Frosted Tips with Lance Bass and FriendsExtra Frosting with Special Guest Host David Chokachi
Filling in for Lance this week is David Chokachi with a Baywatch reunion!
OG Baywatch cast members Jeremy Jackson, Jaason Simmons, and Michael Bergin join David for a chat about the highly anticipated docuseries all about the iconic 90's hit that became the most-watched television series in the world, reaching over 1 billion viewers!
The guys reminisce about their time on the show, each one revealing their own experiences being on the series, life before and after Baywatch, being approached about the documentary, what it was like reconnecting with co-stars, the response from critics, their take on influencers (society is crumbling), and which of the guys is not planning on watching the docuseries and why!
"After Baywatch: Moment in the Sun," featuring never-before-seen footage and interviews, premieres August 28 on Hulu.
This is Frosted Tips with Lance Bass, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Welcome to Frosted Tips. I'm David Chokichi, guest host filling in for Lance Bass. Thank you for letting me have this opportunity Lance. Today, I'm here with my co stars from the original The Og Baywatch. I brought along my guest dated Hi, Michael Bergan, will you let me finish?
Yeah, Trow.
I brought along my good friends Jason Simmons, Jeremy Jackson, and Michael Bergan.
Yes, in the house.
We were recently brought together through a documentary that's going to be released on Hullou August twenty eighth that ABC News Studios has acquired that was produced and directed by Matt Felker and also Nicole Eggert. Matt pretty much took over for the entire shoot, and you know, I know the majority of us had an amazing experience with Matt. I mean we started shooting this uh pre covid so in twenty nineteen. I think I shot like my first thing, like out at Zoom of Beach, And I don't know many documentaries that go shoot for five years, because I also shot something like two months ago for them.
So Matt called me, well, he kept calling me. I kept turning, turning the interview down because you know, I'm not acting anymore, and I didn't really need to do that. And then he showed up at my open house and he goes, I swear, I'm not stalking you. I'm here to actually look at this house. And he bought the house No Woodland Hills.
He bought that house. It was good.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, talk about dedication.
He bought that house.
And then I said, I'll do your interview if if I sell your existing house, the other house in Hollywood Hills. And that's how you do it, he said, he said deals, So I sold his house.
He got to do what you gotta do. That was a cool house, too, great house. Yeah.
It was the same for him like with Carmen Elector. He was trying to get Carmen and he just stayed on our publicist for like a year, just like this is what we're doing this over and over and over and finally that Karen is like, yeah, of course I want to do it. But it took forever.
And same with it was Gregory, Helen Williams. Gregory.
He wanted he wanted Matt to write him like a kind of a formal proposal like I had actually thought, like an essay and in essence, and then send it to him.
I got one of those. I asked for one, and I got one.
For real. Oh my god, you're always so difficult.
You guys get paid to do it, as I got the deal.
The deal is if you get paid for a documentary, it takes it from documentary to reality show, and it's a whole different category. It's a whole different demographic, it's a whole different markets, whole different skills, uh sales. So nobody can get paid for a documentary if you wanted to really be a documentary, which you open up the doors to way different awards, way different distribution, way different you know, viewer perception, like I'm really watching something, this is showcasing their real life, not something they got paid for to fake it or to re you know, Felcher can't create any scenario.
I just want it. I want my fucking award.
Dude. Everybody wanted to get paid. Nobody wanted to do it for you, Nobody wanted to show up.
Jason, Why did you? Why did you say yes?
Because Nicole Austin.
Jeremy.
Yeah, Nicole, Like I love Nicole Man. She's like, you know, survived this, this this shell, this brand, this uh you know type cast of like the pretty girl and like gone on to great entrepreneur and gone on to be a successful mother, and she's always just been always super real, like a homie and you know, now to producing her own projects and it's rad like, heck, yeah, I don't want to be part of of you doing that, going from just the ditzy bimbo pretty face to like a real person doing real things with a real life overcoming real struggles. Like I support that all day long.
We know you have to. Yeah I was.
I wasn't interested, you know, at first, but and you called you, called Kelly Packard call I think Alexandra Paul called Jeremy. I think you may have reached out to me. All you guys are like it was so much fun. It just I don't know, you know what I I I was. I'm a little shy in front of the camera.
Actually you got.
To know that, dude.
But you're I see you like in your real estate mode and you're just like, yeah, but I'm not on camera or anything like that.
That's just a natural conversation like right now, it's it's fine, we're talking, you.
Know, Bergen that would come up to me like on set, like there was I remember a day like all you have to do? Uh. It was in my apartment and he was crashing there like in this that we were shooting down cover and off Jefferson and then like I come in the door and I think you both come in whatever, I throw my keys.
He had to see a couple of lines and like but he just could not get it right. Dude. I don't know if you remember that the it was.
