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Like past seasons, this season of 90 Day Fiance has been filled with drama, surprises, and villains.
It’s enough to make some fans think that there’s a “script,” but it has more to do with editing … and with casting.
90 Day Fiance‘s casting director is opening up about that process, and mistakes made along the way.
The franchise looks forward to making better choices in the future, including casting its first transgender stars.
Variety spoke to casting director Brooklyn Bagwell, who has helped transform this series into a can’t-miss phenomenon.
“When I first started casting the show,” she recalled.
Bagwell continued: “We would work with immigration lawyers and scour social media.”
“It was mostly on Facebook, visa forums, and cold calling every day,” Bagwell described.
“We would get in the couples that we really loved,” she shared.
“Along with these ancillary characters,” Bagwell emphasized, “which is super important to the casting process.”
It’s not just that they need villains like Betty Gibbs or beloved characters like Miss Gwen.
They also need dirt on the couples.
“They have to open up their world to us,” Bagwell explained.
She detailed: “And that includes having their family and friends speak to us about their concerns.”
“I think it’s important that we speak to the fish-out-of-water moments,” Bagwell expressed.
“We want to find a foreigner who has never been to America before,” she shared.
Bagwell admitted: “It’s a red flag if they’ve been to America, because we want to focus on those first times.”
She added: “Then we also look for how much physical time the couple has spent together since they’ve met.”
Bagwell opined: “I think the smaller amount of time is better.”
She then explained that this is “because it means all those firsts are going to be amplified throughout the 90 days.”
“This season, for example,” she noted, “Bilal [Hazziez] and Shaeeda [Sween] only spent six days together physically.”
Bagwell went on: “On top of all that, we obviously want those loud, captivating, relatable characters.”
“We want everyone to be successful,” Bagwell noted.
“Obviously, we want the show to be as entertaining as possible,” she admitted, “but we do want to root for them.”
Bagwell continued: “But yeah, we do love to follow those arguments and those tension points.”
“There have been breakups after the marriage,” Bagwell acknowledged.
“But,” she praised, “the success rate is pretty high.”
Bagwell explained that this is “because I think they’ve just gone through so much to get to where they are.”
“Our internal searches before they even get on a Zoom or Skype interview with me are so intense,” Bagwell shared.
“We have LexisNexis on all couples, plus the supporting characters,” she went on.
Bagwell added that “there is an extensive background check that they go through to check for any past media or criminal history.”
“Obviously, we can’t get it all,” Bagwell tremendously understated.
“Sometimes things pop up once they’ve been on the show, and it’s super unfortunate,” she added.
“But we do our due diligence as much as possible,” Bagwell said, “to try to make that not happen.”
“Obviously, we don’t want domestic violence or child pornography or anything like that,” Bagwell said. “Those are all no.”
“But if they have other criminal records, like maybe a history of drugs,” she added, “maybe it could be part of their story.”
Of course, criminal records only tell part of a person’s story, so there are people who slip through the cracks.
Bagwell did share which casting decision makes her most proud: Darcey Silva and Jesse Meester.
“I remember my first interview with them,” she recalled, “and I wasn’t sure really where it was going to go.”
“But,” Bagwell continued, “seeing where they’ve come and the amount of story they had was incredible.”
“And then Colt [Johnson] and Larissa [Lima],” Bagwell added.
“I reached out to them for over a year,” she described, “and finally their visa was approved.”
She expressed: “It felt like that was a home run story to me.”
“It’s so important that each season has a very eclectic, diverse cast,” Bagwell emphasized.
“And that is No. 1 when we’re casting this show,” she noted.
Bagwell added: “These last couple of years, we really homed in on that.”
“Stay tuned!” Bagwell replied when asked if trans or nonbinary cast members could be on the horizon.
“A transgender story is high on the list,” she shared.”
“We would love to find a Deaf couple or a blind couple,” Bagwell added.
“We’d love to find a teenager or an extremely visual couple, like two very tall people,” she noted.
Bagwell then added: “Or an octogenarian dating an octogenarian.”
She affirmed: “It’s really, really, really important to us to feature all types of couples.”
Bagwell is really highlighting what sets 90 Day Fiance apart from a lot of other TLC programming.
For more than a decade, the network’s reality TV focus has targeted viewers who want to see straight, white, Christian families.
90 Day Fiance has a number of flaws, but it certainly highlights — and exploits — the diversity that gives humanity so much depth.
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