Getting Real With Rob Cesternino

Rob Cesternino

Rob's the producer of the show, which features contestants from different reality TV shows making a horror movie called The Scorned.

It was Wednesday morning for Rob when I caught up with him at the E! Entertainment studios in Hollywood - and Wednesday evening for us.

I won't say anymore because it's all in the interview - except that if you're a South African viewer please be aware that if you visit Rob's site you could see spoilers for upcoming seasons of shows we haven't seen yet.

Here's what Rob had to say:

Revenge For Survivor All-Stars

Rob: Hello - how are you doing?

Tashi: Hello! Fine thank you and thanks for the interview.
Rob: No problem, I've read your website for a couple of years.

Tashi: No!
Rob: Yeah.

Tashi: Really? So then you kind of know me the way I feel I sort of know you.
Rob: Well, you guys are on delay and I'd kinda been following when my Survivor was airing by you guys.

Tashi: Well I've been dying to talk to you from the moment I saw your bio for Survivor the first time, when I read you'd done a thesis on reality TV. I was very disappointed that you didn't win Amazon.
Rob: Me too, hehe.

Tashi: Then leaving so early in All Stars as well, I was very disappointed about that -
Rob: Very disappointing -

Tashi: So my question is - is Kill Reality your revenge for it all?
Rob: I wouldn't say so much it's my revenge, although I did write a screenplay in which the girl that beat me at Survivor dies first - but that's just by coincidence. I don't really think it's a revenge - I think more than anything I've always been an opportunist and I thought this was a great idea we came up with. The best revenge is always success though, so hopefully I'll have the last laugh.

Tashi: Did not winning Survivor hit really hard?
Rob: It was a big disappointment - not really the first time because I had such a great time, but the second time was a big disappointment because I felt like I didn't really get a chance.

Tashi: What do you think happened?
Rob: I think we taped the All Stars right after the Amazon was on and I think everybody wanted to kind of, you know, put me in my place after Jeff Probst said I was the best player to not win. I think it was almost like I had a target on my back going in. Everybody was so worried that I'd be lying and cheating the whole time that they just didn't want any part of that.

It's like the same thing that happened to Richard - the only difference is that I didn't even have the million in the first place. So that hit hard.

Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde

Tashi: Yes - that's the thing isn't it? With Kill Reality you're the producer which means you put the whole thing together. Was that an easy thing to do? What was all that like?
Rob: It was pretty difficult because finding the people for the movie ..... there were a lot of people that were big stars in reality TV that weren't necessarily good actors and there were a lot of people who were good actors but not necessarily stars, so it was trying to find the right balance.

Who would be the best people for the movie and who would bring the most notoriety and who we could actually work with. Somebody like Omarosa would have been great for the TV show but we would never have been able to get anything done on the movie.

Tashi: Haha.
Rob: It actually turned out to be a big problem with Johnny Fairplay.

Tashi: Really? That's one of my questions because why did you cast him? Isn't Johnny Fairplay the epitomy of Jerry Springer?
Rob: Yes, that is true. How many episodes have you seen so far?

Tashi: Three.
Rob: As you've kind of seen there are two Johnny Fairplays: there's Jon Dalton and there's Johnny Fairplay and much like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Jon Dalton is a very nice guy who everybody loves - a good friend of mine - but then Johnny Fairplay wreaks havoc. We'd hoped he would take the movie very seriously and we would see more Jon Dalton than Johnny Fairplay.

Tashi: And you didn't get that?
Rob: No. Johnny Fairplay completely takes over by the end.

Tashi: Did you actually speak to him at some point?
Rob: Yes, Jon and I had become very good friends after we were on Survivor and it really became a very big strain on our friendship, having to work together. I would not be looking forward to working with Johnny Fairplay again.

Tashi: Do you think it's all an act?
Rob: I don't know - I think it starts out as an act but in the end it just, you know, feeds itself. He really does turn into a whole different person. Jon also has some issues with alcohol and between the alcohol and the two identities he really does lose himself. It took him a couple of weeks after we were done for him to actually get back to normal.

What's An Act And What's Not?

Tashi: In terms of the show being on E! - you organised it, you got the script together, you got the actors. How did it happen that it got onto E?!
Rob: We do the website TheFishbowl.com and we were working with the reality stars and Scott Zacharin, who is my boss at Creative Light. He had this idea that we should do a movie and use all these reality stars that we know and he was the one who decided to make it into a TV show and bring it to E!

We met with E! and we pitched them the show and they thought it was a good idea too and it was E! that came up with the name Kill Reality.

Tashi: We've seen three episodes, there are eight episodes in total - what's actually going to happen with the film The Scorned? Is it going be broadcast?
Rob: Yes, the movie hasn't premiered in the US yet, it's actually going to premiere on Halloween night on E! and then the DVD version of the movie is going to be available for purchase online at TheFishbowl.com.

Tashi: In terms of the money for the movie - where did that come from? Who's paying for it?
Rob: We financed the movie ourselves as an independent film. It has a $500 000 budget.

Tashi: So you're going to see if it pays off, with the idea being to do something again in the future?
Rob: Yeah, we definitely need to pay this one off before we do anything else.

Tashi: Toni Ferrari. Tell me about her please. Is she an act? Is she for real? What's the story with her?
Rob: I don't know what the deal is with Toni Ferrari. Toni Ferrari feels like she's putting on an act. "I'm good TV," she'll always say, but I don't feel it's an act. I think that Toni has no idea about what's so compelling about herself.