That was every day probably you know what, when you have like one or two lines, that's it, like nothing to sink your teeth into, like a juicy scene.
It's so freaking hard.
It's just it's so hard.
I remember.
I remember in front of a producer session, I had one line and I couldn't remember the line.
I couldn't remember the line.
I couldn't.
All that pressure is on on.
If you would a bunch of lines or like a whole scene, you would have been okay.
If I had a scene something to sink my teeth into and and and get into it. Yeah, that that's a lot easier than one line.
I strangely get that, yeah, you know, because that one line almost feels like a slap in the face, and it's like you want to do so good with your one thing that you end up maybe messing it up.
Have you ever done soap opera acting? So I was on Passions for two months one summer, and you're like seventy shows and man, that dialogue that you I mean you have to remember like monologues three or four pages long, not that long, but uh, and it's pretty it's pretty bad.
Yeah, it's it's it's that was the.
Hardest acting I've ever done. Yeah, is on a soap opera.
Well, if you can, if you can actually take really poorly written material and.
Make it kind of okay.
You're you're doing all right as an actor, because I've had the experience of do you know of things that were poorly.
Written and been like wow, what happened to be brutal?
And then work had the chance to work on something that was like so well written that you don't even like you just like read the scene a few times and you're like, holy shit, I I already know it.
I don't even have to like really work on this. It's just like it. It's such a difference, you know, it's night and day.
I had like kid pressure, so like knowing what I said if it was like super lame or like I would never say it going back home, you know, to Orange County, to like my buddies in school that actually surf with. At twelve thirteen fourteen, Visuan line bro, like what kind of kuk are you? So I had to change a lot of my lines, like dude, look, I wouldn't you could never Yeah, I'm gonna get slaughtered going back home if I say this, you can't say it like that. This is how you say it.
Yeah.
So I was always kind of twisting and making everything be like proper for the times and yeah, you know, for for my age.
And Tom Moore the since passed, I was changing live producer. He was amazing dude. He would always put his two cents in, like, hey, this is you know, maybe how you want to say it. I was like, cool, Tom, it's such a cool dude.
It was.
I was just always so freaked out, nervous about the dialogue and just being on in front of the camera. And I came from the modeling world for years before that.
Well, it wasn't used before that, wasn't I think when when you got hired, you had just been on the billboard on sunset billboard outside eight hundred eight thousand sunset with.
The Times Square.
I was on Depends Sunset. So I mean, no, but it was.
And I'm not joking. It's like I got into modeling because you know, some someone told me, you know, you can make a thousand dollars modeling a day.
Like what a thousand?
I'm like, I'll do free, you know. So I looked into it and got rejected, got rejected, and I found an agency in New York, and and you know, I was going I was going to the University of Connecticut, but I put myself through college with modeling money and you have to live there. So when I graduated, I moved down to New York right away and I lived there from ninety two to ninety seven. But I was like, I mean I had to like really jack myself up, like to be in front of a camera and like really suck it up. It's like I was not good at it. But I mean I did okay at it, but it was just it was hard. And then the same thing with acting.
I got in.
I got into acting because I thought instead of posing in front of a camera and I felt like conceded staring at the camera, looking at whatever, I thought it would be easier.
To be underwear, which probably adds a little bit, you know what.
Funny enough, when I'm in my underwear, I feel more comfortable because I feel like, you know, the joke's on me kind of thing, and it just it breaks the ice a little bit. But anyway, acting I thought it would be easier for me because I'm not staring at a camera or I'm being a character or whatever. So but yeah, but then then I started starting getting nervous for the camera too.
Yeah, genus struggle too. For a while, I was like she did, yeah, yeah, yeah, she was kind of like I just didn't. I didn't. I think it kind of progressed where she's I think.
It was more of the circus environment that was freaking her out too, Like, yeah, the people behind the boundary, Like it wasn't like a little close said, it was like hundreds of people Yeah, watching you, seeing if you up on? Yeah yeah, yeah, So I think that stressed her up to Yeah.
I think the more you do it, I mean, I don't know. I'm at a point in my life where I'm like the camera like I did this movie it's called Shark Warning, but I was like, it's just the camera is invisible, Like I don't see I don't see the crew. I just see the actor in front of me and the space around me. It's like, I just feel like I'm in the zone.
Now you're more professional, act more than ever.
It's like, but in the beginning, yeah, you're like, oh shit, man, there's one hundred people staring at me, you know, like especially stepping onto like.
Baywatch also, but some of the cops didn't come from from drama school or anything like that. So with Gana was like learning, like you're learning to act and swim, swim and do all this stuff all at the same time with thousands of people.
You know, it was it was well that was me too.
