America's Next Top Model, Cycle 9 - Interview With Victoria
Victoria
Age - 20
Hometown - New Haven, CT
Occupation - College Student
Victoria, the third eliminee from America’s Next Top Model, might be remembered as one of the smartest competitors, or as the pretty but prickly, abrasive girl who stood up to the judges. True enough, Victoria came across as feisty and combative, but she deserves a break. This Yale scholar offered both brains and beauty, the striking eyes of a doe, and uniquely charming style. We enjoyed hearing Victoria’s side of the Top Model story during a recent conference call interview.
Hi Victoria! How are you? Thanks for taking time away from you busy schedule to speak with us.
Hi! I’m doing great. Thanks for talking to me.
Were you a fan of America’s Next Top Model before auditioning for the show? Was it what you’d expected?
I actually didn’t watch the show before going on it, although I tried to frantically You Tube it a number of times. I had just come out of exams. I was put on a plane three days later, so I didn’t get a chance to watch a lot of episodes. I’ve been getting a lot of flack about the way I approached panel. The way it was edited was that I did joke around a lot during panel. I did smile. We had a good dialogue. They just took snippets of the conversation to make me look very, very abrasive. Basically, I’d always rather ask questions and try to learn than smile and nod and look pretty. I would rather speak my mind and go home, rather than sort of be seen as unintelligent.
Tell us about the dare and how you ended up auditioning for the show.
Actually I didn’t really watch the show, but my roommate was a really avid fan. One day it was really late and she said, “Wouldn’t it be fun if you and I went to the audition tomorrow just to see who was there and how it was and stuff?" I’m sort of a happy go-lucky kind of person, so I was like, “Oh, it should be a lot of fun. Let’s go!”
At the last minute she couldn’t go and I wasn’t going to go either but she pestered me into going. So, I showed up at the casting call. There were so many girls. I was in jeans and a t-shirt and they were in high heels and mini skirts. I was a little bit out of place, but I ended up sticking around. I felt like a good story would come of it. I ended up making the first cut. I thought that was kind of strange but cool, so I wanted to see how far it would go. I made it through the next couple of cuts. They told me that I had a call-back. I thought it would be kind of funny to say that I actually got a call-back from America’s Next Top Model. I was going to go home and forget about the whole thing.
When I called my friend and told her I got a call-back, she got really excited and told me I had to stay and that she wouldn’t let me back into the dorm if I didn’t stay. I ended up missing the train anyway so it was like, “I guess it’s meant to be.” I didn’t have any clothes, hairbrush or money or anything because I didn’t think I’d stay for the next day. I ended up wearing the same outfit that I did before during the call-back so I’m sure it was kind of strange for the casting director. You know everyone goes before the casting director. You’re supposed to basically speak about anything that’s on your mind. Everyone was talking about how much they loved fashion how this is their dream and naming all these designers.
I figured I had nothing to lose since I probably wouldn’t end up on the show so I just stood up and talked about why I was there and what was on my mind in terms of… I study history so I talked about studying medieval history and stuff like that. Then the camera men started laughing at me. I guess it was good thing that I was so extremely insane that it sort of worked to my advantage. I sort of forgot about it for a while then I got a call-back in May telling me I had gotten on the show. I figured it was better to at least do something, then to regret that you hadn’t done it, so I went on the show. Sorry, that was a really long answer.
As you became familiar with the girls, the routine and the show, did you question whether to go through with it?
You know, I stayed there mainly because I really liked the girls in the house. I think they’re all really funny, entertaining and great people. I felt like the show makes the whole modeling industry into something it’s not. You don’t have to have a diva-like personality to be successful. You need to have a certain look and a certain body type and hope that a designer likes you and that they use you in a campaign, and afterwards you sort of gain notoriety for that. I thought of the pure ridiculousness of a lot of what they said, and how the shoots were set up, and how the challenges were set up. It was hard to distance myself from that in that respect. I don’t know. I feel everybody has their biases and the judges certainly had theirs from the beginning. But, I had a good time. I’m glad I went.
Did you brush up on fashion, make up and modeling before going on the show?
It’s interesting you should ask that because we weren’t allowed to read in the house but they did give us sort of a packet on famous designers and models. I studied it and I learned all the models. They would ask me in panel to name certain models and what sort of model the image brought out. I answered them all correctly and Ms J in particular was pretty impressed but they didn’t show that. I came into it not knowing very much about it or not caring very much about it but I did study a lot in the house and I asked a lot of questions during photo shoots and I learned a lot that way.
During panel, one of the judges commented that you were, “smart but not wise.” How do you feel about that perception?
I told a lot of the girls on the show, there’s all different types of intelligence. I don’t think that book smarts are really suited for modeling, obviously because it’s a very appearance based industry. As for the “smart but not wise” comment I wasn’t invested in the competition and at that point I was so physically exhausted that I really did want to go home. In terms of being “smart but not wise” it was an overall wisdom on my part to get out of it early. Not everyone wants to win a reality T.V. show - I sort of fall into that category.
What was the most difficult aspect for you during the flower photo shoot?
The most difficult aspect was before the shoot even started I got the sense that they were going to put a lot of pressure on me, or try to make it hard for me, since the other shoots had gone fairly well. In my observations of the show, they do sort of have an order on the show that they want you to follow ahead of time. During the shoot there were pressures coming from different directions and different people. There was a lot of criticism, which was fine. I embrace criticism and think it’s a good thing, especially when you’re doing a photo shoot, but I definitely think I had better pictures than what was shown on panel. I loved doing all the photo shoots and the cactus one was no exception. It was kind of fun to be dressed as a cactus, I guess.
America’s Next Top Model, although it’s a reality show, is still about entertainment. Do the viewers actually see the complete “reality”? Is the show scripted?
I actually like and respect Twiggy a lot. I was sort of put in a catch 22 situation. She tried to label me as insecure when I was quiet, but when I asked questions, I was labeled as abrasive. I also didn’t cry and I didn’t cat fight so they really didn’t know what to do with me. They definitely had a character type for all of the girls on the show.
Part of why I felt that it was time for me to go was that during the make over, there were packets laying around that had our pictures on it and a short blurb underneath it of our character on the show or how we were going to be portrayed. I really wasn’t supposed to read it but out of sheer luck on my part, and sheer carelessness on the part of somebody else, I got my hands on it. The person they sort of tried to portray me as was not me, to put it mildly. It also had my religious and political views on it which I didn’t think were very appropriate to give to people who were doing my hair. It doesn’t really have anything to do with that. So there’s definitely sort of a… I don’t want to say scripted, but a focus on bringing different aspects of people’s personality out that definitely does not exist. Nobody is as crazy in reality as they are portrayed on the show.
Also another thing to keep in mind is that we were all so sleep deprived that it’s a lot easier to fight or cry or appear abrasive on panel than it normally is. For the first photo shoot, I hadn’t slept in two and a half days because we were on such a grueling schedule. For some reason, I was the last one to be called to do the photo shoot so I was behind, sleep wise. I never really caught up with it.
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