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The Sleepy Hollow High School student who formerly went to the Masters School in Dobbs Ferry, has been in Toronto since June filming “The Wonderful Wayneys," a new TV sitcom featuring renowned actors Molly Ringwald and Jason Priestley.
Cadel, 15, stars as Emmett, the lead character, with Ringwald and Priestley as his parents. It is being produced by Aircraft Pictures for the Family Channel in its first foray into a more mature family comedy (think Modern Family vs. iCarly).
The young actor plays the “odd man out,” in a family of multi-exceptional older siblings. Fans of "Degrassi" will recognize teen heartthrob Luke Bilyk, and the Emmy-nominated star of "Spooksville," Katie Douglas, who stars as his older sister. The family is rounded out by Matthew Tissi and Jake Sim.
Cadel, who has no has no acting training other than doing shows at school and at the performing arts camp he attended, has been doing standup comedy at Manhattan's comedy clubs since he was 12-years-old.
So, how did this high school sophmore catapult from comedian to TV sitcom star?
It all started with what his mother, Betsy Cadel calls, "a very unusual bar mitzvah gift." Comedian and comedy coach Scott Blakeman, a Scarsdale resident, who has been teaching comedy for over 30 years (and includes Jon Stewart as one of his most famous students) met with Cadel for one-on-one training.
Blakeman later brought his friend, Tom Saunders, a TV writer and producer, to see Cadel perform at The Comic Strip. Saunders was impressed and immediately started talking to Betsy about Simon’s star potential.
About a year later, Saunders got the greenlit to do 26-episodes of a show he had written the pilot for three years prior. That segued into Simon auditioning via Skype for a small role, which quickly segued into him being flown to Toronto to audition for the lead.
A few weeks later, he was offered the part, ironically the day before he found out he did not make it into the student-run acting club.
For more information and behind the scenes details, follow Cadel on Facebook, via Twitter or at www.simoncadel.com/.
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