It's in the news today, but it was actually on TV Reload the podcast Last.
Deep Their Mind.
Welcome back to TV Reload. My name's Benjamin Norris and on this podcast I will go behind the scenes with the biggest players in television. Each episode you will get a front row seat with content makers like executive producers, writers, editors and casting agents, plus the talent that we see on our screen. TV Reload reloads the shows that you are currently watching and gives you a better insight into
our television industry and our streaming services. Today, on the podcast, I will unpack the latest TV series from Endemol Shine Australia, which is currently on Paramount Plus it is The Bridge. Joining me is my favorite contestant from the series, Madison, who managed to get plenty of attention from the viewers with his likable villain edit. Madison is the type of casting every producer dreams of when it comes to putting together a TV show. You want someone real, who speaks
their mind and actually wants to play a game. Some may have been polarized by his gameplay, while people like me loved his brutal honesty. The Bridge saw a cast of unknowns forced into a situation where not only building a bridge was physically exhausting, but mentally, they faced a conundrum that would see only one person in charge of
how the prize money would be spent. Madison talks about his brutal edit at times, if he has maintained a friendship with the winner, how he would have handled the prize money, what reality show he actually applied for, and some sassy commentary that will delight the medicine fans. However, let's get started with today's guest. I'd like to welcome Madison from the Bridge to TV reload.
I probably shouldn't have lasted as long as I did.
You have seventeen days to build the bridge.
If you're given the opportunity to walk, yeah, keep it for yourself.
It is a team effort to really pull this thing together.
It definitely would make more sense of a host, But then again, what would a host do.
Should you fail?
No one will claim the cat.
I was getting so frustrated during my time on the bridge around people who were just so apathetic towards being there. Will this place change them forever? As they built the bridge to not be in the position where it wasn't My influence that determined who walked the bridge did suck?
Hi Madison?
How are you, Hi, Ben?
I'm so well today, a little bit hungover, but otherwise, well, how are you.
I'm very excited to be able to talk to you. I really enjoyed The Bridge. I wish it was like thirty episodes and not six. Like I just don't understand why it was so fast.
I know, even watching it back, it's kind of crazy because it's not like we were out there for a super long period of time to film it. So at the time, six episodes kind of made sense. But now watching it back and just seeing how much never even made it to air is kind of crazy because so much transpire it over those seventeen days, and to sell
it down to six episodes is wild. I'm sure they could have probably produced at least ten and still had plenty of content, So I'm sad that it wasn't longer too, But I have also enjoyed watching it. It's been cool to go back and see everything again to relive it.
I guess you can't play everyone's narrative.
Yeah, absolutely, there are definitely parts of the experience out there that I thought would be much more front and Center. There are people who had kind of so much more to their personality and character that just didn't necessarily play
out in what viewers saw. So I don't know, that's kind of bittersweet to go back and not necessarily see everything that you've lived in some of the stuff that maybe wasn't so dramatic or as I guess, focused on the actual build Like there were even that didn't make the final cut, which is kind of wild.
I want to say how much I love your name, and I think it's perfect for you. What is the story to the name? Why did your parents name you Madison?
Looks?
It's a great question, and it's kind of been a blessing and a curse to be called Madison, because you go through life and everybody's like, but that's a girl's name. I've learned to love it because it's quite unique. But I think the story is that my parents, regardless of whether I was going to be born a girl or a boy, just loved the name Madison. It just so happened that I was born a boy and they stuck with the name because they liked it.
And here we are twenty.
Nine years later, and it's still really hasn't taken off as a boy's name, but I do love it.
I think that it is suited to me.
It is so suited to you. It's kind of regal, it's kind of like expensive, but it also could be a little bit poisonous. So I don't know that sounds terrible, but I love it.
Look, I mean maybe poisonous is part of it.
I don't know, but it's certainly unique and I've really learned to embrace it, and it makes it a lot better because when people are referring to boy Madison, I'm not competing against many.
I love it. So you survived the bridge and made a huge impact on your audience, probably because of your brutal honesty. Are you okay with that whole title of brutal honesty?
I am okay with that whole title.
