Southern Charm

How Michael Mealor Made His Way From Georgia To Genoa City.

- Devin Owens

Michael Mealor’s journey to portraying the charming but self-serving Kyle Abbott on YOUNG AND RESTLESS started innocently enough: with a portable DVD player. “When I was in 8th grade, my parents gave me one for Christmas along with a subscription to Blockbuster,” the actor recalls. “I would lay in bed at night and watch movies on a 7-inch screen and think, ‘I want to do this,’ but I didn’t know how.”

That’s because the idea of Hollywood was a far cry from what he was used to in Georgia. “I had this storybook childhood,” he smiles. “I grew up being outdoors all of the time with the other kids in the neighborhood until you heard your mom calling you for dinner. We were a middle-class family, the American dream, I guess. But you never expect to get out of that town, so you don’t imagine that you can do more than what you’re told, which is graduate from college, get married and have kids. You don’t think you can abandon that to try something more.” 

In high school, Mealor focused on sports, but harbored a desire to perform. “I was the kid who knew everyone and everyone knew me, but I wasn’t cool,” he shares. “I was the nice guy on the football team who would go to theater productions and secretly want to be in them. I was a bright student and not much of a troublemaker. I never had a curfew because I chose not to do certain things for fear of letting my parents down.”