I mean, coming from the modeling world, I never I never acted. I never really acted before at all. So like when I joined the cast of Baywatch, I mean they pretty much picked me up off the billboards, threw me on the show, happy to be there. But I mean I made all my mistakes, you know, along with the nervousness, you know, right on set. But I did more scenes with you chokes, you know, but come on, you had a like like you know, scene after seeing Okay to take two and I'm like sweating and trying to still remember my lines, and You're like you do do dude, it was so easy for you.
Brandondard right up to me right before the fucking camera is rolling and go like looking at his sides, like dude, I don't know how to say this, like this real.
Yeah, you know.
I mean obviously, I don't think any of us have seen the whole documentary, but I've seen little little bits and pieces, and I mean I myself was, you know, I was, you know, originally the same thing, like everybody was saying yes to it and you know, a chance to kind of Matt really felt like he was gonna be able to let us tell our own story, and he kind of felt like we never had a chance, you know, kind of we're always just stereotypes and that then they kind of like left us and like that's the image they have and that's the.
The characterization they made of us.
Is it's still that those same people, like, you know, all these years later, so to come back and especially to see you guys all again, you know, and to kind of reunite and and also tell like, you know, what's happened like or how you got there, what your experience is like, and then your journey up until basically like now, I thought was like kind of like amazing because the show itself, like it does take.
A look of trust her to do a documentary and to know that the people that you're doing it.
For and with have your best interest.
Yeah, but I did find with Matt that he he does, he does, and he did and I made sure before yeah, because you know, people have tried to start stuff before and nothing's really happened, so you could be flaky and stuff.
And yeah, the story I've kind of wrote in my head or from the different data I've collected. And you know, number number one, you know, Nicole is awesome. She's always been like a sister to me, so I've always known she's had my best interest in her. You know, she's a family friend. We hang, you know, we have each other's basswards, whether it's her dieting or me needing a lawyer. You know, we've always just supported one of one another in some way shape, or form. So I was comfortable that with that. But then I met Matt Felker, right, and you know, the way he pitched it to me is like check it out, dude. Like I'm a kid from Wisconsin who like watched and idolized Baywatch. So like I became a lifeguard at a pool in Wisconsin and they used to make fun of me and call me Hoby, And I wanted hair like you know, David Chokichi, and I wanted a life like you know, want to like emulate my life after after you and like all of you guys inspired me so much as this kid growing up in this cold, crappy place that I wanted to like move to la and be Malibu, like you guys like showed me what the ultimate life looked like. So I just had that in my mind that I was going to do that. And then he moves to California and he does it, and he gets wildly successful, and you know, he's like the sexy guy with the abs and the blond hair in the streaks and and and he's been living in Malibu. He's wing triathlons and he's like, you know, manifested this Baywatch lifestyle and so you know, he gets wildly successful produces, you know, projects, does really well for himself. He's a smart guy and when this came across his nose, he was like, yeah, do I want to show the new generation what bay Watch did for my generation? Like how it molded and shaped my direction in life. Uh yeah, I'd never be here if it wasn't for that show. There's dude, there's a ton of super famous people like Brad Pitt is on record saying bay Watch is his favorite TV show. Oh yeah, like you know, Johnny, all these people like, oh loved bay Watch.
The makeup trailer, I was in there and they had been doing something with Brad Pitt and they had all these polaroids and he was wearing like the red red lifeguard jacket, like doing all these bay Watch poses.
Look, dude, this guy fucking loves the show, right yeah.
And he I remember him saying that Michael Bergan was his favorite and that that made me feel really good.
Yeah yeah, and you know it stood out for me. I mean, I think everybody knows.
And uh, you know, our good friend of ours and one of our co stars, Mike Newman, has been battling Parkinson's for you know, I think was it ten ten years and it's progressed pretty rapidly in the last three and it's kind of turned into some.
Other things that are not great.
But you know, basically, and Matt would would and Matt and Mitch what's Mitch's last name, the guy who is.
The lifeguard guy? Yeah, I don't know his last name.
Anyway, Matt, Mitch would take Mike out because he couldn't do much with.
His Parkinson's but he could still paddle and.
He would always see And so Matt and I took new Me out last summer and you know, we just went like a half mile and Mike was like, I can't go anymore.
I was like, whoa this? You know, Syrian went back.
But you know the fact that Matt like he's he's not one of those guys who's just full of shit and just talks like he would drag Mike out there because he knew the only thing that Mike could do was paddle, and the only thing that gave him happiness was paddling. And like he consistently became a great friend, yeah.
And also a great coach and teacher.
He told me how to swim, like I could look like I could save somebody.
So that was you know him for like a couple of months before the show.