I think that that was my game plan going in, and look what we call it, brutal honesty. There was a lot of trying to be deceptive, maybe playing a few sides while I was out there, but I was calling it for what it was, which was an absolutely chaotic experience, something that I knew was not going to be something that I was good at. So I kind of I thought it was better to be honest about the fact that I probably shouldn't have lasted as long
as I did. But that kind of played into my strategy as well, by saying, look, of all the people that arrived here on day one, I am probably the last person that you would expect to make it to the end. So if we're going to vote somebody across that represents growth as a group or resilience, then.
Why shouldn't it be me?
But yeah, I'm totally happy for people to remember me as the person that was brutally honest because it was really hard out there, and I just felt the need to constantly remind everybody that was asking me how I felt how much I hated it.
As you just were calling it as it is. I didn't see it as villainry, but I think some people might have watched you in this season and thought that you were the PG likable villain. I don't know, is it even offensive to put that title on you? Do you feel okay with being like a bit of a TV villain because of that honesty?
I do feel okay with that, and I think that when I went out there, I kind of knew that I would come across as a bit of a villain because my game plan was always to lighter people. It was fake it till you make it. It was build relationships. It was literally, when it gets down to it, I'm ready to burn bridges. So I kind of knew going into it that I was happy to kind of fit
into that role. But I'm also really confident with who I am as a person, and I know that I am somebody that has a lot of kind qualities as well. So coming off the back of the bridge, I had this idea that I probably would be perceived by a lot of viewers as a villain. But at the same time, I stand by everything that I said and did I know that I was true to who I am, and coming out of it, I don't think I really offended
too many people, except for maybe regional people. After that first episode when I made that one comment about regional people, Facebook popped off. But yeah, I think I'm comfortable with the villain title. I'd rather be remembered for being interesting than fade into the background like some of the other people who were out there.
I think you and I are quite similar. I think a lot of people thought very similarly of me and big Brother as to the way you have been portrayed, Is that a fair thing to say?
Yeah, I know what you mean.
And I actually remember your own big Brother and thinking at the time, like, I love that kind of representation because I can't remember at the time that many openly gay people that had been on reality TV or who had at least done as well as you did to win. But I also just remember how much of a shit fight that was about, you know, is he being mean to people? But I think that that's what it is.
It's being brutally honest. And what people, I think don't realize when you go into reality TV is there is a lot of downtime. It can be really frustrating. It takes a lot of energy to be there. And I was getting so frustrated during my time on the bridge around people who were just so apathetic towards being there, and it was like, Okay, well, at least at least speak up, like, at least have something to say, even
if it's negative, have some sort of opinion. And I think that sometimes people do take that out of context. And again, it's a TV show. There's so much content they have to fit into an episode that, yeah, of course some of that stuff is going to make you seem like a bit of a villain, But at least I know that it's representative of how I felt, and I you know, I was there, I was playing a game.
Sometimes I was frustrated with people with the experience, and I'm just glad that, you know, I did myself in my experience justice. You know, there are people who are there who are just so afraid about how they're going to be portrayed that they choose not to say anything. But you know, in real life, you're just as much of a bitch as I am. You are just being way too censored, and it's boring. It's boring to be
there with those kinds of people. So look, I have a newfound appreciation for people that get this villain edit in reality TV, because I think that it does actually require a bit of bravery to be brutally honest and not to just you know, kind of fall into that position of being a really apathetic character that just tries to people please and is afraid of how they're going to be portrayed.
We are so critical as a queer community on ourselves, which means that we are super harsh on ourselves with super harsh on other people, which makes it very easy to edit us as the villain of TV shows. That's my theory. It might be wrong, but that's my theory.
Yeah. No, I totally agree with you.
I think it was good. Do they even introduce you as being gay? Like I don't remember. I think that's what we know.
And that's kind of the crazy thing, which I think is a good thing that you don't necessarily have to lead with that label anymore. And I think that the only person, I mean, they Jesse was queer and as obviously in a lesbian relationship because in her little backstory introduction it introduced her and her wife and the child that they have together. And then I think Alira it was quite obvious that she was queer because she was
talking about pronouns when they introduced her. But actually, for Steve and I I don't think they ever actually labeled us as gay.
I think it was maybe just a little bit obvious.
It was a little bit obvious, But then I thought Elliott was gay. Then I thought everyone was gay, and I was like, oh my god, this is like queer camp. And then it turned out not everyone was gay.
