CBS.com: What spurred the jump between the theater and your role on The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air?
JOSEPH MARCELL: I came over with The Royal Shakespeare Company in 1987 to do Measure For Measure and two other plays by Samuel Beckett. Somebody in the audience happened to be at UCLA where we were playing. Then The Fresh Prince happened to happen in 1990 and they wanted an English butler. And somebody said, "I remember seeing this guy with the Royal Shakespeare Company but I don't know who he is. That's how it was. When that happened, I was doing the European production of another play by August Wilson called, Joe Turner's Come And Gone In London. It's the kind of archetypal theater story. There I was working in an elevator and this man said, "I'm going to make you a star!" [Laughs] I never dreamed that's how it would happen and I had been to America many times with the Royal Shakespeare Company. I had even been on Broadway with them. So, I came over and auditioned and I sent tapes and then I came back and met the people. They said, "Yes, you're the man we want."
CBS.com: That's a great story. You had a great run with that show, too.
JOSEPH MARCELL: I had a great time. It's like finding a nickel or a dime or something. It's the unexpected. If you found twenty bucks that's alright, but if you find a nickel, a dime or a quarter, there's something really special about it. You just enjoy the whole thing and think, "I'll keep it. Maybe I can put it in a meter?" Then you put it in a meter and then you think, "Gosh, I just saved myself forty bucks." It's really special.
source: www.cbs.com