KOCHI: Govind Padmasoorya aka GP is not an outright adventure junkie. He says he is scared of a spate of things, yet enjoys the rush of adrenaline when he faces them head-on. So when he was offered Dare the Fear, an adventure reality show involving risky stunts and pulse-racing tasks, he didn’t think twice. “After my previous shows I used to get a lot offers in the same mould and I wanted to try something other than dance or quiz. In Malayalam we don’t have any popular shows with the same format of Dare the Fear. As a host I felt the space interesting,” he says.
Dare the Fear, based on the popular US reality series Fear Factor, has 12 contestants, all of them women, confronting their worst fears. “It’s also the biggest flagship show in terms of scale. All the 12 participants of the show are celebrities, known faces in Kerala,” he says. The USP of the series is that the contestants are totally untrained or lack any prior experience. “In a dance reality show you will see a bunch of best dancers vying for the first position. But here these clueless participants are asked to do a range of very risky stunts. The best part of the show is to see the priceless expressions on the face of the contestants when the tasks are revealed,” he adds.
Since Indian law doesn’t allow certain stunts, the crew had to travel to various parts of Malaysia and Thailand for the show. “The stuntmasters were all first-grade professionals who had worked in many action-oriented Bollywood films like Dhoom and Bang Bang,” he says. If the first schedule of the show was about facing your biggest fears, the second had more of an athletic nature. “It was really inspiring to see the inexperienced women doing all that,” he adds.
Though he was not expected to perform stunts, he took the plunge on a couple of occasions to motivate the contestants. “Though I wanted to try everything it was not possible as I was busy with the duties of the host. But yes, I have done some crazy stunts that had this life-and-death nature.” He adds that when he tried a height-related stunt, the result was mind-blowing. “If you can survive the panic in the initial moments, you will end up with something really beautiful,” he says.
GP adds the biggest challenge of the show was getting into the shoes of a host-cum-judge, perhaps the first in his career. “In my earlier shows I was this carefree, happy-go-lucky guy, but here you will see me as an uncompromising judge as well. In fact the show requires me to switch between the two roles. At one point I am this friendly, motivating host and then I go to this strict, taskmaster mode,” he explains. Nevertheless, he could build a great rapport with the participants, making the whole experience a very exciting and fulfilling ride.
“When I was doing a quiz show my homework was to sit and work on my GK, learn certain names and their pronunciation. But here here my role is more on the lines of a psychologist, I had to understand fear and help the contestants overcome it,” he adds. Dare the Fear – Aarkkund Ee Chankkoottam will be aired in Asianet from October 6, on every Friday and Saturday at 9.30 pm.