What I would say about this show is the representation in the cast. The diversity in the cast was really impressive. I did not expect that when I walked in there. I think that being a straight white person actually made you a minority on the bridge.
Absolutely, But you know, I want every single person that was cast on this series to be put into another series.
Would you want to see everybody on another show?
I mean I could see maybe like three quarters, but everybody.
I just think, I know this is a big cliche because I did a Big Brother and blah blah blah talk about Big Brother. Whatever, I could have seen that cast put into the Big Brother house. I think it would have been the best cast we've seen in Big Brother in the last ten years.
Yeah, you know what was interesting about it? And I don't really know if I'm allowed to say this, but whatever, A lot of people because being the first series, like if they put out an AD that's like come build a bridge, like, they're not gonna They're probably not going to get that many applicants, or at least a diverse range of applicants, Like I sure as hell wouldn't have applied to an ad been like come build a bridge in the middle of Tasmania, So a lot of the
people who ended up on the show had come over from other casting pools, which was really interesting because when you consider some of the shows that people were in casting pools for, you don't necessarily look at those shows and go, oh, that's they have really really great diversity in the people that they cast, So it was kind of cool. I don't know if it was really intended to have that much diversity or if that's just how it played out with each of the characters that they wanted in there.
Did you applied for a particular am I allowed to ask that? Did you apply for the bridge or did you apply for Big Brother?
I was meant to go into Big Brother last year, the one with the returning housemates, which because I've been a fan of Big Brother for forever, I was so excited about. But I had something come up at work that meant that I was unable to so I had to pull out before I was meant to fly down to Sydney, and then at that point I was like, oh my god, there's no way they're going to put me on another TV show. After I pulled out, after kind of going through this whole process and like, they've
invested this much time in me. But then probably a month later, they were like, hey, we're filming this new TV show. And when they explained to me what it was, I was like, oh, let me think about it, but I'm leaning towards absolutely not the idea of building a bridge sounds disgusting, but lo and behold, how to think about it. I was like, you know what, seventeen days.
I think I can do anything for seventeen days, and if anything, it's going to be a really wild story and it's going to push me outside of my comfort zone a little bit. So that's how I ended up on the bridge.
I feel robbed. I feel robbed. I would have loved to have seen you in Big Brother, especially in that series. I feel like you would have been good at being able to hold people accountable. The weren't being held accountable in that series.
So yeah, look, I'm sad. I'm sad that I didn't get to do it because that was like, that was my pick, the show that I wanted to do. But you know, when the opportunity arose with this, I just thought, yeah, it makes sense. The timing makes sense. Take it as a sign from the universe go and build a bridge. Who knows, maybe a win And going into it, I was like, there's maybe I'll make it halfway. There's no way I'm going to make it to the end of
this thing. But I surprised myself by going out there, and I'm glad that I did because the people that I met, like post this show, the I guess relationship that most of us still have with each other is really strong, and I think I'll be friends with quite a few of these people for a long time.
So who's on the outer?
Then?
Can I ask that there's got to be someone on the outer like, who are the people that are not no longer in the WhatsApp group?
Well? There are, Look, there are people.
That just don't engage in the main group. Tiana is one of those people. And I don't know whether that stems from a place of she's a busy woman. She's touring with, busy about Billie Eilish at the moment, dancing for her, which very jealous of.
And I don't know whether it's because of the way that.
She left the show as well with burning the bridge to maybe she doesn't maybe that's why she doesn't contribute in the chat, but she's one person that doesn't speak up as much in the group chat.
Yeah.
Interestingly with Hugo Weaving, he introduces the show in episode one and he very dramatically says, you know, will this place change them forever? Did this show change you forever?
Look the experience, yes, probably in many ways has changed me. Has it changed me forever? Not really, because I think I was one of those people that went in that you know, loves a moral dilemma, like put me in a difficult situation and let's see if I make the right or wrong decision.
I love that kind of thing.
I think for a lot of other people who were out there, it will have legitimately changed them because it put them in positions where they had to take money and they wouldn't usually, and you know, it made them feel physically sick that they had stolen from this prize money. But to me, it was an experience that I think has changed me and has meant that I've grown in a number of ways. But has it changed me forever that dramatically?
No.
