PEOPLE chatted with the star about what it was like filming from coast to coast and all of the adventures that came with it.
“I love a before and after. Being a first time house owner within the last four years and doing renovations, I’ve been obsessed with what can be done,” says the New Jersey native, who now lives in California. “So, getting asked to do this show, I was like, ‘Oh, I can do it and it’s not my money? How exciting!'” she jokes. “I was very happy to have a front-row seat.”
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Working with the homeowners was also exciting, Retta says, because almost all of them knew their home looked terrible, and they were more than ready to make a change.
At first, she says, “I didn’t want anybody to feel bad. But then the producers reminded me, ‘They submitted their home.’ It’s not like we walked past the house, like, ‘This place is trash. Do you want to be on this show?'” she jokes. “So it was easy to be myself and get on board with how raggedy the homes may have been.”
In fact, she says, most of the homeowners were leading the charge when it came to making fun of their homes.
“I don’t know that any of them were really embarrassed because I feel like when they got the home, they thought that they were going to put the work in,” she says. “Whether they didn’t have the time to do it, or the budget to do it, or they were trying to do it slowly… whatever the case, they knew they were going to work on the home. So they were along for the ride of, let everybody know how terrible this is. It’s not like we don’t know.”
One of Retta’s funniest moments from hanging out with the homeowners was when someone mentioned a little critter that once paid them a visit.
“I would say one of the craziest things that happened [on set] was we were standing in this room and the wife is telling us about the room and what have you. And then she’s like, ‘yeah, we were just sitting here one day and a snake fell down,'” the comedian recalls.
“And I was like, ‘I’m sorry, in this room? A snake just fell out of the ceiling? This room, where I’m standing, this is where you’ve seen snakes?'” she continues with a laugh. “And the homeowner was like, ‘I know, I was mortified.’ I was like, ‘Me too, let’s go.'”
“Oh my God. I love Alison. We have the best time,” Retta says of the Chicago-based star. “I was just there to say, ‘That’s cute. Oh, that works.’ She put in the work when it came to the renovations.”
And work she did, Retta says of theRock the Blockcompetitor, admitting that perhaps the best part of her job was getting to see the drastic changes that Victoria made to the homes.
“You get to see a lot of terrible befores,” Retta says. “But it was great to find [homes] that were really just tragic and make them beautiful.”
source: people.com
