NORMAN KORPI

Norman Korpi had the pleasure of being on the inaugural season of “The Real World.” Korpi, however, says he’s more inclined to call it a displeasure.

As a member of the first seven strangers picked to live in a house, Korpi was a guinea pig for what was then supposed to be a documentary about artists. In 1992, Korpi and his then-business partner offered their loft to be used for shooting. Korpi, now 40 and living in Los Angeles, says he was told the show was going to look at the real lives of artists living in New York City. For casting, the show’s producers looked in bars and other areas for people willing to submit tapes.

“It was very remedial,” Korpi says of the casting process. “They actually scouted people.”

Though Korpi ultimately decided against using his loft for a location, he did send in an audition tape. Korpi himself was an artist and says he figured he’d be the ideal candidate. Not long after, Korpi received a letter from MTV in the mail.

“It was like, ‘you’re not very interesting but watch the show,'” he says with a laugh.

Later, MTV didn’t approve the original cast selected for the first season, and producers tried again. Korpi was given a second chance and told to come down for an interview. All Korpi had to do was talk to producers as the camera filmed him. They didn’t even ask about Korpi’s sexual orientation. Korpi, who is openly gay, said homosexuality was a taboo entertainment topic and he was surprised producers casted him anyway.

“I thought this is great. They’ll profile my career, it’s on MTV, it’s about creative people. But it didn’t turn out that way,” he says.

Not long into filming, he and his castmates realized they were a part of something very different than what they signed up for. Korpi says he was surprised there was no focus on his trips to the Guggenheim but rather on sex, drugs and fighting.

The focus changed when Bunim-Murray Productions was brought in. The show took on a soap opera feel, with fabricated drama. Producers tried to create controversy between Korpi and his family over his sexuality. Korpi refused to participate in the hi-jinks.

“That just sounded stupid,” he says. “I wanted it to be about my art.”

Korpi says he was intentionally misled but no one could have predicted the life the show would later take on.

“I thought it would run and disappear. I didn’t think it would be a series or even repeat itself,” he says.

Lo and behold, it’s been 14 years and the show is still going on. But the casting process changed radically.

“The casting process has become a self-indulgent process. It’s part of their franchise effort,” Korpi says, referring to various casting specials that aired on MTV. “It’s a pageantry.”

Korpi says he stopped watching the show after the Las Vegas season, which aired in 2002.

“It was like ‘Girls Gone Wild,'” he says. “(Now) marketing determines the cast.”

Even knowing that, Korpi still willingly took part in a spin-off – “The Gauntlet” – in 2003. Korpi said he didn’t mind participating because this time he knew what he was getting himself into.

“Ten years was enough (time) to get comfortable,” he says. “You recognize the beast for what the beast is.”

Still, he says he would caution those who audition. To escape unscarred, he says, you have to be comfortable with exposure. The cameras roll all the time.

“It’s like driving a car. You might be talking on the phone or changing the radio, but you’re always driving. And if you don’t pay attention, you’re going to crash into a tree,” he says.

Korpi says he has no regrets and would even do it all again – that is, if the show turned out the way it was originally pitched. As it is today, he would not want to take part. Instead, Korpi is still focusing on his art. He is a painter and is currently experimenting with mixed media.

“I’m a storyteller,” he says. “It’s all just one page in my life.”

– Shari Weiss

DANNY ROBERTS

“It was probably my honesty,” Danny Roberts says as to why he was cast in “The Real World: New Orleans.” “I think most people try way too hard. I didn’t really try in any way.”

If being yourself was the key to making it, Danny showed his true colors on the air. Some of his more interesting moments were running around naked in the middle of the night, mooning a crowd at Mardi Gras on that red chair and getting steamy in the hot tub with boyfriend Paul. Don’t worry, they’re still together. We checked.

Whatever the reason, we’re glad Danny made it to the ninth season of “The Real World”, if for nothing else than to give us one likeable roommate (wasn’t Melissa such a bitch?)