What about the people who thought the bridge was too confusing? Because I read a lot about this online where people were like, what's going on? You know, is there a monster that left the knife in the post? You know, who's in charge of the bridge? You know? There was some questions that people had about getting invested in the show because there was some things which were a little
bit blurred. So I guess the best way to ask you this question is how did you explain the game to your friends and family.
Going into it?
Because I had no idea how it would work. I really didn't understand it, and there was a British version that a lot of us had kind of watched to get a grasp on the rules, but there were also a few key differences between the two. When I came back, the way that I tried to describe it to people is it's kind of like a hybrid between like a big brother and a survivor. But the fundamental difference is that you need to work together as a team, so
you need to keep your strong people together. But at the same time, you don't want people who are too strong, because then when it comes to the end, if they've contributed more or they're perceived to be, you know, the hero of the group, of course they're going to be the person selected to walk it at the end, and can you trust somebody you've known for seventeen days to
split that money with you? So I really could not succinctly explain to people how this worked, which I think frustrated a lot of people in the lead up to it airing. And I still get a ton of questions from my family and friends around how it works. And I think the reality is it's just a new reality TV format that people need to be able to wrap their heads around because it is unconventional. You don't have a regular cadence of people going to tribal counsel or
having an eviction. When we were out there, we had no idea when the next player would go off. We had no idea how many people would be there at the end. We were like, is this have we stopped getting rid of people? Will there be five of us left.
At the end?
Is like nine seems like too many people to be here at the end. How are we actually going to vote? Are we raising our hands? Are we writing down names and putting them in a jar? The format, I think, just because it is so new, means that there are a lot of questions, and I don't think it's as simple as your typical competition reality TV show format.
There was just that. I think I mentioned it, but I think there were some things that only frustrated me. I mean, I loved the show, don't get me wrong, Like I actually was kind of a bit obsessed. But the knife. You know, like in episode one, you're all sitting around having a chat and then all of a sudden, you know, Savage found the knife that was stabbed into the wall. It's like, who stabbed that knife with a
letter into the wall? Like it just felt like there should have been like a John or someone or maybe even a fake monster that was leaving things. But I don't know, I just felt like that was kind of left a little bit too silly for me.
Yeah, it was a little bit strange, and even when we were out there, we were like it, it's weird because like obviously, I mean, this isn't really breaking the forth wall a little bit, but everybody knows, like these shows are produced and it's a producer stabbing it into the thing of wood, and you just have to pretend like that's.
Not the case.
Yeah, I think not having a host makes it kind of difficult, especially when you've got kind of the contestants in the moment having to kind of lead a sort of decision or whatever it may be, and we have no fucking idea what's going on, so we're just kind of rolling with it and hoping that we get.
It right the first time.
So yeah, it definitely it definitely would make more sense to have a host, But then again, what would a host do, like just wander around the work site?
So I totally take your point.
It is kind of confusing, and even watching it back, I thought, like, I've lived it, so I understand how all this works, but I feel like for a viewer at home, there would be some context missing.
Watching it back. What do you think was the biggest what you know what the moment?
I think it was in the first episode because I was benchmarking, like I knew what was going to happen in the first episode, and I was kind of benchmarking where we were based on this one flare going off, which I think was like the second flare that we ever got, and it just didn't appear in the episode at all, And that kind of surprised me because I feel like that really was the first It was the first moral decision that had to be made and I
forget who ran for it. It was Bushy and maybe George, maybe Dean, I can't exactly remember, but they ran for the flare. The twenty meters of bridge was sitting there, and it was like, you can take this bridge because you haven't built anything so far, but then you need to get rid of somebody or you can not take it. And you don't have to get rid of somebody by virtue of the two people that went up there, being I guess quite morally upstanding people didn't didn't take it.
So they came back and they kind of walked it, walked us through it and said we wouldn't do that, like we're doing this as a team. And that's when I kind of like the light bulb moment went off for me and it was like, Okay, some of these people are here to play happy families.
They don't understand that this is a game, this is.
A competition, and having a bit of foresight, I'm like, this opportunity is going to come up again, so next player, I'm going to run for it. I'm going to get there first, which is what I did. And then it was basically, now you need to take the twenty meters and you need to send somebody home. So I think that was when I was watching it back, like having things like that missing just made me realize how much they had to condense into so few episodes.
