How ‘Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls’ Became a Reality Series Emmy Darling

thewrap.com:

netted a whopping six nominations (including one for her hosting duties) and broke into a category that has had the same nominees for a great number of years now.

And superstar casting director Lynne Spillman — who has found some of the most vivid entrants globally for shows such as “Survivor” and “Making the Cut” in the past — would agree that for this series’ unique casting call that placed plus-sized women at the fore, to put it in once again in Lizzo’s vernacular, it was about damn time.“I love talent-based projects”, says Spillman, “because you get a good range of people with different backgrounds, yet with the same common interest.

And that’s always really fun. But it was challenging, because you’re finding the personalities of the people you would hope would last for eight episodes as far as story goes, but also how to be good enough dancers to do it.

On the same level, you also couldn’t have someone too good that would just blow everybody away.”Viewers and critics alike found themselves drawn into the lives of the 13 women — all working out their own struggles with depression, anxiety and emerging out of a bullying past — trying out for a job as a backup dancer on Lizzo’s high-energy tour, with an emphasis on body positivity and overcoming self-doubt to show their stuff on national stages, and the turnout was considerable.“We got 1000 people in the first day and I think we got pretty close to 10,000 [in total]”, says Spillman. “We had everything…some guys, we had skinny girls.