It’s been seven years since he tried out for the show, but Roberts still remembers what it was like to audition.

“There are two different ways to get cast. You can go to an open casting call, which I did, or you can send in a tape,” he says. “It’s a really bizarre process. There’s a casting agent. They throw really candid obnoxious questions out to you. You walk away and everyone assumes that’s the end of it.”

It was hardly the end for Roberts. His audition led to a phone call, then to even more callbacks, but eventually he won a spot as one of the seven roommates. “I had just finished college,” he says. “It seemed like a nice vacation.”

Living for five months with six strangers wasn’t exactly the vacation Roberts had in mind. “I think it was a great experience, but it wasn’t what I thought it’d be,” he says.

Since his goodbye to the Belfort mansion (still standing after Hurricane Katrina from what we hear), he became a speaker and activist, working primarily through his Web site, countrytoconcrete.org. He recently moved to New York (“It’s just one of those places they say you have to live in at some point in your life”) to do PR work.

Now, more than six years since he finished the camera work, Roberts says he doesn’t stay in touch with a lot of his old housemates. He still talks to Kelly Limp occasionally. The blond Arkansan married “Party of Five” alum Scott Wolf – no comment from Dr. Peter – two years ago.

Roberts continues to speak to college campuses and will be speaking at Northwestern tonight as a part of Rainbow Alliance’s National Coming Out week – catch him at 8 p.m. at McCormick Auditorium.

“I’m going to share my personal story,” Roberts says of his forum, which he calls a candid discussion of sexuality. “It’s by no means only about me.”

Certain to come up is his personal experience dealing with the Army policy “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Boyfriend Paul served in the military during the taping of the show and was forced to remain anonymous until after he was discharged.

“A big part of the night will be about how that affected us and how discrimination directly affects people,” Roberts says. “Before (Paul came out), it controlled our lives.”

Don’t go to see him if you’re planning on hearing more of the gossip between Matt and Julie from New Orleans. “More than anything, I don’t talk about “The Real World” too much,” Roberts says. “It’s not that important.”

So does he still keep up with “The Real World” since his days in the confessional? Not so much.

“I think now it’s turned into a big crock of shit.”

Amen to that.

– Emmet Sullivan

MIKE MIZANIN

Any true fan of “The Real World” remembers The Miz from the 10th season of the show, Back to New York.

So was that the secret of how Mike Mizanin made it to the show?

Actually, it might have been abortion.

“The casting director asks you a question. For me it was about abortion. So I said, “Well, I’m for abortion.” One girl was against it, so we started discussing,” Mizanin says.

Sound boring? The casting directors thought so, too, but after a simple phone call they were convinced.

“After the show,” Mizanin says with a laugh, “a casting director told me “I did not want to talk to you at all,” but after the phone interview, all he said was “He’s in.”

The phone interview was one of the last steps in Mizanin’s callback process. He originally tried out because his friend wanted to, prompting a road trip from Miami University of Ohio, where Mizanin was a film student and a member of Theta Chi, to Detroit for open casting calls.

“We went to Detroit and waited in line for eight hours, basically making friends with everyone,” he says. “People had tents. People will stay there for days to be the first in line.”

After he went through the discussion group, he had to fill out the monster application. “It was like a 30-page application asking about anything and everything – parents, sex life, drugs, alcohol, 3 wishes you would have…”

The friend who dragged Mizanin along did not get called back, but he kept getting more interviews and phone calls. “The more casting directors I talked to, the better,” he says.

Phone and video interviews led to more callbacks, finally landing him with an in-person interview to make it to the casting special.

“The in-person interview was in Detroit. I was talking to some girls in the bar when the casting director came down,” Mizanin says. “We talked about everything. They dig into everything, dissecting everything you never really thought about.” One question he remembers was who Mizanin blamed for his parents’ divorce, just to give you a taste.

The casting special whittled the group of 26 finalists down to 13 – seven for “The Real World”, six for Road Rules.

