I CAN DO THAT! — “Untitled” Episode 101 — Pictured: (l-r) Joe Jonas, Ciara — (Photo by: Tyler Golden/NBC)
Joe Jonas & Ciara
Can Do That
by Ruth Bekele
I Can Do That debuts on NBC, Tuesday May 26th at 10 PM with host Marlon Wayans. Six celebrity contestants – Cheryl Burke, Ciara, Joe Jonas, Nicole Scherzinger, Jeff Dye and Alan Ritchson – will be put to the test each week as they are presented with different acts to choose from in which they have to master in order to perform in front of an audience.
The acts that come on to the show each week vary from entertainment to magic to so much more. The contestants will pair up and work for five days in order to perfect their performance. They will learn new skills and be able to develop them throughout the training and the show, along with discovering skills that they never knew they had. After each act the contestants will be ranked on a scoreboard. No judges and no eliminations will give the contestants a chance to redeem themselves during their next performance. After six weeks one celebrity contestant will be named the ultimate entertainer.
We recently got to chat with two of the contestants on the show – Joe Jonas and Ciara – along with the executive producer of the show Audrey Morrissey. Jonas and Ciara both talked about their experiences on the series – learning the new skills, working with each other and the other contestants, using strategies to help them, their favorite experiences while doing this show, and even some new music from them both in the near future.
I CAN DO THAT! — Season: 1 — Pictured: Joe Jonas — (Photo by: Paul Drinkwater/NBC)
Can you talk about why you decided to do this show?
Joe Jonas: The reason I decided to do this show was probably the fact that when I sat with Audrey and we talked the concepts. It was something that I never heard anyone has really done. It was bringing all of my favorite shows together. You have little pieces of The Voice; you have America’s Got Talent. The cast is really fun and new friends of mine. Being thrown into situations that you wouldn’t do unless there was a camera in the audience. Saying all right, I have a week to learn this stuff and conquer them. I really enjoyed the challenge.
Do you guys have favorite parts about being on a show like this one?
Ciara: As an entertainer, I like being able to dive in other worlds that allow people to also to see what you really are capable of as a performer. Shows like this… to me it’s like one of the coolest platforms that do that. You’re really able to show… sometimes as an artist, people don’t really get to know you beyond your song and your video and interviews here and there. We’re pretty straightforward when it comes to the artist/entertainer/singer/dancer part of it all. What I love about shows like this [is that it] also it allows people to see you as a person. Outside of the actual challenges there are a lot of funny moments. People get to see how you don’t take yourself so serious. I think they expect us as singers to always be one way. They see you always so high-powered, doing high-powered performances on stage all the time. People could probably see you in one light. Shows like this allow people to get to see you honestly, at some of the rawest moments and realist moments that you could have. That’s what I personally took from my experience and really loved about doing the show.
Joe Jonas: Similar for me too. Doing the show, behind the camera was always really fun with us. There are some shows that can be a job for people every day showing up for us. We were hanging out backstage. We were hanging out in dressing rooms. We were talking and we became all close. Sitting on those couches were the funniest few hours of our day, just whether it was teasing each other or catching up. Even with a live audience, having fun with them too. It was really exciting.
I CAN DO THAT! — Season: 1 — Pictured: Ciara — (Photo by: Paul Drinkwater/NBC)
Can you guys talk about your strategy behind selecting the challenges you took on throughout the season?
Ciara: I can say, for me, I just really, really wanted to do things outside of what people I think would expect for me. Or myself, things that I just really would like to [do], just really close to my work. I was like I don’t want to do that because I don’t think it’s fair. I can definitely say that that’s how I chose my challenges.
Joe Jonas: I would agree. There were probably situations that both of us have gone into where we had last minute performances – whether it’s award shows or you hop up on stage and perform. You have to be ready in general. I think great artists are able to just get up there and sing and dance and perform on the dot for people. We’ve had to do that for a long time in our careers. So doing this for the show, even if it was just a week, that was definitely helpful walking into it.
Was there anything on the show that you did that you thought would be easy that turned out to be harder than you thought? Was there something you thought would be harder that turned out to be easier than you thought?
Joe Jonas: I think there wasn’t really anything that we were approached that was easy. Even if it was… say something that was singing or dancing… it was different than what we’ve known. I don’t want to speak for you Ciara, but I think for us, it’s something that we would be able to figure out. Or you go, “Okay, I can do this in a week.” Then by day two, your body is falling apart; you’re freaking and you’re like, “Can we actually do this?” It was definitely a learning curve.
Ciara: Absolutely. I can agree with Joe. Yes, I agree with him 100%. Every week it really was challenging. There’s some things that look fun, but you can tell it actually looks as hard as it really is. What I got to learn in the process is no matter how fun it looks, it still is super challenging. Again, we’re all still stepping into territories that aren’t familiar, that we don’t do every day. I can’t give it all away, but there was one of my performances that I did that it looks like so much fun, but my legs really felt like I couldn’t even [walk]… I was holding onto the wall to move through my house when I leave from work. Or when I had to get in my car to drive home, it was like I had to take baby steps. The actual things that I was doing were so much fun and so cute. But it’s very painful, you know. It could have looked easy, but really everything is really challenging in its own way.
