What makes somebody an ideal reality show contestant?
NICK CANNON "A fearless mentality."
LL COOL J "Yeah, people who don't take themselves too seriously."
GUY FIERI "Or people who've had a lot of coffee — maybe even had some booze in their coffee. Those are my favorites because they let go."
JANE LYNCH "We give them drinks on Hollywood Game Night. We've got celebrities and then we've got regular people, normies, and for them it helps if they're not starstruck. It loosens them up, but then sometimes … we've had to cut people off."
MIKE DARNELL "I don't know if you guys know this, but almost all of the contestants on these shows go through a psych test, which goes from a one to a five. Five is the worst. They'll say to me, "Well, this guy is a four and a half," and I'm like, "Great!" (Laughter.) The closer you can get to a five, let's get them on the air. [Of course, it depends on] what show you're doing. If you're doing The Bachelor, you want them to be crazy. Even the talent contests, the more open and emotional, the better. And there's a breed that's meant to be on these shows anyway. It's very rare in my career that I've had someone show up and I go, "Too much.""
What does the psych test entail?
DARNELL "It's a written test and a verbal test. There might be some drawings on it, I'm not sure. We've had ones and twos, they're OK. Generally, you've got to have threes and fours. (Laughter.)"
MARK CUBAN "A psych lady is on-site all the time, literally sitting there [on Shark Tank] because some of the people who come off are just destroyed. There have been people who walk off screaming and crying."
FIERI "Do you guys give counseling at the end of it?"
DARNELL "We always had a psychologist on set. All the Idols, everything. Just in case."
CUBAN "Yeah, we're sitting there and we'll just hear them wailing."
CANNON "And you don't have four X's on your show in front of thousands of people [the way America's Got Talent contestants do]."
CUBAN "Millions of people! But remember, these people come on [Shark Tank], this is their dream, they put their whole life into this. Every penny that they have is gone. And they may be out of business, they may lose their house."
DARNELL "That first few hours right after, that's the hardest part. But usually a day, two days later, they're OK. They know they're going to be on TV."
CANNON "There are people who are built for this. People who are fearless, who are like, "Hey, I'm here to be on TV, and I'm here to play on.""
FIERI "And get everything out of it."
CANNON "Especially on America's Got Talent, there are some people who actually really believe that they are talented, but they're not ..."
CUBAN "Those are the best, though, because they're authentic."
CANNON "Yeah, but those are the ones who psych has to be a little delicate with, and I have to be delicate with, because I'm not there to make fun of them. But it's like, clearly, you playing straws is not going to win you a million dollars, but that's all they know, and that's all they have. So it's a delicate balance of, all right, these people are almost at a five, but they're still human, and you want to handle them with respect."
If you could be a contestant on a reality show, which one would you choose to appear on?
DARNELL "I wouldn't."
CUBAN "I was on Dancing With the Stars, and it was one of the best things I've ever done — and one of the scariest things I've ever done. Walking out there in front of 22 million people, having to do a fuckin' waltz or the quick step or whatever? I was terrified."
Did being a contestant impact the way you judge?
CUBAN "I understood more what a contestant goes through because you just have to wing it."
FIERI "That's how I got into TV, The Next Food Network Star. And I don't watch a lot of TV. As a chef and a restaurant owner, I'm spending all my time in the kitchen. But all my buddies had seen it, and they said, "You're going to be perfect for this." I think the only reason they wanted me to do it was to see me go on and get voted off. I don't think I would've done it had I seen the show. But I did it, and I won, and that's how this whole thing snowballed. It definitely gave me a different perspective, because you see how people are putting their lives on the line."
Read the full interview at The Hollywood Reporter.
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