Jodie, a vice president of a commercial real estate company, became the first lady eliminated from the new NBC reality show,
Age of Love. Jodie was one of the "cougars" a set of over-40 women attempting to woo Mark Phillipousis, a professional tennis player. Not only do they compete against one another, they have take on a group of twenty something "kittens". The jury is still out on Age of Love, but the early returns have looked promising. Jodie took some time to speak with us about her time on the show.
Below you will find both the written transcript and the full mp3 audio.
First off, one of the questions I'm going to ask everyone from Age of Love is how did you end up being cast on the show?
You know, it was so much fun, even the whole casting process, it was so effortless. Basically a couple of my friends sent me emails simultaneously, like I received them at the same moment, saying you should do this show, and I sent in my headshot and resume to the casting director, they literally called me in 5 minutes and said, "We want to interview you". I went in for an on camera interview and it was just one of those effortless processes all along the way.
Were you a fan of reality shows, did you kind of know what you were getting yourself into?
No, I had no…well, I shouldn’t say I had no idea. I had some idea because when I found out that I was being considered for the show, my mom called me and she said, "Jodie, you should watch The Bachelor so you'll know what not to do". I mean, literally cause I had never seen reality TV, I don’t watch much TV. So I started watching The Bachelor and I thought "Ok, note to self, don't get drunk.” You know, there’s certain pitfalls to avoid, don't talk bad about the other people.
Going into filming how much were you told about what was going to happen and the whole premise and the twists? What did you know? What didn't you know?
I knew very little. It's so interesting how the whole process works because the producers of the show and the crew and everybody are sworn to secrecy about everything that’s going on. I never met any of the other women that were being considered, if I was walking down the hallway there would be a production assistant and they would say, "I'm with Jodie, don't come to 4 level 1,” or whatever. So, we were really sequestered and really kept away from each other. Also, once the 40 year old women all met, and we were together we were told certain things that then turned out not be true, so we were asking the producers, "So, when do the 20 year olds get here?" and they’re like, "No, no it's only the seven of you for this show," and we're like... And I said at one point, "Just for clarity's sake, it's just the seven of us on this show," and they’re like "Yeah, absolutely.” So, you know, the producers definitely want to keep things interesting and keep things a little off balance. And sometimes we would hear about things like 15 minutes before they would happen and we'd be like, "Oh my gosh, okay, we've got to wrap our minds around this and we got to get ready and do this thing”.
Obviously, you didn't get a whole lot of time to get to know Mark, but what were your impressions, what did you come away with thinking about him?
You know, it's funny, I’ve gotten to know Mark a lot better from just getting to watch the promos because I didn't spend any time with him. I talked with him for a couple of seconds when we first met and he seemed really nervous, and he admitted that to me, he said you know, "I’m nervous," and he just kept trying to calm himself down. And then I talked to him one other time for less than 2 minutes, and that was it. You know, I don’t really…I mean he's obviously a good looking guy, I think he's one of those guys that you need to be around him a few times for him to be comfortable and sort of spontaneous and charming, which I imagine he is. Just from everything I've seen on TV about this show, but I just didn’t get to experience that part of him unfortunately.
Can you give us some of your thoughts on the social experiment aspect of Age of Love, what do you think viewers will or should take away from the show?
I think the main thing that the show should drive home to everybody is that we've all got such stereotypes about age and I would love for that to loosen up a little bit. I think it would be fantastic if people would sort of put that aside. I know that for myself some days I’m certainly hung up about my age and I’m like, "Oh my gosh I’m too old, I’m too this, I’m too that.” But what this experience taught was that I can be my age and go out there and do whatever the heck I want to do, and I would love to see our society as a whole realize that because, the truth is, in another…by the time the kids of today are older they're gonna be living to be 115 years old, you know, so I hope if nothing else this show encourages everybody, and especially women in their forties, to go out there and go for it and do whatever the heck you want to do.
(Interview Conducted by Oscar Dahl)
(Image Courtesy of NBC)