访谈录 Interview 2007-04-24&26, 还模特真实面目

Every dream of traveling the world, visiting exotic 1 places and making millions of dollars, just to have your picture taken? Well, in a new documentary 2 series, Models NYC, MSNBC takes you behind the scenes of a New York modeling agency, only to find being beautiful for a living isn’t always a pretty picture.

I’m trying to make sure, one of my models is working for your companies tomorrow. So you guys want her, that’s great. But I’m not going to hang up on every two seconds I like to.

We’re like mother, father, brother, sister, psychiatrist 3, boyfriend. We’re everything to these models.

I have never felt so bad about myself my whole life. Do you sense and they're like…What did you eat? Why are you so fat?

They’re all young. They don’t have a family here for the most parts. So it’s us.

If you want to hire a lawyer to sue 4 them, you should think about what you are doing. It’s not worth it. So you’ve noticed that girl that is suing 5 the clients? It’s not worth it. It’s a small industry, trust me.

Takes a great agency behind you, takes a great agent behind you. All of those pieces have to come together.

How fresh to pulling out.

Step up daddy.

Jeffrey Kolsrud is the founder 6 and director of the Q management modeling agency. And Maria is a model at Q. Good morning to you both.

Good morning.

So I have this, I was struck by the words, “trust me”. I mean, my goodness, you’re being trusted with very very young girls. How young?

I mean, pretty much for us, the youngest is 13.

13 years old!

13, but it goes up. From the average model we represent, I would say, is around 18 to 22.

So you are the talent-scout, the booking agent, the mentor 7, the surrogate father. Big responsibility.

Yeah. I wear a lot of parts.

I know, but, and Maria. You came to this, you know, you weren’t thirteen when you came to this, you actually came to this when you were what nineteen years old.

About nineteen years old.

And how would you describe this world that you’ve entered, that this crazy, I mean, it seems crazy from that tape. Seems intense, a lot of pressure. Right?

Definitely. I mean one thing, it’s not as glamorous 8 as it seems. I mean I sort of had the upper hand in this no way, because I did start when I was nineteen as opposed to some girls who started in their 13 or 14, they might be a little bit lost by it.

But why it's not as glamorous as it looks? It looks glamorous, Look at that, that’s you. Right? I think. (Yes.) Looking gorgeous 9 in that. (Yes, yes.) But why is that not glamorous? Sitting on a big pillow by a pool.

Well, it looks glamorous there. Actually, this was shot in mid-December. It was. It was about 18 degrees in there. So…

Oh, not glamorous, no. So there's pain involved.

Absolutely.

Pain, and also a lot of pressure on very young girls who look perfect in a world that isn't perfect. So what is your thinking about that, Jeffrey, what is your thinking about mothers right now watching this, who may be watching this piece that is gonna air tonight, thinking, oh, I don’t wanna my daughter to go through this.

Well, I think what’s great about this show is that it will explain to the viewer it’s not about Maria showing up looking perfect. Before she got to that shot, there could have been three or four hours of preparation to kind of "achieve" that perfect look. And they’ll understand from watching the show too that it’s a great opportunity for them to get into it. It’s not all that kind of glint and glamour 10, maybe that we are talking about.

Because, in fact, the story, the back story here. Maria, is that you were actually a foster 11 child?

Yeah.

And you actually in part, you know do this to help support your brother. I understand that you are. So this is a real kind of traveling. I don’t wanna bring too much on it, but that is gonna be built on this series. But the point is that there is, the struggle is real, and that’s part of it. Is that what you wanna someone to say?

Absolutely. Well, there’s, I mean, people who don’t necessarily understand the business. I mean, you are outer person looking they think it might. Seeing glamorous to you, show up on the shoot. You shoot for ten minutes, and then you hear they just hand you a check over for ten thousand dollars. What people don’t see is that a lot of what goes on is really hard work, and you know, for me, I…

And we are gonna see that actually in the series, I know that you, I don’t want to say everything this morning. So I’m gonna let you say this in your premiere. Success is not that we’re getting somewhere; it’s how hard it is to get.

Absolutely.

Sounds like you have a good road towards that. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

The series is called Models NYC. It premieres tonight, at 10pm, Eastern on MSNBC.