Can you talk about what your favorite skill that you got to perform was?
Joe Jonas: This show threw me into situations I really never thought I would do. I was able to learn quite a bit of stuff. For me personally, I’ve worked on some aerial stuff that was mind blowing and painful. That probably was one of my favorites.
Of all of the new skills that you’ve learned during the process of filming this show, are any of them things that you can use for future performances or in your career that you were excited about?
Ciara: There were definitely quite a few moments that pretty much in a sense every moment was outside of my comfort. There were some things that the idea of doing them was familiar because it’s a part of performing. But with this show what I really wanted to do was I wanted to do things that I felt would be challenging. They all are challenging as they come on the stage but there are some things where it’s really its way more closer to what I do as a performer. And I want to challenge myself. I think that’s what made it so much more exciting in the process. I really did walk away from this experience feeling like I grew. I walked away… I don’t want to say a whole new person, but there was definitely a whole new layer added to me. To how I look at things now. How I approach things. It really is a mental thing when you think about it. In my world as a performer, we don’t really have to express, beyond our music. We do interviews here and there and our songs kind of speak for us. In this case, we’re very vulnerable. You get to see us mess up. Try to kind of figure something out. You get to see how we really are just like everyone else, because we do get challenged. You see our flaws in the process. For me, I really took away a very cool feeling personally. It was like I really thought I grew from everything that we did.
Joe Jonas: Yes. It’s funny, a lot of the musicians on the show, we’ve been talking about how we’re going to incorporate things we’ve learned into live concerts or award shows; things like that. Some, I would say, [of the] magic stuff that I learned on the show I think visually would be really exciting to put into a performance.
Ciara: Yes, I definitely can say that I was very super inspired. Leaving this show, I have to say first we’re very blessed. I have to say a big thanks to the whole NBC Team, because we’re all so very spoiled in the sense with the production and stuff that was happening. To me I was like, “You walked away with…” I’ve always been a big dreamer, but my dreams were even bigger after leaving this show. Now you really get to see a whole level of production that you don’t see every day in all of our performances, doing our shows here and there around the world. It’s such a high level of production that you do walk away as a performer like, “Okay, I want to be swinging from this part of the stage to this and this.” It definitely makes my brain turn a lot for sure. Honestly it was the coolest experience. I’m truly so glad that I pushed myself and I actually got to be a part of it. I do believe as an artist, it also allowed me to grow; as an entertainer, it allowed me to grow. I walked away like, “Wow, I do now know [what] I can do.” I’ve always believed in myself but you do know like you can pretty much do almost anything. At least that’s how you feel leaving the show.
Ciara
What’s it like working with each other and some of your other costars?
Ciara: It’s so much fun. The cool thing is – I can say for myself – I think maybe a few people on the cast actually didn’t work with each other on other stuff, but for me I never work with anyone that I worked with during the season. It really was fun. It was also a cool discovery. You get to learn. I think when you get to meet people, you know their work but you don’t really get to know them, but then when you get together you have such a great time. You get to see what cool people they are. Like Joe and I, we like joke about it, but we really are friends beyond the show. That’s so amazing about experiences like this, you get to grow within your own world of what you do, but you also get to meet really amazing people that could inspire you. You also become support for one another in what you do in different fields. Honestly, it’s experiences like this, I really took it all the way in and for every aspect of what it was beyond my personal part of just my challenges as an entertainer. The friendships that I was able to build were really awesome. It added to the experience and made it that much cooler.
When can your fans expect new music from both of you?
Ciara: Well, I can just say right now, my current song, “I Bet,” is out. Thank God, it’s going along very well. Actually Joe joined me on the remix of that song, which I might as well take the moment to say that it’s on the Deluxe Version of my album titled Jackie. That’s out now. Definitely for me, there will be a new song coming soon as well. I can just say get ready to dance; dance, dance, dance away. Joe… I just want to say I got to hear some of his music and it’s really amazing. Joe, I don’t know if you want to tell them about your music.
Joe Jonas
Joe Jonas: Sure. Yes, well becoming friends on the show, she asked me to be a part of her song so I’m thrilled to be a part of it. I love that song and I was fan of the song already. We were just singing it backstage and then it turned into a remix of the song. I love that. Also I love all of her new music. So it’s really awesome; it’s on repeat. And my stuff? I’m just really writing/recording right now. I have been in and out of the studio and taking my time, so hopefully you’ll hear something soon from me.
And for all you Camp Rock fans out there, when asked about Mitchie and Shane, Jonas responded with “In some universe, in some Disney universe, they’re together.”
Copyright ©2015 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: May 25, 2015.
Photos ©2015. Courtesy of NBC/Universal. All rights reserved.
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