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Photo by Dani Maule, courtesy of Robyn Kass.
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Robyn Kass Talks Her Artios Nomination, Casting ‘Squid Game: The Challenge’


December 6, 2024

If you’re casting a reality TV show, odds are that Robyn Kass is high on your list to hire. For more than 20 years, she has been one of the industry’s most prolific casting directors, casting over 400 episodes of Big Brother, as well as other hit shows like She’s Got the Look, The Bachelor, Survivor and Squid Game: The Challenge, for which she finally earned her first — and long overdue — Emmy nomination.

The Netflix show also earned Kass also earned her first Artios Award nomination. She took a break from casting Season Two of the hit competition series to chat with us from her home in LA.

Insights: Lessons from Robyn Kass

  • Building relationships with industry casting professionals can open doors to audition opportunities.
  • Be ready to handle the personal exposure and public judgment that comes with appearing on reality TV.
  • Stand out in auditions by showing authentic enthusiasm and a willingness to embrace complex roles.

How did you get into casting?

I had a feeling you were going to ask me this. When I was in college, it was before reality TV, and I had always been fascinated by game shows, dating shows and talk shows.

When I was 18, I had a friend who was casting a dating show called The Big Date on the USA Network. We’d bring in large rooms filled with late teens and 20-year-olds, and I would ask them in a group setting about their dating life. I was just really good at getting the room fun. I had a great time doing that, and the executive producer, Howard Schultz, who’s not with us anymore, took me under his wing and taught me a lot about interviewing and talking to people.

That sounds like a good start. Where did you go from there?

After being on that show for a couple of years, I went to a show called Change of Heart. I was heading up a department because there weren’t a lot of people doing reality interviews.

It was such a small world then. The knack of casting is, how do you have a conversation with someone, get the most authentic side of them, have them telling you their dreams and hopes — good and bad — and be comfortable enough to say these things to you?

I love talking to people. I always loved hearing life stories. I loved hearing about accomplishments and their downfalls.

Was it around then that you started working on Big Brother?

They had just had their Season One. It wasn’t a big hit. They wanted to change things around, and I threw my hat in the ring. When I started on Big Brother, I still was thinking, this is so fun, but I have to find out what I want to do with my life, you know? But then, lots of shows started coming to me. I opened up my company in 2005, and for the first 10 years, I kept wondering, “should I renew my lease? Is this still going to keep going in another year? Are we going to have clients?”

I feel like you’re pretty safe now.

(Laughs) I’m fairly safe now, but I still always get nervous. I’m very thankful that I’m one of the go-to casting directors for big shows.

It sounds to me like being innately curious and a little nosy are great skills for reality casting.

(Laughs) Huge. I mean, that’s what my life is about, you know? I love gossip, which is something so cool about my job. Twenty years on Big Brother, doing The Bachelor for so many years, Squid Game, I’m so lucky to be in a job where the stories are endless. Every time I think I’ve heard it all, the next day I am like, “holy shit. That happened to this person.” I think I’m a pretty good judge of how much of it is real when it’s embellished when it’s somebody else’s story, but I do think gossip and curiosity are big like you said.

Is there a common trait in reality contestants? A curiosity? A sense of competition? Something like that? What does it take for someone to say, “I’m going to lay myself completely out there for potentially millions of people to see and judge?”

I think a lot of people love a show and apply because they’re fascinated. There are always people, ones who get one step closer and they freak out, like, “what am I doing?” Look at the backlash people get on social media. Those things happen.

Some people’s need and want to be on the show is bigger than the need and want to keep their lives private, and sometimes when they come off the show, they realize that it shifts and it’s a difficult thing. People are like, “I just wanted to play a game, now I have millions of people knowing about things in my life that I never thought would be exposed.” Especially for a show like Big Brother, because I did it for so many years.

Was that something you would talk to contestants about?

At the time, we did spend so much time talking to people and warning them that this stuff happens. Like, “I know the one naked photo that you sent to your ex-boyfriend is just on his phone, but, if you’re a big player on the show and he wants to make some money, it could come out. Not from us, but it could come out. Are you okay with that?”

I do think some people maybe don’t understand how exposed they will be after the show. “I have thick skin. I don’t care what people say about me. They can hate me. I just want to be on the show.” There is a small percentage of people who truly are like that, but there is a whole other world of people who’ve come off big reality shows and seen thousands of people tell you, “you’re fat, you’re ugly, you’re stupid, I hate you, you suck.” And I’ll tell you, without getting so much into it, that is part of the reason I ended up leaving Big Brother because people were attacking me.

That was my next question actually, whether or not you ever find backlash for that kind of thing.

More than you would even believe. Death threats. I would get a fraction of what the cast members would get, but it’s tolling and it’s difficult. I’m good at making jokes about it, but it’s hurtful stuff. I think people sometimes going into these shows don’t realize how hard it is to wake up and say, “let’s see what people are saying,” and then realize, “oh my gosh, people are horrible.”

Conversely, as big a show as Squid Game, with 30 times as many players as Big Brother, I would think it’s less personal for something like that. Am I wrong?

No, you’re right, it’s less personal. But, gosh, you bring up so many things that I think about daily.

When I first got this show, in my head, I was like, “they’re gonna ask me to cast 25 great characters and then the others will be kind of fillers, blah, blah, blah.” But, no, you truly have to put 456 people in front of the network so that the network can agree that any one of those people could be the winner. That’s one challenge.

For me, I do get attached to these people from working on shows where we follow 20 people. I feel very maternal and I love them all. I want them to all win. When you talk to all those thousands of people, every one of them has hopes and dreams to get to the end and win that pot of money.

Is it more fun to cast somebody you know will be a hero or you know will be a villain?

Oh, I like shit stirrers. I like sneaky people. The Rootable Villain would be my favorite, but that’s a tough person to find. It’s very specific, and not something that you can recruit for. “Looking for really nice assholes.” (Laughs) But when I can talk to someone and they’re authentically excited to stir stuff up, yeah, those are my favorites for sure.

Do you find that sometimes you will cast somebody and the show’s edit makes them seem like a completely different person than the one that you met? Or do you think that ultimately, the real person comes out?

I’m sure if you ask the cast, they will say something different, but I believe the real person is always exposed.

You’ve been doing this for a long time. You were at the forefront of the Reality boom. You have been, by any definition, wildly successful at what you do. There had to have been some level of gratification for finally being recognized by your peers, and also the television academy for your work.

I mean, that’s not why you do it, but getting accolades is still fun. Winning awards or even being nominated for awards is still fun. It’s new to me. I have been on this journey for so long, I have worked on so many shows, that I think when even the Emmy nomination came, I almost didn’t even know how to act. It was a surprise.

I’ve gone for so many years and I’ve loved so many of the shows I’ve worked on why it is happening now? Squid Game was so unique and big and larger than life and cool and looked amazing. I mean, I feel super grateful. I’m more grateful for my job than I am for the accolades. I don’t feel like I need the award to make me more grateful, but I’d love to win an award. That’d be amazing.

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