“Disney has it somewhere. In their vaults,” Joe Jonas tells EW.

Jonas Brothers reveal Joe’s *Camp Rock *audition ‘looked terrible’: Disney execs asked, ‘Is this a joke?’

"Disney has it somewhere. In their vaults," Joe Jonas tells EW.

By Sydney Bucksbaum

Sydney Bucksbaum

Sydney Bucksbaum is a staff writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2019 and is a published author. Her work has previously appeared in *TV Guide Magazine*, E! News/E! Online, *The Hollywood Reporter*, Mashable, Bustle, IGN, DCComics.com, Inverse, *The Daily Northwestern*, and more.

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November 21, 2025 2:37 p.m. ET

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The Jonas Brothers have gotta find Joe's missing audition tape for *Camp Rock*, because apparently it "looked terrible."

When ** asked Joe, Nick, and Kevin to fact check popular internet theories about them, they revealed that Joe's original *Camp Rock *audition was a self-tape that had such low quality, it literally had Disney execs wondering if it was a prank (thankfully, it had nothing to do with Joe's acting talent).

"Joe got the role of Shane Gray in *Camp Rock* as our band was already doing its thing for a couple years," Nick says. "We were on tour — we were on the 'theme park circuit'...wherever we could basically get booked and put on a free show. But things were starting to work, and 'Year 3000' was starting to bubble, and we felt like we had some momentum, but we needed something to propel us. So Joe gets this call to audition for this Disney movie, and I recall us helping him do his self-tape audition in our hotel room. Like a Holiday Inn in Albuquerque or something."

"I wish we could find this footage," Kevin adds.

"Disney has it somewhere," Joe responds. "In their vaults."

Nick Jonas, Joe Jonas, Kevin Jonas as Connect 3 in 'Camp Rock'.

Because the boys had to film Joe's audition on the road, they made do with what they had so he could land this Disney Channel original movie role as a jaded boy band star who is forced to go to a music camp to revamp his image.**

"We used this thing called a Flip Vid — my millennial folks out there, you might know what it is," Nick says. "It was like the first-gen of like a camera that had a USB connected, and you could upload videos. We did that, but it looked terrible."

Kevin remembers how the hotel lighting didn't help matters, either.

"I literally held a lamp like this, pointed at him like a spotlight," he says with a laugh. "It was awful."

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It wasn't until they sent in the tape and heard back from Disney that they realized just how bad it actually looked.

"The Disney execs called our dad, who was one of our managers at the time, and were like, 'Is this a joke? This is the worst-looking video we've ever seen,'" Nick says. "Not his audition, but the quality of the video. So we got a better tape, and he got the job."

After Joe landed the starring role in *Camp Rock* opposite Demi Lovato, the Jonas Brothers' father made a deal with Disney to also cast Kevin and Nick as Shane's fictional onscreen band, Connect 3.

Joe Jonas and Demi Lovato in 'Camp Rock'.

JOHN MEDLAND/DISNEY CHANNEL

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"Our dad was the one who was like, 'It's really important that we keep this unit together, and this band has a shot to really do its thing, so if you're taking Joe, you've got to add Nick and Kevin,'" Nick remembers. "So they created this Connect 3 band, and the rest, as they say, is *Camp Rock.*"

All three brothers are returning to the franchise onscreen for *Camp Rock 3,* which officially finished production earlier this month in Vancouver, 15 years after *Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam. *They're also executive-producing the project alongside Lovato, who is not slated to appear in the film.

The movie begins with Connect 3 heading back to the titular music camp to find a new opening act for their reunion tour and will center on a new generation of campers competing for that coveted tour slot.

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