Survivor has been on the air for 26 long and grueling seasons, but host Jeff Probst says there is still room for new ideas in the long-running series. In fact, he would really, really like to do a celebrity season, and he says there are stars willing to back him.
Once upon a time, actress Kate Hudson even showed up to an open call, although she was promptly turned away by producers. Although that experience may or may not have soured the Something Borrowed actress to the possibility of competing, Probst says he knows a fan favorite TV star who would seriously be interested in giving a celebrity season of Survivor a shot. The host recently told People that Neil Patrick Harris would totally give it a shot.
“Mark Burnett and I really want to do a celebrity version. We were just talking about this at a Grammy party last week. Neil Patrick Harris was there, and he told me flat out he wants to play. I challenged him and said, ‘Do you really want to do it, or is this just a fun fantasy that will never happen?’ He said, ‘I want to do it.’ “
In fact, Probst already seems to have some of the details worked out. Since celebrities often have a tight schedule to work around and often only have a few days between projects, Probst believes the best way to handle a celebrity season would be to only shoot for ten days or so—which would also mean that weight loss wouldn’t be too much of an issue. Still, coordinating a group of celebrities is likely a more grueling task than finding random people to fill a season, and we may be a ways off from a full-celebrity version of the show.
If the idea does come to fruition, whether a celebrity season is longer or shorter, if Harris is in, I’d probably invest in those episodes, and this is coming from a woman who hasn’t caught CBS’ reality competition series since Season 1.