Making it on to “The Real World” brought the world of reality television one of its most memorable characters – The Miz, an angry, confrontational wrestler who Mizanin masqueraded as in the few final episodes. “The Miz was on two episodes. I was always Mike, but after that, everyone called me Miz,” he says.

To Mizanin, the Golden Age of “The Real World” passed a long time ago. “I don’t watch it as much as I used to. Real World is all about sex and partying. I wish they would go back to the San Francisco era.”

Mizanin, 26, is now a wrestler for “WWE Smackdown!” and, as of September 29, held an undefeated record.

“It was the best experience for me. College wasn’t for me, so I moved to LA and paid my way through four years of wrestling school. WWE gave me a contract. I moved to Georgia and trained in the Deep South.”

He laughs a little as he thinks about his wrestling career. “I’m undefeated. It’s like a dream come true.”

So how about those with the dream of making it to the next house? “The best advice is to try out,” he says. “Take a chance and be yourself.”

– Emmet Sullivan

TYLER DUCKWORTH

What, am I auditioning for gay porn?!'” That was the question Tyler Duckworth asked after casting directors at Bunim-Murray Productions told him to take off his shirt.

“MTV’s shallow,” Duckworth says. “They have to see you with your shirt off.”

In all fairness, though, Duckworth had no problem obliging. On “The Real World: Key West,” Duckworth was seen without his shirt many a time. But Duckworth says he wants future cast members to know something – what you’re seeing is not reality.

Duckworth, 25, sent in an audition tape for “The Real World” as a joke. Seven months later, he was told he made it to the third round and now had to fill out an application.

“I sat there for six hours and tried to come up with the most clever responses. Fifteen pages later, I sent it and got called two days after. I was like, ‘Oh, shit! They like me!'”

It was during an in-person interview that Duckworth was asked to remove his shirt. This was when Duckworth says he started taking the audition process seriously. Bunim-Murray even flew Duckworth to Los Angeles for more interviews.

“Security was probably tighter with Bunim-Murray than it was at the (Democratic National Convention),” Duckworth says. He worked the Convention in 2004. (Don’t be so surprised – the self-proclaimed drama queen is a graduate of Tufts University with degrees in religion and American studies.)

Duckworth says he thinks he was picked because he would cause drama.

“They thought I’d be controversial. They wanted me to be their villain,” he says.

People audition as characters they think Bunim-Murray would like them to be, Duckworth says.

“A lot of people go into this with a plan,” he says, “‘I’m going to play the sexy single.’ It’s not so much about the personality. You just need to know how to be overdramatic about life.”

Duckworth has one regret – he wishes he had been more cautious on camera.

“”When you’re there for so long, you get comfortable. You’re there for two, three months, you let your guard down,” he says.

The key to the show, Duckworth says, is to be aware of the camera at all times.

“Think about how they might edit you,” he says. “How can they use the behavior I’m displaying right now against me at all times? They will do anything to get a good storyline.”

“Anything” includes scripting interviews in the confessional and using “machines that can hunt and peck for words.” Duckworth says he tried to just be “real” on camera but it backfired on him.

“It forces you to confront a lot about yourself, for better or worse,” Duckworth says. “You have to sit there and endure this emotional beatdown and have America watch it. But what America watches isn’t what really happened.”

Duckworth says the whole process was a defining moment in his life, one that he do again.

“When else are you 23 and you have five months to figure yourself out?”

Now, after The Real Word and RW/RR challenge (which begins airing next week), Duckworth is unpacking boxes in his new home, one that he shares with NU alum Charlie Walters. “The Real World” led Duckworth to contacts he might otherwise never have gotten, he says. He is currently working on production for a sports broadcasting show, in addition to documentaries. Unlike him, he says some of his other castmates are still struggling to move on with their lives.

Still, Duckworth encourages others to try out, regardless of the consequences.

“Go do it with a couple of friends,” he advises. “I tried out for “The Real World.” It’s a cool story to tell.”

– Shari Weiss