Much of the past season’s success-it wrapped up on July 9 but is still airing in reruns-lay in the diverse cast of personalities. You had Keri and Kyle, the couple that never was; the always-nude lesbian, Aneesa; the eight-months’-sober gay guy, Chris; the anti-gay, pro-lesbian Theo; Cara, who was overly obsessed with her weight, and the chronically ill Tonya, whose never-ending phone conversations irritated the rest of the cast.
On Aug. 6, MTV will premiere “The Real World Movie: The Lost Season,” a parody about an obsessed “RW”-wannabe who kidnaps the crew and blows up the house because he couldn’t get on the show. The next season will premiere in September, with seven strangers setting up house in Las Vegas. Although there’s no lack of drama in that town, every viewer knows that it’s the emotions and conflict inside the house that really make the show.
NEWSWEEK’s Vanessa Juarez spoke to the program’s longtime producers, Mary-Ellis Bunim and Jonathan Murray. Excerpts:
Jonathan Murray: When we first started this show, a lot of people thought it wouldn’t work because we changed our cast and location every year. That’s sort of breaking the norm of television. But the reason why the show stays so fresh is that we have seven new people every year and they bring with them their own stories and own sense of humor.
During the casting process we bring this all up. We talk about how you really have to be committed to being yourself on the show, how there will be things that will happen to you that you can’t control. We try to lay all of this out, but at that point people basically want the experience, and it sort of goes in one ear and out the other. We even give them a little handbook.
Though they had conflict, it seemed as though this cast was a lot closer than compared to other seasons. Do you think that was a result of being together over September 11?
They had definitely reached a point where there were some animosities that had developed from living together. In fact, in the September 11 episode, Aneesa and Tonya were fighting over the phone the night before September 11. It helped them put more of these petty disputes into perspective. It was definitely a bonding experience. We gave them a TV for two or three days so they could be in touch with the world. They really became each other’s family at a very important time for them.
Tonya was this season’s outcast. What was that was a result of?
In any situation where you have a group of people living together, sometimes the way the majority of them bond is by making someone else the outsider. And certainly she did some of that to herself by going home for a few days early in the process, and by being on the phone a lot with Justin [her then boyfriend], by having medical problems which kept her from doing things with the other roommates. A lot of young people can identify with that, whether they live in a dormitory or in houses with other people.
Tonya probably grew a lot. There’s two phases of this. One, there’s the experience of living in the house, and then there’s the experience of watching it all play out on television. Plus, a lot of the learning comes as much as six months to even several years after “The Real World” experience and after the shows have aired.
Mary-Ellis Bunim: Time does give them a certain perspective and objectivity that’s very difficult for them to have while they’re initially watching themselves on the air, particularly when the audience is so into it and so judgmental and willing to express their lack of acceptance about what the cast members choose to do.
We cast for diversity, because the drama really comes out of the group learning to communicate and live with people they would never normally encounter, much less live with. That’s always just a dramatic melting pot, and it’s always effective.
Yes, they do. We don’t show it to them months before it airs, but we do let them see it so they can show it to anyone they’re concerned about, like their parents. It allows them to view it with some privacy and get used to it before it goes public.
How many cameras are in the house and how often is the cast taped?
There are cameras there seven days a week and potentially around the clock if something is going to happen.
They’ve gone through an adjustment during the casting period where they’ve had to give multiple interviews, so by the time they move in, they’re not really self-conscious about the cameras.
Murray: I do tend to think they forget the cameras, particularly the phone cam. We had three cameras on one phone in the house, and Tonya forgot that all those cameras were constantly recording all those phone calls.
No, they don’t forget that, because what happens is every time they make an outgoing call-when Tonya would call Justin-there would be this obnoxious voice that would come on which would say, “The following phone call is being recorded for broadcast.” It’s hard to forget that on one hand, but then on another, Tonya’s phone calls would go on for four hours.
We have finished shooting the Las Vegas season, and it will air on MTV this fall, sometime in September.
Bunim: Yes, we’re going to start shooting in January. We’re prepping now. But no, we have yet to decide where it’s going to be located.
