and kind of gossipy voice, came up and was like, “Kevin Chamberlin, I see that you’re here at Spider-Man’s first preview, care to comment?” And Kevin was like, “I’m not saying anything.” And that was a great moment. But for me, my favorite would be… I would love to see Iceman: The Musical. I wanna see that coming out “I Want” song really bad. And I already saw Spider-Man, so that’s why it’s Iceman.
KC: One of my favorite musicals is It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… It’s Superman. And I think that’s ripe for a revival and a rewriting to update it.
GVN: I agree. Thank you guys so much for doing this.
KC: Our pleasure.
SK: Thank you for having us.
GVN: Before I let you go, is there anything you guys would like to plug or places you want our audience to find you on social media?
KC: Well, if you are not familiar with our TikTok, it’s uh. If you just put in Kevin Chamberlin, I’ll come up. It’s kevin_chamberlin. And I’m also on Instagram. I’m gonna be in an Amazon TV show called Outer Range, starring Josh Brolin and Lily Taylor. That’ll be probably coming out at the end of the year.
SK: And I’m Sam Kite. I’m on all the Social Medias as well (Twitter). And I’m currently developing an animated series called Hibernation. It’s kind of an Adult Swim-type series. And I’m developing some other content. But also, I do all Kevin’s TikToks. We have a couple of fun collaborations with other TikTokers coming up. It’s kind of actually fun because I really like a lot of these TikTok influencers and creative voices that are really coming out of nowhere. They’re not, you know, Hollywood people. They’re just kind of normal editors, and special effects people, and dancers who are actually able to make something in their living rooms. So, we’re collaborating with some people that we find really talented and cool. And they’re coming to us, which is even cooler to see so many talented people wanting to collaborate with us. So, look out for some fun collaborations soon.
Part-time writer, part-time theatre nerd, full-time dork.
