‘It’s only television – have fun!’
The Bravo channel launches in New Zealand today and its signature show is a local version of the Real Housewives franchise. Executive producer Kylie Washington is on her third iteration of the show, and knows exactly how to make it work, writes Eleanor Bl
Kylie Washington can spot a Housewife at 50 paces. When the executive producer of The Real Housewives of Auckland, and its sister shows Melbourne and
Sydney, is casting one of her programmes, she can tell ‘‘pretty much right away’’ whether a woman has the required boldness and sass for the job.
A Housewife walks into a room like it belongs to her, she stands firm in her stilettos, she always speaks her mind, she doesn’t need to be liked. And she never asks if her life is interesting enough to be splashed across TV, because she knows it is.
‘‘These are not women who find themselves, on screen or off, with nothing to do,’’ says Washington, currently keeping tabs on 20 Housewives across her three programmes.
‘‘They are the people who are the life of the party – the party is them – it’s around them, so it doesn’t matter where they are, something’s always happening.’’
For the upcoming Auckland programme, set to start screening on the new Bravo channel next month, there has been more ‘‘explosive’’ drama than even Washington anticipated. A second season already looks likely.
‘‘We are halfway through filming and we are just scratching the surface,’’ she says happily over coffee at a waterfront Auckland hotel. We are at the tip of the iceberg and holy moly, I don’t even know what’s under the surface. Yeah, it’s good.’’
Although Washington won’t share specifics, it seems one of the cast – socialite Gilda Kirkpatrick, former model Michelle Blanchard, stylist Angela Stone, hospitality staff recruiter Julia Sloane, Champagne importer Ann Batley Burton and broadcaster Louise Wallace – has decided she is the obvious star of the show, even before it goes to air.
This is a Real Housewives phenomenon, apparently. On Melbourne, barrister and eyeshadow addict Gina Liano deemed herself the leader of the pack and viewers agreed, with Liano becoming the clear breakout star of RHOM, producing a spangletastic line of platform heels, writing a biography, appearing on
Neighbours and now playing the wicked stepmother in a Cinderella pantomime.
‘‘That’s happened on Auckland, for sure, and actually it happened way quicker than I thought,’’ says the Sydney-based Washington, who has visited Auckland eight times in her capacity as executive producer of the series (she is also director of unscripted content at Matchbox Pictures).
‘‘I had my suspicions, and they were right!’’ Washington describes the Real
Housewives genre as ‘‘soap doc’’, a relatively new form of entertainment in which a person’s life is laid bare documentary-style, but everything – from their cottage-sized walk-in closets to their birds’ egg-sized jewels – is hyper-real and ultra-fabulous.
Every shot is sun-filled, every party is professionally coordinated, and every Housewife is on the lookout for spinoff deals: clothing lines, books, shoes, jewellery, baked goods, booze.
The soap part really comes to the fore, however, when the women are at odds, and a minor argument turns into an all-out war, producing some of the best insults you’ll hear anywhere.
Gina Liano, Melbourne: ‘‘You’re an insignificant ass hair’’; Kim Richards, Beverly Hills: ‘‘Why don’t you have a piece of bread and maybe you’ll calm down’’; NeNe Leakes, Atlanta: ‘‘ I am very rich, bitch!’’
With anything from two to eight cameras (plus drones) capturing the action, it is natural that the intensity of everyday interactions would be magnified. Bravo’s tagline is ‘‘life lived large’’, after all, and why bother going on TV if you’re not going to act up?
Housewives soon adjust to the staged feel of their meet-ups, says Washington, and even stop having significant conversations that are not filmed.
‘‘At some point they won’t do anything off camera, because unless it happened on camera it didn’t really happen,’’ Washington explains. ‘‘They’ll go, ‘Wait, are you rolling? Do I look good, and are you ready, because I have something to say.’ ‘‘
The drawback is that what they say in their less guarded moments is often picked up on social media, where red-hot scorn is poured on them and their toy dogs. This is part of the fame deal, says Washington, as unpleasant as it can be, and one reason a Housewife needs a thick hide and a robust sense of humour.
‘‘I think once you open your life up to the public, you are opening yourself up to ridicule and judgement. But they are very aware of what they are walking into.
‘‘We’re pretty tongue in cheek with it as well. We know what we are, we’re not pretending to be anything else. Already [the Auckland Housewives] are showing that they have the right spirit. We talk to them a lot about that. We say, it’s only television – have fun.’’
Putting together personalities who will ‘‘bring it’’ to a series, and create moments of dramatic opportunity, is an art. You want to cover multiple areas of interest to your audience – parenthood, business, fashion, beauty, leisure, luxury – while keeping the cast on a trajectory that will produce a cohesive story.