Three Burning Questions For The Real World

Real World

By B-Side | Wednesday, September 13, 2006 | 1:30 pm | 13 Comments

reporter091306We’re curious creatures here at TVgasm, and with The Real World scouring the country for new roommates in its nineteenth season, we decided to ask the show’s casting director, Damon Furberg, a few questions about the process. Finally, TVgasm would get to the bottom of all those Real World scandals!

Actually, we just really wanted to know why there’s never any fat people on the show. Find out the answer to that and many more pressing issues with our brief Q&A after the jump.

Pulitzer, here I come!B-Side: Would you cast someone like Paula again? You know, someone with severe emotional issues?

Damon: You know, we try not to exclude anybody, first of all. I think that in the particuplar case of Paula what I’m happy about regarding that decision is that I think she came out of that process better off than when she went in. We’re always going to try to be as sensitive and as cautious as we can when we encounter things like that. In the end I think that what happened with Paula turned out to be a positive thing between her and the viewers.

From the perspective of a casting director, my main thing that I don’t want to have happen: I don’t want to feel like I put someone in a position where they were unhappy the entire time and they didn’t belong there; so that’s what I try to avoid.

B-Side: Are there minority quotas?

Damon: No. There really aren’t. I think that obviously the cast is diverse because the audience is diverse, but we certainly don’t go into it saying “We need x many people of this description or y many people of that description.” Bottom line is we’re going to pick the seven best people that year regardless of their skin color.

B-Side: Why are there never any fat people?

Damon: You know, we totally are again, we’re open to putting anyone on the show, it’s just like the right person of that description hasn’t shown up yet. To be honest with you, and I’m going to apologize in advance for putting Eric in this category, but Eric that we put in the Fresh Meat challenge as a larger guy — we had considered him for Real World, but we felt his personality was better for a competition show like Fresh Meat…. It’s really just coincidence. The right person is the right person regardless of everything including their size.

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13 Comments

  1. 1
    joeypotter
    Posted September 13, 2006 at 1:52 pm

    Wow, Damon, are you full of it. That crap about Paula – who is he kidding? They purposely chose a nut job who is close to the edge because that’s what people want to watch. They didn’t really care about her mental health or her abusive relationship. I think MTV is damn lucky no one has committed suicide or OD’d on that show.

  2. 2
    tvaholic
    Posted September 13, 2006 at 2:12 pm

    “I don’t want to feel like I put someone in a position where they were unhappy the entire time and they didn’t belong there; so that’s what I try to avoid”

    Ha, ha, bullshit! It wouldn’t be Real World if there wasn’t at least one cast member each season who was unhappy & felt they didn’t fit in with the rest of the house. Does this guy really think we are that naive?

  3. 3
    pupkick
    Posted September 13, 2006 at 2:46 pm

    I hereby volunteer my fat ass to be on real world. Feel free to contact me Damon. I’m full of stress causing pollutants and will pick a fight with anyone! I make for great tv!

  4. 4
    Lizardqueen
    Posted September 13, 2006 at 4:31 pm

    Damon? Have you ever met a person who didn’t call you Furburger?

    That’s the kind of hard hitting reporting I’m looking for.

  5. 5
    Ubiquitous
    Posted September 13, 2006 at 5:08 pm

    Well, they cast Doughnut on Road Rules and look how well THAT turned out…

  6. 6
    The Svan
    Posted September 13, 2006 at 6:38 pm

    Liar, liar, pants on fire. Their casting decisions has made the Svan quit watching the series. Stupid fucks.

  7. 7
    suebee
    Posted September 13, 2006 at 8:12 pm

    I remember one large girl–Sharon from London. Montana also.

  8. 8
    LaSexorcisto
    Posted September 13, 2006 at 8:52 pm

    Ever since the Vegas season the casts have been uniformly vanilla, a bunch of Abercrombie duds and anorexic bitches. Altho Rachel from RW-Austin was a bit on the plump side. She was probably cast because of being an Iraq veteran.

  9. 9
    bauerpowerhour
    Posted September 14, 2006 at 7:39 am

    I think that the Real World also discriminates against smart people.

    Does it cound that they still use Tina? She gets plumper by the series.

  10. 10
    Ubiquitous
    Posted September 14, 2006 at 10:56 am

    I think it’s Tin’a mouth that’s getting fatter.

  11. 11
    HoneyBunny
    Posted September 14, 2006 at 11:28 am

    Damon – Kiss my ass…
    Kiss my (cute) Goddamn Ass!

    hb

  12. 12
    TinkerbellAPixie
    Posted September 14, 2006 at 4:23 pm

    So in all the casting for 18 years of Real World, we’re talking thousands and thousands of applicants, they’ve never found ONE plump person that fit the
    “right description.” America has more overweight people than skinny people. Not ONE of those people would make for compelling tv. Bull-shit!

    On a side note, B-Side, that red really suits you.

  13. 13
    livemusicjunkie
    Posted September 26, 2006 at 1:59 pm

    OMG – who is this guy kidding??? B-side, pls tell me you laughed in his face! geezuz

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