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Beau Ryan reveals dream cast for Celebrity Amazing Race Australia
His third season hosting The Amazing Race Australia only kicked off this week, but Beau Ryan is already keen to do a celebrity version of the popular reality show in 2023.
Chatting with Yahoo Lifestyle, the 37-year-old TV personality spoke openly about the star-studded format and how he thinks it would work.
“The reason the show is so successful is anyone can compete and it doesn’t matter who you are, no matter your colour or your size or your gender. Anyone can win,” he says.
“So I want to stay true to the show, but I think eventually we will have a celebrity season. And celebrities come in all different shapes. We could have an all-star version.
“I think maybe potentially next year ten celebrity teams and ten teams from the public would be a great dynamic because I'd like to see other celebrities go over there, no sleep, no phones. I think that would work well,” he continues, before adding with a laugh, “But that's above my pay grade”.
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Beau went on to reveal who he would want to see in the cast, including some of his famous colleagues in TV, radio and sport.
“Every single person I know would want to be on it,” he shares. “Whether it's people that work in the industry, whether it’s talking to Kyle [Sandilands] and Jackie O [Henderson]. I mean, it would cost us a s**tload to get those two on there, but we can make it happen.
“Roxy Jacenko wants to do it, all my footy mates want to do it, people that work not only in TV but found fame for other reasons, they all want to do this show because it's a fun show, it’s a travel show, and it's a show where people don't go on for notoriety.
“They don't go on this show to build their brand or their career, they go on to experience it and it’s one of the only true shows left like that. That’s what I love about it.”
‘It’s must-see viewing’
This year’s season of The Amazing Race Australia introduces a brand new twist to the show where two groups of ten teams compete separately while unaware that the other exists.
The change of format has been described as a ‘world first’ for the franchise, and also breaks the record for the largest number of teams in any international season.
“There are two races happening at once, which makes it hard because we’ve only got one host,” Beau remarks.
“So I’m jetting between countries and cities making it happen and it was tough, but it’s worth it. It’s the hardest I’ve ever worked physically on a show. I've been doing this a long time, different shows, and obviously played NRL and worked physically hard my whole life, but these eight weeks were the hardest I've ever worked in my life.”
He adds that the best part of the twist is when the two groups finally meet, which viewers will see later this week.
“You’ve got to understand, they’ve got no idea about each other,” Beau explains. “They’ve already sized everyone up and they already think they know who the threat is and how they're going to beat the threats, but when we add another 20 threats, everything changes and game plans go out the window. It’s must-see viewing.
“You need to appreciate that this is a global show and it’s on in most countries, so to have a world record number of teams is massive. Especially because Australia is only a small country. It’s a massive achievement for Channel Ten.”
‘I couldn’t be more proud’
Speaking about filming the show in the midst of a global pandemic, Beau says he’s “super proud” of how hard the entire team worked this season.
“We had a lot of a lot of problems with borders not being open, but then when they did we hit every continent, and I still have to pinch myself to sort of understand how we got it done,” he says.
“Moving 148 people with 500 bags of luggage and people who are in a race is tricky. We had B-roll, cameras for every crew, audio, producers, drone guys, the host crew, plus people in front of the race scoping.
“There are moving parts everywhere, and sometimes countries fall over. We have problems trying to move countries, and that's how good the producers are that, you know, Spain falls over and we can throw Turkey in. Situations like that.
“We’ve put everything into this show and I couldn’t more proud of what’s gone to air, and it only gets better.”
The Amazing Race airs 7:30pm Monday to Wednesday on 10 and 10 play on demand
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