For those of you watching that don't know Michael Newman, is that like super jacked guy that jumps over the big wave in the Baywatch, you know, main title shot when when the show comes on and the music comes on. He's the guy that runs the best, jumps the best in crazy shape. He's a fireman, he's a lifeguard, he's an iron man, triathl I mean, he was everything that basically Mitch Buchanan, the star of the show, was modeled after. So this new Me guy gets like to hang out and be in the background and say one or two things. But he's the guy really living the life. He's the guy in the world swim, surf and run laps around all of us, you know what I mean. He's a real fireman and a real lifeguard. He's saved so many lives. Who's uh, you know, a first responder, humanitarian. I mean, he's just a g Like the whole objective in life is to be as powerful as this dude is, to make an impact on the world as much as this guy has. And and you know now he's basically ailing, slipping away from from life, done more than most mental ever doing their lives as far as making an impact on the world, and like this opportunity to give him like real full episodes, you know, not just a blip like he was on the show, but to show the story behind the guy that really inspired the whole freaking cast.
Yeah that's beautiful, and yeah.
Hasseloff is in this thing for like ten minutes, you know what I mean. He spent ten days with Nui Filmy and they went to Hawaii with him at his house, hanging out with the Hawaiian water safety team, like really cool stuff.
Did you guys ever have to swim before the season? Wasn't the Palisades?
Yea.
I was just like, I'm hearing you talk about training and stuff like that. I'm like, I trained. I trained Carmen Electra in the pool. She would jump in the water and hold her nose or whatever. And Greg Bonan, the executive producer creator, said he goes going lane one and just work with her a little bit.
I'm like, gladly, Yeah, yeah, I had to do because my character is like an Olympic hopeful, so like you can't fake like looking like an Olympic swimmer.
Like, so I was.
They put me in like the Master's program like at six in the morning and the Palisades for like yeah for months, bro, And I was like, yeah.
I was there, just I don't think you were there when I was.
How much extra did you get paid for that? Yeah?
I was there.
I was there zero double time.
When I first got cast, I had to go for like three months and train. It was great, but it was yeah, it was. It was five thirty in the morning. Man, It's like, yeah, who's up at five thirty?
Not me?
Not then Oh I'm up early?
Yeah bro, yeah I am too.
But then yeah, right then, now let alone swim. Yeah.
So this is a I mean, it's really cool, like to be brought back together, you know, I mean, and just be able to shoot the ship.
I think it's so cool.
And at the same time, I feel like because we were so immeshed in it, were immersed in it. For me specifically, like I don't pay attention to stuff that other people like think is cool or want to know about. They're like, oh my gosh, what was it like meeting? And I'm like, I don't know because I can't really remember because it was just like a normal day for me, like oh yeah, hey Trump, Yeah, good to meet you or whatever. All the stuff we did, I don't know. I wasn't paying attention because it was just a normal day. Was so like to have somebody on the outside digging into like this is what people want to know about, and let's like go into those home movies and let's like watch some of your life and let's focus on some of these things that you might have forgotten about that below people away. Yeah you know that that's that's crazy.
Yeah, I think that's the cool part. Jason's a little nervous because.
It was like over four years ago. I can't remember what I said four years ago. I can't remember what I said last week four years ago. But mostly what happened.
No, I gave and I gave like a bunch of ship that I had, like a bunch of VHS stuff from like stuff I had done, like.
Hosting, watched it. Hell no, bro, really no, this was stuff from like MTV or VH No. But the other stuff like party tapes. But it's it's all good.
I gave him all my tapes. I don't I don't really know what's on there. But I gave it to him.
He gave it there.
Stuff on there. I had no idea it was on there. Definitely weird party, drug field stuff, naked stuff, everything. I gave it all. Now I get to watch it because I'm getting CDs possible to watch it on a v H.
Yeah, they transferred all digitized.
Back then.
No, but it's cool, I think, you know, I mean even you.
Know, the response we got at the TCAs, like from the press, there was like only one person tried to go after us. The rest was like, oh god, it was just they.
I'd like to learn how to handle it was being and they wanted to.
She would talk a little smack was treated differently.
And Tracy like she just shut this woman down, like and she was like, I was never treated differently. I was given the same amount of time as everyone in hair makeup. I was honored to be on the show. And I was like, yeah, Tracy, waita, you know, they were looking to like crack it open and like you know, find uh, find scene. And I also talk about like even a few things like now in the nineties, dude, we're there and they're always you know, talking about like women's empowerment now and the whole me too thing. I mean, Baywatch was pushing women like ahead of its time, because like the females were given as much action and spotlight as the men.
In terms of the.
Last name was lifeguard, not him and her, it was I'm just a lifeguard.
Yeah, you know, like Alexander Paul and I would just literally be so competitive, like, see you had the most rescues over the course of their career on the show, and like she was up there, you know, so if you could really swim and you could you know, do your ship in the water, they would write tons of rescues for you.