So the conditions looked actually quite nice on the screen, How was it in real life? Would it make a nice retreat by any chance?
Look, there were so many people who were out there that were like, I never want to leave.
This is like a holiday and the setting was not lost on me.
Of course, it was beautiful, probably even more beautiful in person than how it came across on the show. But by the time that you actually start building the bridge and realize how much of a pain in the ass it is, it very quickly becomes old. The accommodation was like very basic, no insulation. It was Tasmania, it was March, so it was still warm for Tasmania, but coming from Queensland also freezing. So look, I had a lot of complaints about the environment.
But yeah, of course it was beautiful.
I just feel like once you're thrust into that situation and your focus was on the task at hand, the actual beauty of your surroundings starts to get lost on you.
A little bit.
I guess the million dollar question of this whole entire podcast, which everyone has listened to me go on and on and on to get to what they really want to know. Was it hard not to get the money in the end?
Yes and no.
My take on it the hahollway through was I don't really care that much about the money.
I just like to win.
So for me, even when you kind of saw me pivot to saying I'm not I'm not playing for myself anymore. I want a lera to cross the bridge. That was kind of me making the decision that I feel like I can pull the strings to have a lera across the bridge, and for me that will be like winning, Like I just want my person to win. So to not be in the position where it wasn't my influence that determined who walked to the bridge did suck. But at the same time, I'm glad that Barti won. I'm
happy for her. She was very transparent with us that if she walked, she probably wasn't going to share it. So that evening, when everything kind of came undone around the campfire with Bloody Elliott exposing us in front of everybody at that moment, I kind of realized that, you know, we don't we don't have a chance in hell here, and that part sucked, not walking away with anybody.
You know, it would have been lovely.
To have fifty grand or however much, but it was more just the fact that I didn't win that upset me the most.
But you wouldn't know that feeling, would you.
I know, though, who cares about me? At this point? I just want to know, do you RSVP to Elliott and Maddie's wedding? Like, you know, if they get married, are you going to go to the wedding?
Well, I be invited to the wedding. You know what's funny is I'm actually going to see Elliott tonight. And I've seen him once since the show finished airing as well, and I do remember to give him shit for it because I feel like it didn't come across as well in the final episode. But we had kind of figured it out that we had had the numbers to send a lira across and we were going to split the vote, and I don't think that really got shown as much
as it was a reality in that moment. But when everything fell apart, just to kind of stick it to Elliott because I knew how badly he wanted Barty to win. That's why I threw all of my weight behind vote for vote for Tony, which ultimately didn't work either.
But we almost, We almost did it.
Do you think that Barty did the right thing by keeping the money the way she did? Well, I mean, she gave some to Bushy to Mark, But do you think she did the right thing?
I do.
I think that the reality is, and perhaps even the irony of the situation is, if Aleira had walked it, she probably would have been the person to share it with the most people. I think that anybody else would have kept the money for themselves and maybe spun off a little bit like Barti did with Bushy. I think
that Barti did the right thing. If you're given the opportunity to walk, yeah, keep it for yourself, because you know what, You've just convinced a bunch of randoms who have poured their blood, sweat and tears into this stupid bridge for the last seventeen days to give you the money, either by virtuo of you being the best game player, or the hardest worker, or the nicest person, whatever it is, we sent you across, so do whatever the hell you want with it.
I respect the fact that she kept it for herself.
What would you have done? Can you please tell me how you slice the pie with that cash? Do you take it all for yourself? Well? Who was going to get it?
How did it been me?
Up until the point that I shifted to no, let's send Aleira across, I would have just split it three ways. It would have been Steve Alera myself. I think right at the end, before I decided that it was going to be Aleira, that we were just going to put forward for our little alliance, I was thinking about Barty because I kind of felt bad with how much she had put into the experience. But realistically I probably just would have split it the three ways.
Yeah, of course, once she was picked to walk across the bridge, you must have given up all hope that she would give you any money.
