Before season 12 of The Amazing Race began filming, BuddyTV got the chance to talk to the contestants, creator and host of the show to get their thoughts on what was to come. Check back all this week as we unveil our exclusive video interviews of the 11 brand new teams.
Phil Keoghan, the Emmy Award-winning New Zealand-born television personality, will once again serve as host the 12th season of The Amazing Race premiering tonight on CBS at 8pm ET/PT. BuddyTV had a chance to sit down with Phil to talk about his career, The Amazing Race, and the upcoming season. Watch the full video interview below.
– Phil got involved with The Amazing Race in 2000, the same year he auditioned to host Survivor, which he didn’t get picked for.
– Phil was an avid traveler doing gigs all over the world, so Phil was a perfect fit for The Amazing Race.
– Phil has been doing the Race for 12 seasons strong and is thankful to CBS for the opportunity.
– Phil had heard about a couple of ideas about racing around the world, but what really stood out to him about The Amazing Race was the name behind the show. With Jerry Bruckheimer behind it, he knew that it would be a success. Ideas are great, but according to Phil, the more important thing is executing great ideas and he was confident that The Amazing Race had the right people involved to execute successfully.
– Phil didn’t know what to expect going into the very first season, in fact, he said no one really knew what to expect and how it would turn out. Something like this had never been done before at this scale.
– Going on 12 seasons, the idea hasn’t changed much in terms of the concept of the show and it’s because of the consistency of the show that they’ve been able to generate such a loyal following. Phil does admit the pace of the show has changed, and it is a lot quicker now with the way the show is edited and cut.
– The most challenging part about his job is keeping things fresh, staying fresh and awake because production doesn’t get a lot of sleep. In fact, they sleep less than the cast.
– Phil believes the show has seen so much success because of consistent quality.
– Phil loves Italy – the people, the culture, the landscape, the food, the landscape…
– He shoots 7 elements to shoot for a given show in a given period, so he must travel to all the different locations that the teams go. Time is so crunched that he doesn’t have time to sight see or go shopping. Him and production needs to beat each team to the location. So there is a ton of a logistical planning that goes into timing of each stop and ensuring that he beats the teams there.
– His favorite teams are the ones that are good TV, “not necessary the ones that he’d like to go have a beer with.” At the end of the day, he realizes that they are writing a television show, and they need to choose the cast that will give them entertainment value.
Check out our other exclusive video interviews for The Amazing Race 12:
Creator Bertram van Munster
Lorena and Jason
Nicolas and Donald
Ronald and Christina
Azaria and Hendekea
Kynt and Vyxsin
Jennifer and Nathan
Ari and Staella
TK and Rachel
Marianna and Julia
-Interview conducted by Royce Yuen
(Image courtesy of CBS)
Interviewer, BuddyTV