And did you ever get your first rescue in real life?
No on the show, dude, I've had a few few in real life too.
You can't. You can't get out in the water every day without.
And then this is a good story, dude, I thought. I thought that with my manager and Florida and like South Speech one time, and you know, it's kind of the height of the show and we're just like out in like knee deep water, and these these girls had already like said, oh that's a different Baywatch whatever, and all of a sudden, like ten minutes later, there's like a swimmer like maybe fifty yards out like kind of struggling, and I'm like, this is a total setup. This is a total fucking setup. They're trying to get me to swim out there and like, you know, like do your rescue be like I wouldn't clowned you or whatever, you know what I mean. And so I didn't do anything really because like they're just like and my manager swim out.
And they got him and they were actually struggling.
But no, I'm had a few rescues in real life, like just because you're in the I'm in the ocean all the time. And a couple of like dudes like surfing broken board, like literally getting blown out to sea all a sudden the wind comes up and they're just like, you know, I mean the coast guard would have actually gotten them, but like you don't want that to happen.
That's like a full scene.
Yeah, definitely help a couple of people still saving lives.
Yeah, baby it Yeah, I mean we got to just you know, we're lifeguards.
Branded on our soul. Yeah, getting away from it might as well work with it.
My daughter just finished her fourth year of junior lifeguards at zooma beach and and Bonan and actually I see him every morning.
Dude.
He coaches the older kids like that there's a, B and c's, so the seas are the newer kids.
And you do three years and c's two and b's and.
Then three and a's and then the cadets and then you can at age sixteen you can start working his lifeguard. And I'm like, you know, as a dad, I'm like, listen, there's only a few things I'm gonna hammer on you that you're gonna do.
One is this, You're gonna stay in this program.
And like if you go to college and anywhere in California or southern California, you know, look, just watch what the lifeguards do when they show up for work.
The shows ten.
You know, dude, they have the best. Like the community itself is amazing. They're always laughing, they're super fit.
Yeah, insurance or you could branch off in the fired harm because it's you know, Ellie County lifeguards and fire department are together.
And and for kids nowadays, it's like what do they go do?
I mean, when I grew up on the East Coast, there's a million jobs, like you could mow lawns, landscape work construction. I taught sailing, but like now it's like, you know, work at Sephora, Like no, no fucking way.
Like so in the very beginning of it, Oh my god, no, she spends so much time there.
Let's get into it. Hormone disruptors in the perfume, a toxin's in the makeup. You're cut off from the sunlight, you're in the blue light. You're out of your circadian rhythm, so your testosterone is down and your estrachen is up, and you're sick and you don't sleep good. But you're on the beach.
So the first day they get all the kids together and all the pair and they're they're giving their whole spiel. All the instructors are all fired up, and the first day of junior guards this year, and then they're like, okay, so all you kids, who do you think is wants to stay in?
This part it's called like the road to red So.
You you eventually put on the reds and become a lifeguard if you stay in, And they go raise your hand if you want to stay in and eventually become a lifeguard. And I'm like, her back is to me and she's like ten feet away, and I'm like, you better fucking race sure that she's like she could probably feel like the heat coming off me because she wasn't. And eventually I think she did the half turn. It was like but I mean, I think she's starting. Like she she became like one of the strongest paddlers on the team for like like the boy like her and one other female one of the strongest runners, and like now she's like charging big wave surfing, which never happened before.
And her her ocean savvy is insane. It's such a gift. And like I've just heard, like I was outsurfing and this guy pretty good surfer, good okay in the water.
They were on a trip to Hawaii and he's you know, probably in his mid fifties, and he got like ripped, pulled out in a bad rip and he was for some reason, he wasn't really panicking fighting it, but all of a sudden, he was just like out of he had no energy, and he was like, holy shit, dude, I'm in a.
Really bad situation.
His daughter, who was like eight or eighteen but had been through lifeguarding and was working his lifeguard but they're on vacation. She they grabbed a board, fucking paddled out to him, flipped him on the board and like he's like it was like three days ago.
He's like, she saved my life.
Like I mean, so you carry that stuff through with you for the rest of your life and just think of the positive impact, you know, instead of like and this is like that message. I was like, I'm getting this two cents in when we did the panel at the TCA's because I was like, you know, kids are sitting around like wanting to be either just fame miss for no fucking reason without like as an actor. They don't want to study and do all the steps and grind like every like most people have to do, or they just want to be like the like influencers. And I'm like, what what isn't even an influencer, Like what does that mean? I mean, I get what it means and I understand it, but there's no skill.
Get load of money, man.
Yeah, but there's no like skill.
You're just like tapping into a source that happens to be really pop and cultural like at the moment.
And it's like it's a lot about following instead of leading.
Yeah, like why not have us develop a skill and like or have work on something like.
