The day of the filming was a marathon. USGT requires contestants to arrive in the morning and to wait all day, in costume until their segment is called for filming. During this time, USGT films various B roll sequences with the contestants backstage. They set up multiple scenarios in which contestants are asked to pretend to be meeting another contestant, or pretend to be warming up, or pretend to be waiting in the waiting room. Each contestant is also interviewed by USGT.

All of these dialogues are fabricated. What you don’t see on tv are the coaches who constantly interrupt, to ask you to say what they want you to say or focus on whatever it is which matches the persona they’ve created for you.

In the interview and dialogues with other contestants, as soon as I’d talk about my life as a professional Artist or my 3 years and 700+ shows with the Cirque du Soleil they would cut me off saying “Talk about growing up in a yoga cult and your love for Nature”. There were certain lines they would try to feed me again and again but I had to refuse as it felt disingenuous.

The best such moment was when they asked me to pretend to be focusing myself in the moments before stepping on stage. The nice lady looked at her notes for who I was supposed to be and said…”OK do whatever you do before you go onstage…hmmm, let me see (reading notes)…oh yes- meditate”.

It’s a lonely moment when you are the only one laughing out loud at a joke none of the producers or people behind the cameras get or think is funny. I tried to explain that I don’t meditate before going onstage but this just seemed to confuse them.