- Title: 'Baywatch' cast reunite for 30th anniversary as show relaunches globally
- Date: 25th September 2019
- Summary: SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES (SEPTEMBER 24, 2019) (REUTERS) ***WARNING: CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTRESS, ERIKA ELENIAK, SAYING: "There is an art to running looking like you're in slow motion, yet still looking athletic, with absolute authority but not too fast. It was not easy." (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTOR, DAVID CHOKACHI, SAYING: "The trick is don't run at full speed because if you've ever seen a human being run full speed and you watch it in slow motion, it's the ugliest thing you've ever seen, so you've got to run it at like 50 percent effort - that's the trick - so your face isn't going anywhere and things aren't bouncing around, you know that's the trick." (Reporter: I thought that's what they wanted - they wanted things bouncing around) "Yeah, there was plenty of it. Plenty of bouncing around." (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTRESS, KELLY PACKARD PRIVETT, SAYING: "No but in order to achieve that look, you had to adhere to certain tricks and one of them was to keep your mouth shut. No-one wants to see all the jiggling going on inside so you always had to run very steel-faced with the chin down, so that was my tricks." PAUL EMBRACING ONE OF THE SHOW'S PRODUCERS / RODERICK TALKING TO MAN CHOKACHI WITH ACTOR JASON BROOKS AND JOHN ALLEN NELSON ACTRESS HOLLY GAGNIER (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTRESS, KELLY PACKARD PRIVETT, SAYING: "I was pigeon-holed, for sure, as a Baywatch babe and that was hard to overcome. I feel like I have overcome it now but it's taken - what? - thirty years." (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTOR, JEREMY JACKSON, SAYING: "The cons were getting beat up by other kids that were jealous, you know, having people kind of say bad stuff about you and air your dirty laundry and of course, chicks. You date a couple of crazy chicks and you're famous and have money so of course, they say all kinds of wild stuff, you know, so definitely no plus comes without its minuses, you know."
- Embargoed: 9th October 2019 05:42
- Keywords: Baywatch Erika Eleniak David Chokachi Kelly Packard Alexadra Paul swimsuits lifeguards television
- Location: SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES; UNIDENTIFIED FILMING LOCATIONS;
- City: SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES; UNIDENTIFIED FILMING LOCATIONS;
- Country: USA
- Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment,Television
- Reuters ID: LVA004AY5OC3X
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: It's been thirty years since the beautiful red-swimsuited cast of 'Baywatch' first hit screens and became a global phenomenon, at the time winning the Guinness World Record for having the largest global TV audience in history.
Many of the cast from the show's 11 seasons - excluding David Hasselhoff who is on tour in Germany - turned out in Santa Monica for a reunion and to launch the HD remastered version of the show, which has recently been sold to most territories around the world.
Despite its success, the reason the show was so popular wasn't the reason the show was made, according to original cast member Erika Eleniak.
She said "When we did the show, it was actually a serious look at lifeguarding. We'd had a lot of cop shows, doctors shows, lawyers shows, even E.R. shows but nothing about lifeguarding. We were on NBC originally which was the most conservative network on television at the time and everything was done on regulation and it absolutely evolved over the years. People evolved and the show evolved and it became unbelievable."
Although the show became known for its pin-ups, including Pamela Anderson, Carmen Electra and Tracy Bingham, audiences sometimes overlooked an important fact, according to Alexandra Paul, who played Lieutenant Stephanie Holden.
"The great thing about the show was that the women's roles were as good as the men's. We did everything that the men did, we rescued as many people as the men did and in the nineties that was not normal. Usually women were relegated to smaller roles and less powerful roles," said Paul.
The other thing the show was known for was the slow-motion running by both the male and female characters - something the cast revealed was not quite as it seemed.
David Chokachi, who played hunky lifeguard Cody Madison, said "The trick is don't run at full speed because if you've ever seen a human being run full speed and you watch it in slow motion, it's the ugliest thing you've ever seen, so you've got to run it at like 50 percent effort - that's the trick - so your face isn't going anywhere and things aren't bouncing around."
Although the show was extremely popular and sky-rocketed the careers of those involved for the time they were on the series, there were downsides to being in 'Baywatch'.
"I was pigeon-holed, for sure, as a Baywatch babe and that was hard to overcome. I feel like I have overcome it now but it's taken - what? - thirty years," said Kelly Packard Privett, while Jeremy Jackson, who played David Hasselhof's son Hobie on the show, said "The cons were getting beat up by other kids that were jealous, having people kind of say bad stuff about you and air your dirty laundry and of course, chicks. You date a couple of crazy chicks and you're famous and have money so of course, they say all kinds of wild stuff so definitely no plus comes without its minuses."
(Production: Krystian Orlinski / Rollo Ross) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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