Work opportunistic, you know, jumping in on a trend to come up real quick.
Yeah, I like this term.
This is how you do anything as how you do everything exactly and to develop that discipline and develop develop that camaraderie and to develop that sense of discomfort getting up like you were talking about at five to be there at five point thirty, to train hard, then go be an influencer.
But now you know what looks like every not everyone can do it, and you have backwards you have to be you know, you have to be good at being an influencer, you know, and you can't just well.
There's there's there's roles and models you can turnkey.
And it's just what bumps me out is I hear like I'm around kids, my daughter's age, and I hear a bunch from saying like there's a lot of topics like what do you want to be when you grow up? And I hear that ship and I'm like, holy fuck man, that's our society is literally the like instead of you know what, I want to be a doctor, I want to be a whatever, really whatever, Like I want to be and influence her like or I want to I want to be really good at uh fortnite so I can make money playing video games.
Like and I'm like, this is like this is like the death of my buddy story Civilization.
My son is yeah, like twenty four years old. He's a professional baseball player. Did he get into m Yeah, he's on the He's in the farm system for congrats Miami Marlins.
That's amazing.
He's a pitcher.
So he's been hurt the last three years. Now he's healthy.
But he got there by playing a lot of video games and no, but he he does.
He does that in his spare time. He loves playing. Not for well, he used to be Fortnite now it's whatever.
He didn't know how much work ethic does he have like to get to where he's at, Like, oh, I mean tons, Yeah, And I've seen like videos of you guys, like just like training and like him doing all kinds of.
I coached all his teams his whole life, all his baseball like spring Fall, All Stars, tournament team, you name it. Man and he I would take him to the field and just pitching buckets of balls and he just he's game he's game like every I mean, he he'll do it all, He'll do it all day long. And now he's you know, twenty I put a bat and a ball in his hand when he was crawling. And he's twenty four going on twenty five, and and he he loves it and loves it.
How long have I been married?
I have my twentieth anniversary coming up in September.
Married twenty years, got a kid playing pro ball, seven million dollar houses, more than a pretty face.
One a no, yeah, one left, more than just a pretty.
Video game playing. I'm not saying it's like who cares?
Yeah, played video games after you've like you've gotten worked out for eight hours, so you're working. But I'm just saying, like what what people are like, are the youth of this country, like what they're targeting as their future goals is are so skewed.
It's like, yeah, it's you.
Know, everything in moderation. I mean, he played the video games when he was able to, you know, but but you know, when when he was younger, I mean, you know, he would probably do it a lot longer than you know, if he wanted to, he would do it longer.
But you know, we.
To play video games. I never got into video games. I don't know a little bit I did so actually when I came to get it. When I came out here to l A from New York.
What was it?
It was a PlayStation I was on there. I was like, not a spokesperson, but I was like on their vi P list. So they sent me a PlayStation module. Yeah, and and they all the new games that come out, they would like mail them to my my apartment. And I was playing a lot of video games.
I was.
I would have acting class. I would blow off acting class because I'm in my ninth hour of playing like these stupid games.
Yeah. It was pretty not to.
You know, in terms of like the documentary, Like are you guys.
Who knows the most about the documentary?
You?
Yeah, who knows?
Like what like all the details and cool stuff I know about it that people should probably know is the team that edited the Bulls documentary Last Dance, which won a slew of awards. They're editing our project. The team that does all the the artwork, the digital artwork for Vans, They're doing our artwork. We have a lot of major pop culture icons that are being interviewed, like just Jared and and various people who you know, are are pretty respected in that nineties arena and have really transcended and are super famous. Now, Debbie Gibson's doing our redoing our theme songs. So we got all these award webbel what's his name that's from from American Dad, the actor, redheaded actor American Dad, voice of the Kid on American Dad. He's doing the soundtrack or the theme song with Debbie Gibson. So we got we've cross pollinated.
I heard the new theme song, Yeah, Matt, Matt sent it to me.
Cross pollinated with a lot of different pretty big celebrities that are current.
Yeah, Muriel, one of the producers is like an award winning documentary producer, so and she's she's part of our team. And yeah, you know, ABC News Studio is so fired up about this thing. They're like, who also did the brat Pack? But they kind of seen obviously they've seen both.
Now I'm gonna go on record and say, you never would have imagined that you could say Emmy and Baywatch in the same sentence, but it is very possible. There's a couple episodes in there.
Yeah, I've seen her.
You know once in a while, send me a clip of this, you know, clip of New.
Me Poignant and it's it's some it's.
Some really good stuff. Yeah, really good.
Yeah.
Yeah, the the videography, the video team that did pit my ride. Yeah, so just guys that are Miles doing good stuff.
Miles the DP. We also did all the water water He's insane.
