On Saturday, October 8, 2005, my two good friends, a SJSU student and fellow Skyline student, Eliza Capulong (see side article) and I went to the Bear’s Lair, a UCB owned pub, there we would finally come face to face with casting directors that would either make or break our dream. The dream my friends, is to be in the next season of the Real World 18.
The Real World has been a part of reality T.V. for a number of years. Mainly known to be the pioneers of the whole reality craze, the Real World has been serving the public since 1991. The whole premise of the show is to watch 7 strangers live it out in a wonderful mansion, where anything goes. For years we were enticed by the “real” people, the producers at Bunim and Murray would bring out each season. From there, we would pick out our favorites, ranging from the “hot virgin girl” to the “meathead jock”. The characters the show portrays varies from season to season. The whole goal indeed is to pick out the most “real” people.
So this is where my friends and I come to play. Being the avid fans that we are, we decided that it’s about time that the Real World portrayed spunky, sarcastic Filipinos from the Bay Area (Yea, it’s self-proclaimed). It has been a goal for the three of us to actually make it, or even audition for the show that has kept us captivated for most of our lives.
We stood there waiting by the pub in what seemed forever. However, I expected to see triple the amounts of people in the auditions. Roughly about 250 people came through out the whole audition process. As we waited in line, we were finally handed a packet. This was the infamous application form that the people at Bunim-Murray were mainly known for. The application which seems like a regular application for a job, not only asked basic questions, but had questions that would have you opening up and revealing some or even most of your secrets. This is where the producers and interviewer for the show would judge on what stereotype we would be portraying for the next season of the Real World.
As we were filling out the applications, we could hear the whispers of various groups of friends. Half of the people there already knew how the application process would go and filled out their application furiously. The other half, which included my friends and I weren’t too familiar with the application. I personally didn’t know how to answer some of these questions. The questions in the application form varied from basic questions like “What school do you go to?” to “What’s the most unique thing about yourself?” Questions like those would have you thinking for a long time, plus we would still have to manage to impress the interviewer.
As we frantically tried to get last minute answers in our application, we finally reached the end of the line. There we were divided into groups of 5 and the first person of the group was handed a number. We were seated within our group and were told to get to know each other for the brief 10 minutes. We were then told to enter the bar area. As soon as we entered the bar, we were seated once again to finish any last minute changes we needed to do in our application. Finally for the last time, the moderator goes up to our group and sets us up with another random group and we make a table of ten.
As we walk into a huge interviewing room, Eliza and I were split up from my friend from SJSU. I then quickly glanced at another table of ten people. I see them all laughing and trying to impress the interviewer. As we all took a seat, I circled the group with my eyes to see my potential competition. There was a couple of great looking people, obviously they got all dressed up for this occasion, and there were also people that didn’t seem like they this mattered to them, maybe even trying to convince the interviewee that they simply “don’t care” and their friend “forced” them to go to the audition. I however had an agenda and my goal was to do everything in my power to impress the interviewer.
Once we got situated, the interviewer grabs our application form and quickly glances at it. She then asks us to state our name, age, where we were from, and a “funny fact” about ourselves. As each person was going on talking about themselves, I took a glance at the interviewer and was noticing her reaction to certain things these people were saying. She had a serious face, and you would’ve never guessed she was doing an audition for the Real World, however, she still maintained an interested voice when responding to what people had to say.
Finally it was my turn to say a little anecdote about myself, during which I decided to be a little creative and add my comedic flare. I cracked a little joke here and there and made a few people laugh, but to my dismay, the interviewer didn’t seem to care. Okay? I thought, I’ll get her with the next question. Once we finished going around the table, the interviewer asked us a general question. She asked us about our views of cheating. How far is going too far with cheating? And what is our own definition of cheating? The question led to a wild discussion of the topic and had almost everyone in the table at their feet pushing their ideals while maintaining to impress the interviewer.
Once the discussion ended, the interviewer thanked us and excused us. She later explained that she would give us a call within 24 hours if they were interested in us for a second, longer interview. Obviously it has been way past that 24 hour grace period and I am here telling you the readers about my experience.
The audition satisfied my curiosity about how it would be like to try out for a reality T.V. show. Not only that but my most favorite show that is out there, the Real World. Although the people of the show didn’t quite feel that I fit the “personality” they were looking for this season, this does not despair me in any shape or form. Maybe in a season or two I’ll probably get the time to try out for the most talked about reality show ever once again.
