Morris Chestnut Reveals Shocking Amount of Money He Was Paid for Early Role on “A Different World” That Was Cut from the Show

NEED TO KNOW

• Morris Chestnut was getting his start in acting in the early 1990s when an opportunity on A Different World opened up

• The actor, now 57, auditioned for the role and was cast, although the scene was later cut from the episode

• Chestnut remembers how much he made for his one-line appearance and what it made him realize about acting

A chance to be on A Different World led Morris Chestnut to look at acting differently.

Appearing on the R&B Money podcast‘s Oct. 13 episode, the actor, 57, opened up about auditioning for the series, which ran for six seasons from 1987 to 1993, as a young actor.

“So I had a couple of dudes from my acting class say, ‘Hey, let’s try this.’ We started going out, trying to get agents and stuff. So I got an agent — and here’s when I knew this was what I wanted to do. He was sending me out for stuff, and so I went to an audition for A Different World,” he began.

Chestnut said that the role had him serving food behind a counter when students approached and he greeted them. “So I did that in the audition. I smiled and said hi, and so that was it.”

A few days later, his agent called and shared that he got the role. “They said, ‘If you do the job, it’s going to pay $1500 per week” —and all I heard was 1500. I said, ‘How much?’ He said, ‘I said $1500 per week. You get this, you get that.’ So I start doing my math and I’m like, ‘Wait a minute, so if I’m saying hi for $1500, what is Dwayne Wayne getting? What is Whitley Gilbert getting?’ “

Chestnut’s scene was later cut from the episode, but it wasn’t the last time he’d audition for the show. “I remember there were a couple times when I did go back to A Different World and I’ll never forget, when I went to this audition Martin [Lawrence]wasn’t Martin yet but he was there at the audition and he was in outside — everyone’s got their papers outside — and of course he’s holding court with all the comedy and everything.”

He concluded, “There were [a few] roles on A Different World that I didn’t get. There were a lot of roles that that I didn’t get.”

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In a 2022 podcast appearance on the Uncensored podcast with Ryan Cameron, Jasmine Guy, who portrayed Whitley throughout the show’s run, shared what the financial side of her deal looked like.

“We didn’t own it, you know. I didn’t have any position to ask for nothing. I was like, ‘I’m making $6,000. I’d never seen that,” she explained.

Guy continued, “When I first got to A Different World, I had a contract, and I got $6,000 a week, and I had a limited contract for seven episodes, me and Kadeem [Hardison]. So when we came on to the show, by episode 6, he was like, ‘What do you think?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know. I didn’t give up my apartment.”

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