And you know, we also got like, you know, we got Kelly Slater who was on the show and obviously he just liked his experience on the show because he was a surfer and they were you know, the dialogue was whatever.
But he was dating Pam in real life.
And you know, he he's come around and like he he actually said yeah, I'll talk about the show, and he's at a different point in his life where he reflects back and he's.
Like, you know it it was what it was, you know, and and he opened up the whole like a whole door.
As soon as he said yes, it's like the surfing world was like okay, well Kelly said yes, and yeah, we'll give the wsl was like, we'll give you access to like what do you guys need?
What do you want?
And so like you have like supermodels coming on doing interviews and were talking about it and before do.
We get to see it at some point, just like it's for us to see it before because it's a documentary.
We don't get to approve Yeah, exactly.
And never before seen footage of our home private home movies, uh, never before seen interview with Pamela Anderson. There's going to be a lot of really cool surprise stuff. Man.
Yeah, And I think that the.
The awesome thing is, you know, because it took five years, just because I think once Matt got got going with it, he's like he just kept putting his own money into it, and it's rare to find someone who actually, you know, he's been successful.
He's got I think.
It's a couple of his family members or partners on this investing. And you know, it's not it's not the kind of thing he's going to see a financial return on. Probably it's going to be more of a loss, but it's more of like this will be part of something I did.
And once this documentary comes out, Matt Felker is going to be like the documentary whisperer. Like if you have any any any music career or modeling career or TV career that you know, has collected dust and nobody really realizes, like the blood, sweat and tears, it took, the sacrifice it took to make magic happen back in the day, like they're going to be begging him to touch.
You know, even if he loses money on this project or whatever he is, it's going to come back to him. And it's funny when you were saying that, I was actually thinking of when I shot the Kelvin Kleine underwear campaign with Kate Moss. They paid me nothing. I got paid two thousand dollars for two days in a row, so four thousand dollars total. And my ads were all over placed, like you said on Sunset Boulevard, Times Square. I would fly into different countries and they were there, were there, I was.
It was just all over the place.
They didn't pay me for that, and I never complained because you know what I was, I was a fucking nobody. I was a nobody, and overnight I become like everyone's calling me, referring to me as a supermodel, and I'm getting direct bookings all over all over the world. It was like, I freaking love Calvin Klein and I thank him like every day for me sitting in this chair right now. It's like he gave me that opportunity. I never complained about the money. Yeah, and same thing with Baywatch. Bay Watch didn't pay us much money at all. But you know what gave us a gave us a platform.
Oh dude.
Like when I it's so funny, man, Like I was in college and I went to college in Maine, played football, and all the football players.
We all lived in this like twenty eight of us at least lived in the same house.
Like like it was just madness. And on Saturday nights we'd all go to the bar and I'd be one of my really good buddies.
Be in his chair like this, and I walk by his room and I'm like, dude, we're going to the Goose. Let's go bro. And he's like, fuck no, dude, bay watches on. Let's go party.
And then you got to like two years later and I'm on the show whatever, and he's like like what how did that happen?
And but you know, I came from like a background I was. We grew up on the ocean. My mom was a sailor.
She taught we were sailing like from age five on and I ended up sailing, yeah, sailing, and ended up teaching sailing, competing, going to the Junior Olympics and windsurf racing, and had all this knowledge of the ocean.
So when like Baywash came around, it was like a show but like.
That involves the ocean. It was a dream gig, and I really didn't give a shit. I knew that the money was the money was the money. Who it was more like, you know, it was the same thing, like that you could make your and they all the producers felt the same way, like you could make your money outside the show, dude, And I got I got some things like offers like hey, Chokichi, will you fly, will fly you first class to Argentina to receive the Life Time Achievement Award and pay you like it was a gangload of cash. And Valeria Motza presented to me and literally like we're down in this remote beach town and it's like I don't know, maybe five thousand people in the crowd runway and like huge giant screen. Nobody speaks. They're all speaking Spanish except me, like and so they played this like Cody Montage and then Valeria Matza comes out and then they introduced me and like I come out and all I say is like, don't they style bond you?
And I tell the award. But it was like those opportunities were.
Here, I would fuck up the line one line, I would suck it up.
It's that butterfly effect.
Yeah, you never know what's going to happen.
Like, okay, so flash forward. My My whole life is basically centered around you know, uh, recovery and mentorship and you know, helping other men to get their lives back together.
Right.
And uh turns out out these forty fifty year old dudes that I'm helping they were all in prison, right, And guess what, like the best thing when they were going through juvenile hall and when they were in prison, the best thing shaken when you were locked up was Baywatch. It was like TV time was like you had to fight for your seat, like literally like go hand to hand combat with somebody to like keep your seat because they wanted to watch Baywatch. You know, So like grow up watching me and like now we're just in my truck driving around getting coffee together. Like this is so weird man. You know, back in Oklahoma, when I was watching you, when I was a kid. It's crazy.
