Global Courant
The positive response to the Dutch reality series De Verraders has brought different versions of The Traitors to many countries, but executive producer Toni Ireland says the biggest challenge for her was to ensure that the US production stood out in the crowd. Peacock’s The Traitors brings together a group of everyday people and reality TV stars in an elaborate murder-mystery competition hosted by Alan Cumming. Perhaps the biggest change in the US series was in how the game ended, which led to a shocking finale where the group needed to unanimously decide to either trust their fellow finalists and split the money or call for another elimination vote if they believe a traitor is still among them.
‘The Traitors’
Peacock
DEADLINE: What has the response been like for the series in the US?
TONY IRELAND: Oh, it’s been fantastic. It’s been great. The first series are always tricky, even though this was a format that had been tested before, it was the first time we were making it. We made the US one before the UK one. You know, we were trying a cast of celebrities and everyday people and all the missions were brand new so it was nothing that had been done in any of the other series. We put our heart and soul into it and we were so thrilled with the response. And I think people really enjoyed the series because it felt different from other reality shows. It felt like a real game and that’s what first attracted me to the show – that first and foremost, it is a psychological game and the players are there to play the game above all else, which is exciting.
DEADLINE: It is such an interesting thing to watch because there’s no easy position for any of the players, not even the traitors.
IRELAND: As a producer, it was so fascinating to watch the game play out. I thought, ‘Would I want to be a faithful or would I want to be a traitor?’ If you get past the deception, it’s whether you want to be in control of everything and know everything or whether you are willing to let yourself just play the game as a faithful and try and work out who the traitors are. It was absolutely fascinating and the American cast really threw themselves into it. At first, we thought people would be sitting around getting to know each other, but they didn’t. It was all strategy from the moment they arrived at that castle, the game was on and it was very exciting to watch from our point of view.
‘The Traitors’
Peacock
DEADLINE: Was the plan always to have a mix of reality stars and non-reality stars for the US version?
IRELAND: Yes, and I believe the US version is the only version to do that. The original Dutch version had an all celebrity cast, and then for the UK we went all everyday people. And then for the US, we started with everyday Americans and we started playing with the idea that maybe we could add some celebrities and we ended up with a mixed cast, which ultimately, I think worked really well. Obviously, for our first series, it’s great to have some famous faces on there that bring people to the show. And they were all great game players. They were all just perfect for the game itself.
DEADLINE: How did Alan Cumming get involved? I cannot imagine a more perfect host.
IRELAND: Well, funny you say that, because he was the only name that we had. As the show started to take shape, we were thinking about our location and our theme. We’ve always had Knives Out as a thematic idea and Harry Potter. And then we were like, ‘Where’s more perfect than a castle in Scotland?’ And when we found our beautiful castle in our beautiful location, we were like, ‘Who is more perfect to host this than Alan Cumming?’ And lucky for us, he was interested immediately, and we had a call with him and we explained the show and he got it straight away. We sent him the Dutch version and he loved it. We talked about what character he would be, obviously he’s going to be the host of the show, but he’s also the puppet master. He is this sort of outrageous lord that lives at this castle that controls the game. He cares for the players, but he knows this is the game and he sort of relished the idea of that role.
DEADLINE: When you have a reality show like this that’s based on a previous series and happening in other countries, how do you make this one stand out?
IRELAND: That was really important to us. We watched the Dutch version and it was fantastic, but for us, we just wanted to elevate the production values. It was really important to us that this looked cinematic. So, we’ve got a fantastic series director on board, Ben Archard, because he shares the same passion as us. We wanted to show off Scotland – the rolling hills, the castle – it was about elevating the game and that was really important for us.
I think the format of the game itself is brilliant, but one thing that we changed was the end game. In the Netherlands, the game ended with a sort of prisoner’s dilemma situation with sharing or not sharing at the end. We felt that we could develop something that spoke to the overall game a little bit more – Are there any traitors left? That was our sort of key thought. We thought it speaks to the overarching theme of the game. Have you managed to get rid of all the traitors? And that’s when we developed our end game, which is that they decide when the game ends which was amazing obviously for the end of the US version. It was absolutely incredible.
