Calling the massive Nick Jr. series, which he starred in from 1996 to 2002, “my side hustle forever,” the beloved children’s television star shares how he wasn’t even expecting to be on camera when he auditioned.
For a generation of fans, Steve Burns is the voice (and face) of comfort. The beloved first host of Nickelodeon’s Blue’s Clues from 1996 to 2002, Steve was one of the most famous faces on television. But you wouldn’t have known it from his paychecks.
The beloved star, who still brings his Millennial fans comfort with his engaging videos on Instagram — often just “listening” — opened up about how much helping Blue find clues and solve mysteries really paid, and how he didn’t even know what he was auditioning for when he showed up.
Making an appearance on Rainn Wilson’s Soul Boom podcast, Burns called Blue’s Clues “my side hustle forever.”
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He explained that even as the show was becoming a blockbuster success for Nick Jr. — ultimately spawning an ever-expanding line of branded merchandise — “Every waiter I ever knew made more money than I did for the first many seasons of that show.”
So if that was his “side hustle,” how did he pay the bills? “My real gig was, I was a voice-over guy,” he told Wilson. “I fell into that early.”
He said that the commercial voiceover work “kind of sustained me, but man, it was grim.” At the time, Burns said he “lived in a hallway [in a NYC apartment]. I built like a little shelf in a hallway between two tiny bedrooms.”
As for how he fell into Blue’s Clues, Burns told The Office alum that it happened “entirely by accident.”
In fact, he thought he was auditioning for another voice-over roll when he first auditioned for what would become Blue’s Clues, a hybrid live-action/animated series that saw Burns as the only real figure in an illustrated world. All the way up until the moment he walked in, Burns was thinking it would be the exact opposite.
He joked that the only live-action auditions he was taking at that time early in his career were “serious actor auditions” for shows like Law & Order and Homicide: Life on the Street.
When he got the word about this new Nickelodeon show, the then 22-year-old thought it “was going to be the voice of a cartoon on a children’s television show.” But that’s not what it was at all.
“I went to the audition, and when I got there, there was a camera in the room, and I thought, ‘Oh s–t, I better do something,'” Burns said. “And so I looked at the script, and I figured … I’m going to act the s–t out of this.”
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He admitted that had he known it was for a live performance role beforehand, he never would have gone, “not only because I was a pretentious young man at the time — that was part of it — but also because children’s television had never occurred to me.”
“I didn’t even know any kids, you know? And I just [thought], there’s no way I can do that,” he added. “I would have said ‘No, no, that’s a mistake.'” Luckily, he didn’t, and despite having long hair and a cigarette pack in his audition, he did land the part.
He shared a bit of the magic he created in that audition, with a lot of it carrying over into the show, including his signature move of stepping closer to the camera to create an intimacy with the young audience.
While he never expected to be on-camera in a kids show, Burns certainly did “act the s–t out of it” for six years, picking up a Daytime Emmy Award nomination in 2001, before he ultimately stepped away from the show, leaving his young fans shocked.
Burns has previously opened up about his depressive episode shortly before and after his departure, but the actor dug deep with Wilson about his internal struggles.
He shared that every day he would ask his audience if they would help him, but it wasn’t until he asked that question in his real life that he began to turn things around. Until that moment, he was in what he called “the gray” as he dealt with all kinds of rumors, including that he was dead — rumors he said some of his family even believed at times.
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“[That] was something I would hear from people. ‘Oh, I thought you were dead. Didn’t you die?'” he recalled. “And when it persists for 10 years, it feels like a cultural preference … you start to feel like you’re supposed to be.”
He said he slipped into what he’s dubbed “the gray” of his life for about a decade, gaining 50 pounds, never leaving his house, and just embracing the idea that if he was “dead” … “eventually I started playing along. You know, that was the strategy … maybe I am.”
With the assistance of therapy, Burns made his way back into the public eye, reconnecting with both his original Blue’s Clues fans, and even with the revival show, Blues Clues & You! He’s written for the popular new show, hosted by Josh Dela Cruz, and even appeared on-camera as his fictional alter-ego.
In 2021, as the world was dealing with the emotional strain of the COVID-19 pandemic, Burns appeared on social media with a message for his longtime fans who grew up with him, acknowledging that his exit from Blue’s Clues was pretty “abrupt.”
He said that the time away had allowed them all to grow up and move on, but he wanted them to know “that, after all these years, I never forgot you. Ever. And I’m super glad we’re still friends.” Since that time, he’s made regular drop-ins on his social with calming videos where he asks his fans how things are going, and then quietly “listens” as they share.