It's a trip that Jason. You've been a little quiet.
You've been talking rather.
I know, well, I'm the host. I'm allowed to talk as much you've been.
Is there anything like you kind of want to plug like in terms of like do you want to like do you want to reflect on your time on the show, or do you want to reflect on like.
Well, because I've not seen the documentary, so I don't know exactly what's going to be. Yeah, I've no idea what to talk about. I've no idea what I said four years ago.
Yeah, but it should be interesting.
Yeah, I have the I live Matt, Like we we ran a place on Point Toom like year round, and he just bought this house Like literally I could hit it with a golf ball, like right next door.
It's so cool. Like I went over the other day.
I'm like, damn, it definitely interesting to see household sewn together.
So you're in the same seat as the viewer.
Man, yeah watching it.
We all are. You're not gonna watch it?
Oh, come on, I know I not want to watch I never Yeah, but this is like you know, this isn't like a movie TV show.
It's us yeah, it's.
Just being real.
So you don't want to see your son throwing the ball back and forth.
I can't watch his games on.
The documentary they got you throwing the ball.
Yeah, yeah, I'll probably but.
Yeah, I just I mean I always had a problem, you know. I was always nervous, you know, in the scene and always and always uh never never watched any of my stuff unless I was forced to.
I mean, are you watching your own performance? You're super critical of yourself because an interview, this is real life, you know, it's a little different.
Yeah, I mean, you know it was, let's face it, like there's so many cool things that came out of the show. There's obviously like lots of other other behind the scenes stuff that people you know that we actors, and I'm sure some of us like we didn't agree with. But it's like, well, in life, like what do you what do you want to look back at, like, you know, like do you want to focus on all the bad ship that was going on or do you want to just focus on the fact that like I was on the on the show, the first show to reach a billion viewers that penetrated, Like I mean, I've been in countries so far remote, dude, and where people are like fucking bay Watch bait.
Like, look, every everything happens for a reason, right, And I think everything happened just so that you could come and sit in Lance Bass's chair and take on his podcast.
Yeah.
I mean, I think this is the pinnacle, This is what it was all for at the moment. Yeah, we have reached the crescendo.
I just need some more frosted tips, right.
Baby, I'm pretty sure.
I was gonna I was gonna say, you know, bay Watch was probably one of the best things like that it's ever happened to me. And I know there's a lot of actors on the show and they feel like when they got off the show, it was because they were typecasts, it was hard to get work whatever. But and you know, I, you know, I try to do the acting thing for a few more years, and then I got into real estate and I've been doing that for like sixteen years. But it's like, I love I love that I was on the show. I loved telling people that I was on the show. It just like it just lightens up the room. It lightens up people's face because everyone knows Baywatch.
And everyone like loved Baywatch and.
Whatever, So letting them know if they didn't know already that I was on the show, it's it's pretty cool and I'm I'm very proud of it.
Yeah, probably because they have a lot of respect because you're not, you know, trying to like be something you're not. You're like this new creation that used to be this other thing, and they're probably like, that's that's dope. Then you went from like that's that's cool.
No, And I think the documentary like that's what I was saying, or like at that TCA thing is like because you have all this these interviews with the majority of the cast, you know, I think people will actually, you know, before it was like, you know, the name Baywatch was synonymous, was just a certain stereotype in.
The in a lot of people's head, right. But when they see that there's actually.
Like our each and end of each and every story in each and everybody's kind of owned personal journey, everybody's kind of ny. I think they're gonna go, you know, wow, I shouldn't have been so quick to judge a the show. I shouldn't have dismissed them as human beings or actors.
I should have been like, you know what, I should have given him more respect. You know what I mean.
I think after the documentary, I think people will be like, have a different feeling about when they say the word Baywatch or when they see an actor from the show, from the original show.
You know what I mean, watch the show, join the bandwagon. We love you. Take a look at the story behind the story. Man.
So the actual title of the documentary is After Baywatch A Moment in the Sun, which will be airing on Hulu August twenty eighth.
It's four episodes. Don't miss it, all right, I guess, I guess it's all the time we have.
This is David Chokichi's signing out, filling in for Lance Bass.
I'll be having my own new podcast.
Sorry Lats, thank you, Jason Simmons you, thank you, Jeremy Jackson.
Thank you.
Michael Bergan, welcome, thank you.
I love you guys. It's so cool to be here. And thank you. iHeart for having us. Hey, thanks for listening. Follow us on Instagram at Frosted Tips.
With Lance and Michael Terzenard and at lance Beast for all your pop culture needs, and make sure to write a review and leave us five stars six if you can see you next time,