Yeah. Look, you watch it back and there's all those conversations around you know what she's going to do. She's such a team player. Of course, you'll share it with everybody. But the reality is that we knew as a group that she was going to keep it for herself, more than likely keep it for herself. You kind of saw the conversation she had with Bushy. Probably what you didn't see were Maddie and Elliott, who for whatever reason were
just like obsessed with her, like oddly obsessed. And they were the ones that basically convinced her, because I think she probably would have shared it with everybody had they not been in her ear been like, you need to keep it for yourself, Like, they were the most aggressive campaigners for her, Like I'm pretty sure they gave up on their own chance of walking the bridge on like day three.
They were just obsessed with her. And I can't tell you why that was.
I still don't really get it, but they definitely played a huge part in her decision to keep it.
The looks on everyone's faces as they were told, no, sorry, I don't have any money for you. Actually, that's a really good point. Did she come up with the words for that or do you think she was sort of spoon fed by producers? Do you reckon? Producers said, you know, do you reckon? She changed her decision on how the money was going to go or how she was going to break it up. Do you think that anyone else play the hand in what she had to say.
It's hard to say. I honestly don't have an answer that question. I think, based on what she said to me, which you saw a very small snippet of the conversation that we had, I think that she had crafted that herself, and a few people messaged me afterwards saying, oh, it seemed a bit condescending that she was like, oh, I'm so so happy to see.
That you've grown.
But the way with that the final Campfire worked was I basically when I did my pitch before Elliott kind of jumped in with his alliance, thing was that I was the best representative for the group because, like I mentioned earlier, as we've been talking on day one, I was probably the least equipped to go out there and build a bridge.
I showed up in a fucking college.
Shirt for Christ's sake, and I kind of talked about my development, and that was what she was talking about when she was talking to me, and she was a very good listener. So I think that I think that a lot of what she said was sincere. The only one that I would question, whether you know, there were other people kind of playing into her decision making or the way that she broke it up was maybe with Dino, because I think that she legit did want to share
it with Dino. But then I think, and you saw how emotional she got when he was up there on the platform with her. I think that she was just very I think she thought, well, if I share it with Bushy and Dino, then why aren't I cutting in Maddie and Elliott and you know everybody else that has helped with this. So you kind of have to draw a line somewhere, and I think Dino was that line. I think if she had to share with the third person, he would have been in who.
Was the saltiest? So they didn't get any money.
It's a tough one, I think Dean and I think had Savage not been walking away with ten grant, he would have been a lot saltier.
But he was still quite salty.
Because I think he really I think Tony God bless him, love him, really thought that he was a much more strategic player or had it in the bag more than he did. He was not a great liar, and everybody kind of had this suspicion that he had the ten K, so he was salty that he didn't walk away with more money. But I think Dean was probably the most salty because he walked away with nothing, and you had what five out of fourteen of us total or thirteen how many of us there were that kind of went
through the experience that received money. So it's like you had a one in three chance of winning money and you brought away with nothing. So yeah, I think he was the most salty about it. But he doesn't have an issue with Barty. I think he's quite happy for her. He just wishes that it were him.
So is there anyone that is kind of struggling to keep their friendship with Barty?
I don't think so.
I think that everybody had a good relationship with Barty, and I think the sort of relationship that everybody had with her was that she was a bit of a little sister. She was the youngest one out there, but she was very very bright, vibrant, very uplifting, and I think that everybody's general sentiment afterwards was that she was a deserving person and she's such a lovely person that I think people really struggled to be upset with her.
So no, as far as I know, nobody from the experience is upset the Barty one, and I.
Guess everyone kind of alluded to being selfish or ruthless or you know, in their pieces to camera. People were like, I was going to take the money, So no one could really be that annoyed with her because they kind of had, you know, said how shady they were in their pieces to camera.
Yeah, and I know that Barty's copped a bit since the final episode aired around taking the money just from the general public. But my sentiment towards it is she was transparent with all of us around what she was going to do. If you're upset, if you loved Dean and you're upset that Dean didn't walk away with any money, don't be upset with Dean, be upset or with Barty. Rather be upset with the people that voted for Barty because they're the one. We all knew what voting for
Barty meant for the group. And to your point as well, with everybody's little confessionals to camera, I don't think that
anybody else would have shared the money. And that's why I think it's so funny and so ironic that Elliott called out out a Lira, because I know Alera would have fit with pretty much everybody except for Maddy and Elliott had she walked, and I think that's where the money would have gone the most ways, which is funny because the call out of the final campfire was you know, they're they're selfish and they're trying to take the money for themselves. But it's like, in reality, we were we
were just being truthful. We were or we were being upfront. We knew what we were doing, whereas the others, I think, wanted to speak about sharing the money but didn't really have a strategy behind it, and I think put in the same position as Barty, most of the people there would have taken all of the money for themselves.
