In the previous incarnations of “The Joe Schmo Show,” which reignites this week on Spike TV, there have been some plants who have turned out to be stars, including Kristen Wiig in season one and, to a lesser extent, Lance Krall.
And while the new season may be upended by the decision to cast Michael Weaver as one of the competitors (since he has been featured in a number of sitcoms and co-starred as one of “The Mullets”), they also have a real life celebrity playing himself in Lorenzo Lamas.
At a “Joe Schmo” session in the first week of the TV Critics press tour, Lamas explained why he signed on for the elaborate self-parody, which he called “a character of myself” instead of “a caricature of myself.”
“As an actor, you have to try to be fearless about the character that you are playing, and I figured, if I’m going to do this, I just really have to go, like, whole hog, full out, you know, leave nothing on the field and just commit myself to this.”
Initial meetings went well, until one of the producers held up a small piece of cloth and said, “would you mind wearing this?”
“And I said, ‘Whoa.’ I said, ‘Well, how many times do you want me to wear this blue Speedo?’ And without missing a beat, he just, ‘As many times as you feel comfortable.’ And that kind of opened
the whole, you know, adventure up to me.
“And from that moment on, I just embraced the idea, the concept. I’d never done any improv comedy, really, before this. So it was a real, you know, challenge for me.”
Asked if he expected to be back in the reality game, Lamas said, “Brother, I didn’t expect to be back in the reality genre after ‘Leave It To Lamas.’”