Yahoo Lifestyle “Below Deck” EP admits sometimes casting misses are made: 'Some people freak out'
Executive producer Nadine Rajabi recently spoke to Melissa Rivers about "the problem" with "what is happening in all of reality now."
Below Deck is one of the splashiest, most drama-filled franchises in the Bravo-verse. But even there a dud or two sometimes makes it through the casting process.
"That has happened so many times," said Nadine Rajabi, an executive producer of the mothership series Below Deck as well as spinoff series Below Deck Mediterranean and Below Deck Down Under. Speaking with Melissa Rivers on her Group Text podcast, Rajabi detailed meeting potential cast members who were "so funny" and had ideal "work hard, play hard" personalities during interviews, only for them to "get on the boat" and "just freeze because of the cameras."
Rajabi continued, "Some people freak out because they're like, 'Oh my gosh, what did I sign up for? How is this going to affect my life?' And some people are just, I mean, they're just silent. And I'm like, 'What happened? You were so funny and outgoing.'"
Fred Jagueneau/Bravo
The cast of 'Below Deck Mediterranean'Adding that at the end of the day, "There's absolutely nothing you could do," because unlike other reality series, Below Deck operates as a workplace within a workplace, which means "you cannot fire them," because once they're cast, "then they're in the care of the captain."
TheBelow Deck franchise is one of Bravo's most expansive reality series, with four spinoffs including Mediterranean, Down Under, Sailing Yacht, and Adventure counting a combined 27 seasons reaching nearly 500 episodes. Rajabi is the showrunner on Mediterranean, the most successful of all the Below Deck spinoffs, so has played a critical role in casting many of the show's breakout stars, like chef Ben Robinson and Captain Sandy Yawn.
"You meet somebody like two times on a Skype, maybe three times on a Skype at most, maybe one time some of the people. Some people do so well we just do one Skype with them and that's it. Some people we talk to a couple of times because you want to make sure," she said. "I always say to them, be yourself, because if you try to be something that you're not, the camera is going to sniff it from a mile away. The camera never lies." But Rajabi's sage advice, she says, is too often ignored.
The unavoidability of new cast members falling flat once the cameras start rolling is only one fire Below Deck producers are frequently called upon to put out. The franchise has also weathered its share of cast member firings for inappropriate behavior, accusations of sexual misconduct among the cast and crew, and even theft on the part of guests.
Rajabi says that while Bravo has "a whole department that does all the checks," you can't always "know when they're lying on their CVs." She continues that "that's when you run into these seasons that kind of become toxic - if somebody's trying to be something that they're not, or trying to start something. It's just like, 'Why are they doing this?'"
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Bravo has entered an unprecedented new era of scandal and legal embattlement, with multiple lawsuits from former Housewives cast members like Brandi Glanville and Leah McSweeney, which include specific allegations against the executive producer of the franchise and face of the network, Andy Cohen.
Below Deck hasn't seen the same kind of network-property in-fighting, but Rajabi does see issues creeping into the reality television format at large. "I think it's lost its innocence," she says of the franchise. "Back then," at the show's inception in 2013, "it was truly yachties just doing a YOLO thing. Maybe they did another season, and then they go back to their boats."
But now, "they want to come be reality stars. And I think that's the problem of what is happening in all of reality right now."
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