Tashi: So she's like she really is?
Rob: Yes, she is larger than life is Toni Ferrari. I mean she's great fun but you don't ever want to have a difference of opinion with her.

Tashi: The tagline for Kill Reality is that all the actors are dying to make it in Hollywood. Are the cast really dying to make it in Hollywood?
Rob: Yes, I think that - everybody who goes onto a reality show always goes on for a different reason than what they say. I feel like most people go on reality shows because they want to have a career in the entertainment industry and unfortunately the entertainment industry doesn't really have a lot of use for reality stars.

Part of the appeal of Kill Reality is that we were the only people giving reality stars a chance to act in a movie and we really thought it was going to get as competitive as it did.

Tashi: So it was all very genuine? When everyone went to the audition they all went very genuinely trying to make it as actors?
Rob: Right. I guess there's a lot of prejudice towards the reality stars here in Hollywood. A lot of casting directors don't want to hire them, they feel like if they go to an audition and the casting director knows they're from a reality TV show they won't get hired because they don't want somebody from a reality show.

Tashi: Why do you think it's like this with them in particular?
Rob: I think that being on a reality TV show isn't something that is respected here in Hollywood because it's thought that reality stars have taken a lot of jobs away. Before reality TV there were so many more acting jobs and writing jobs and it was easier to get work as an actor. After reality shows the acting work is more scarce so they don't want to give any sort of acting jobs to reality stars.

The Egoless Actor

Tashi: Part of the whole thing of the audience watching a reality TV show is obviously that you have you favourites and you have those you absolutely hate -
Rob: You love to hate -

Tashi: Love to hate, yes - the idea of being loved and loved to be hated and having your character scrutinised and having audiences saying things - what's that like?
Rob: It really is something that can drive you nuts because you spend so much time reading about yourself that it really does affect your own sense of who you are, and it is something that can really get to you if you can't block it out. It is something also that can drive you crazy, like Johnny Fairplay.

Tashi: Is that part of what's happened with him?
Rob: Yeah, I do think that to a degree. I mean, when you go to Johnny Fairplay's house he'll sit and say: "Ah, here look, let me show you when I said my grandmother is dead. Let me show this tape on what I did on wrestling." He really does read his own press clippings and the more and more he reads things about himself, he tries to top himself, which is a bad thing for his overall mental stability.

Tashi: Wow. In the third episode of Kill Reality Steven Hill was having a whole crisis with the Steven Segal director (he looks sooo much like Steven Segal) - and Bob was speaking about stepping away from the ego. What exactly did he mean by that?
Rob: I know that Steven was offended because he felt like he was saying that Steven Hill has a big ego, but I think that Bob is really just speaking in acting terms. By ego I think he just means your sense of your self, which I think is a little different. There was a little bit of contention over that.

I think what Bob was saying was: "Don't worry about how many lines you have in the movie, don't worry about how your performance is coming off, just make sure you are giving yourself to the movie and not thinking 'what are people thinking of me'. Just worry about being yourself in the movie."

Tashi: Do you think that that's in any way related to reality TV as well?
Rob: Well, the actors were more worried about what was going on in the reality show than what was going on in the movie. Other than the Project Green Light it's something that's never happened before on a movie set. Even Project Green Light really only just documented the actual process of the movie and the actors are not a big part of that.

This is the first time that actors not only had to worry about their performances from the movie camera but also their performances on the reality TV cameras. Some of the actresses - when they were doing emotional scenes - didn't want to go there because they didn't want it to be seen by the reality TV cameras.

Tashi: That's what I was thinking when I was watching - I wondered whether that very technique that Bob was referring to wouldn't be something useful to someone in a reality TV show as well.
Rob: Yes, it's actually the opposite of what you're told on reality TV - they want you to have as much ego as possible on a reality show, which is different from a movie.

Olympics Of Reality TV

Tashi: What do you think the future of reality TV is? It's been through so many different trends of opinion where it was very big and then everyone was like: "Oh, it's dying," and then there was a huge influx of reality TV shows. What do you think it's future is? Do you think people will lose interest?
Rob: Honestly, I'm a little worried right now about the future of reality TV, but I've been worried before. This is the time when a well-timed, new kind of show can come in and change everything. Right now, here in America, the ratings for reality TV are down about 15 percent - there are just so many reality shows that are so out there and there's so much bad behaviour going on in the reality shows it's hard for any show to rise above the noise level of all the shows with all this bad behaviour. Do you know what I mean?

Tashi: I know exactly what you mean - it's like a bombardment of pulp reality that's overshadowing the shows that are stronger. I think it would be divine if we did a world Survivor or Amazing Race.
Rob: Well, this Amazing Race that's on now, they're not even leaving the United States.

Tashi: Oh. I think it would be really cool if we had a South African team and an American team and so on.
Rob: Yeah that would be something. Like the Olympics of reality TV.

Tashi: Yes! You must work on this please Rob.
Rob: I will keep it on the back burner.

Tashi: Well, it's been excellent chatting to you.
Rob: Yeah, it's nice to finally place a voice with the writing. You'll be very pleasantly surprised when it comes to seeing the movie.

Tashi: It's going to be interesting to see how it all comes together.

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We said our goodbyeee's and that was it! As Rob said the movie The Scorned is going to be on E! in the US at Halloween (October 31st), in South Africa Kill Reality's on E! on Monday nights at 23h00 and The Scorned will be broadcast on Saturday, November 26th at 23h00. Before it's premiere there will be four episodes of Kill Reality starting at 19h00.

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Special thanks to DSTV and E! Entertainment

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