Other Conference Call Highlights:

Christopher Knight and Matt Kunitz on their childhhod memories of the circus:

CHRISTOPHER KNIGHT: You know, as a child I don’t think I appreciated the typical Three Ring Circus, the traditional circus, if you will. I guess I thought clowns were creepy. So I never was one of those kids that wanted to run away and join the circus. But I think it was like 25 years ago, I saw my first acrobatic circus here in Los Angeles. I think it was the first Cirque du Soleil show in Santa Monica and I was just absolutely mesmerized at what I saw. Most of what I saw looked physically impossible and it was just most enjoyable. I think I was too old at the time, I was probably 25 at the time, to even contemplate running away and joining the circus. But I find myself in that privileged position today.

MATT KUNITZ: When I called my mother about four or five months ago and told her that I was going to be taking on this show, she emailed me a photo that she had from - she actually had to scan it because back then it wasn’t digital - but she emailed a photo that was taken of me in preschool and I was the ring leader of the circus that we were putting on at our preschool. I was in the full tophat surrounded by all the preschool kids that were dressed up as elephants. And so I think it’s fitting that I’m now running this show. I’m not quite the ring leader. We’ll leave that to Joey Fatone, but I do think that it was - I guess it was fate.

Kunitz and Knight on the training regime leading up to the live broadcast:

KUNITZ: It’s a grueling training schedule. It’s eight weeks before we start shooting. And then once we start shooting, they continue to train during the whole run of the show. They are training five to six days a week and they’re training anywhere from six to eight hours a day. They’re constantly with us and they are all bruised and sore, and I guess they’re getting calluses on their hands where they need it. But it is grueling and definitely Chris can speak more to that.

KNIGHT: Absolutely. This is boot camp and beyond. I mean, this is boot camp. I’m not sure how many 35-year-olds, 45-year-olds, would be able to survive boot camp. But this is a different kind of boot camp. I mean, the professional acrobatics circus performer is most [intensive], and all the ones we have were ex-gymnasts. They have acrobatic skills that predated their circus life. They’re prone to doing things, I guess because they hang around each other, that they think are normal. We look at them and the positions they can put themselves into, it’s like you guys are freaks. And it certainly makes it a lot easier for them. But it also is what makes it so beautiful is that they’re so accustomed to some of the just basic movies and tumbling skills that one would have being a gymnast in the past. And here we’re now going to attempt this without those previous skills. But it’s amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it and have the right training even in a short amount of time. I mean, I don’t want to mislead people and make them think that in fact we’re going to look like a dead ringer for a Cirque du Soleil act, but a facsimile of it.

I mean, every week I watch my colleagues here and their acts improve. My toes still don’t point right but maybe that’ll come by the last three weeks. But it’s amazing the amount of detail that we have to learn. It is absolutely grueling. I mean, these eight hours are not getting easier. You’d think they would. But we’re using every muscle in our body and muscles that we haven’t had to use or use the way that we’re using them now. We’re having to deal with height. I’d dare anyone to do this. This is like an eight hour Yoga class and strength training class in, you know, at height.

Matt Kunitz on how they determined which celebrities performed which acts:

"Well, we did an assessment of all the celebrities in the first week to kind of figure out their physicality and what acts they would be better at. But you’ve probably seen or may have seen the promo, in the very first week I spoke about the heights that we were dealing with. Well, in the very first week, there's one of the very few acts that’s on the ground, but yet there’s still an element of danger to it, Chris was trying it out and took a fall and damaged his elbow. And so the doctors said look he can continue but you have to keep weight off of that elbow. So we immediately looked and reassessed, and said what kind of acts can Chris do where he’s not putting weight on the elbow? And there’s one real obvious one which is probably one of the more scary acts out there - is the tightrope. so Chris immediately started training on that because that takes balance and won’t affect his his elbow. And I think at this point the elbow is healing and we’re able to start slowly moving him into acts that will require more elbow strength. I think Chris is also training on bungee which is something that doesn’t take as much strength on the elbow.

Christopher Knight on why this type of reality will appeal to viewers:

"It should be, it’s a spectacle. I mean, it should be filled with color and bigness and movement. It’ll be unlike anything that has really been staged in a reality competition, or as a reality competition concept in the past. As well, these are things that are totally foreign. I had a complete appreciation after seeing Cirque du Soleil of, how impossible and how difficult many of the things that I saw must be. And now I have an intimate appreciation for how nearly impossible they were. But the important part is they’re not impossible. And the people - because of the reality aspect of this - they’re not just watching a performance. [It's also] the net result of a lot of training that they never get to see. They get to actually journey with us,from the time that we first walked in the door and looked like the Bad News Bears. I know that we’re not professionals yet, but we’re a lot better than we were that first week. And you see that. We’re just normal people attempting this in a very short amount of time. I think it could give people inspiration and that there’s a real possibility [to do it] for anybody out there if they have the privilege and the right training. They can do things that amaze themselves.