‘The Mick’ Star Carla Jimenez Talks About Her Audition For The Role Of Alba

Carla Jimenez’s audition for “The Mick” was something she won’t easily forget.

In her recent interview with Broadly, Jimenez said that trying out for the role of Alba — the Pembertons’ domestic help on the new FOX sitcom— was her “craziest” audition ever. To see her range as an actress, series producers gave her an audition scene where Alba takes molly for the first time. The said scene was featured in the second episode of the series, in which Mickey (Kaitlin Olson) drugged Alba before they headed to a bar to party.

“What the hell is this?” Jimenez recalled of her reaction after reading the script for the audition for the first time. When asked how she ended up performing the scene, she said: “You kind of just [go] balls out. You just unapologetically go for it.”

The 38-year-old actress added that she put a lot of physical comedy into her audition scene, a style that she knew very well as a stage thespian early in her career. “I love theater. I did a lot of physical comedy,” she said. “You don’t get much of a chance [to do physical comedy in film and television]—at least they don’t give me as much of a chance.”

In a guest blog post for Entertainment Weekly earlier this month, series creators Dave and John Chernin revealed that Jimenez was their first choice for the role of Alba.

“Carla Jimenez (Alba) was another first choice of ours,” they Chernin brothers wrote. “Really, the only choice as far as we were concerned. She was the first person who read for Alba, and everyone in that room will tell you it was the funniest audition they’ve ever seen. We all laughed so hard that it was impossible to hear her lines on the tape and we had to bring her back a second time.”

Olson, who co-produces the show, was also thrilled that they cast Jimenez for the role. “She is comedically gifted and she and I can improvise a lot — which is fun,” Olson told Fairfax.

“The Mick’s” next episode airs on Sunday, Jan. 15 at 9 p.m. EST on FOX. Check out the synopsis and trailer for Season 1, episode 4, titled “The Balloon,” below:

“When Mickey learns they’ve all forgotten Ben’s (Jack Stanton) seventh birthday, the family is forced to put their selfish tendencies aside for one day and throw him the celebration he deserves, which proves way harder than it sounds.”