It's such a good show because, like it is a it's a conundrum. It's a very big conundrum. And yeah, there's probably a few things that were probably a bit difficult for the cast to go through, and that happens in all reality shows. But for the viewer, it was very delicious.
Being out there.
You kind of get to a point and we all agreed on this at the end, like you get to a point where you stop forgetting or you stop remembering that the goal is to walk the bridge at the end, because the other conundrum that you're faced with is if you don't finish the bridge, nobody wins any money, So you do have to work as a team and sometimes just kind of put the game to the side to
focus on finishing the build. And the most upset that anybody got when we were out there was when t burnt the bridge, because we were already on such a time crunch and it was already looking like we probably won't finish this, and to wake up in the morning and see the bridge building, everybody was like, are you
fucking kidding me? Like, now nobody is going to win, So it doesn't matter who would have the most boats, because if nobody's going to walk it, then we've all just wasted two and a half weeks living in a tin shed.
Do you think that if there's a season two that it'll be much harder because people have watched it and so would it be harder to build alliances? Or does it when everyone going into series two think the person who crosses the bridge is just going to keep all the money? Like, how do you think a season two will play out? If they do it?
I think it'll be much more strategic.
I think that some way somehow the majority of the cast going into this first season did not really clock that it was a game, because it was kind of sold as more of an experience. But I was like, well, there's a component of somebody wins, so of course it's a game.
You need to strategize for that. Hardly anybody strategized.
I think going into season two there will just be a lot more strategy, and I'm sure that they'll change up the format even I mean, I know an International Versions season two has always had a bit of a crazy twist, so I think that it'll be more strategic, and I think the actual build will be more difficult as well.
After your experience of reality television, would you apply to go on another show.
At the end of the Bridge, I was like, I'm never fucking doing this shit again. But I think my sentiment at that time was very much around building the Bridge because it was so physically demanding and I was just over it. And I'm sure any reality TV show is either physically or emotionally draining, So I don't know.
I'm in two minds about it. I would love to I'd love to do it again, And what I've said to people in the aftermath, and I know I use the word apathetic quite a lot as we're talking what I hated because I've always watched shows like Big Brother and Survivor, and especially the new format of Big Brother. It's like, I want to be strategic, like I want
to win, I want to beat people. I want to boat people out, and on the Bridge we got a little bit of that, but by and large, most people were not playing a game, and that was frustrating to me. So I'd want I do reality TV again, but I want it to be like a proper competition and even the Bridge. Maybe in season two it will be more competitive, but yeah, that would be my That would be what
helps me make my decision. Is it a show where people are actually going to go balls to the wall with trying to win this or are we just playing a happy family.
Because that was boring.
The first ten days of the Bridge build was all just happy families, and I was so offered, which is when I started to just ster shit with people. Build alliances obviously didn't work that well for me, but I just wish more people were in that game mindset.
The last question I asked is the same question ask everyone who joins the podcast. What is something from behind the scenes, something we didn't see that we won't see, kind of a behind the scenes secret from making the Bridge.
Oh my god, this is probably not that exciting, but the porter potties right behind the campfire where we would run for the players every time and jump over those really sad looking players that you just see progressively die throughout the series. With the porter potties that we had to use, and they were so disgusting.
I don't think they got cleaned once while we were out there. It was and it was like a decent.
Trek from the tin shed as well, so in the evenings we get to get up and go to the bathroom. It was just a terror well experience. And they didn't smell very good. So behind the scenes there were two very not glamorous porta poppies.
Brilliant, Madison, what an amazing opportunity to talk to you about The Bridge. I loved this series. I thought you were fantastic in it. Good luck with whatever it is that you decide to do. Keep leaning into that villain ry. Actually, no, forget that, just keep being yourself.
Thanks, look live every day like you're a villain.
A PG villain you know, not once somebody that kills people, you know exactly, A family friendly villain, a Disney Channel villain. Amazing,