‘Nailed It!’ Host Nicole Byer On Keeping The Competition Safe And Silly During COVID-19: “You Try To Just Have As Much Fun As You Can Safely”

Ryan Fleming
·3 min read
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Nailed It! is all about seeing the fun in failure and, as host of the show, Nicole Byer brings the excitement and levity needed for this Netflix competition series. Comedian Nicole Byer and French pastry chef Jacques Torres host this reality baking series inspired by the internet trend of people trying and failing to make elaborate cakes. This season of the competition series, dubbed Nailed It! Double Trouble, has double the bakers as the contestants are now in teams of two, which Byer says led to some great pairs. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean the end result was any better. Due to Coronavirus restrictions, Double Trouble had to be more distanced than the previous seasons, but that didn’t lessen the fun and chaos of the show.

DEADLINE: Having double the bakers, did you expect better cakes or for the cakes to be twice as bad?

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NICOLE BYER: You know, you’d think that things would get done quicker, or better, or faster, but none of that happened. Having someone extra just made it, I think, more fun and silly. And I think it impeded people to have an extra set of hands, but it just made it so much more fun.

DEADLINE: I think you do a great job of making fun of people’s baking skills without making the bakers themselves feel bad. Can you talk about straddling that line?

BYER: I straddle it because somebody made something. Like, if someone brought a cake to your house that looks a little wild, you may roast your friend, cause that’s your friend, but you’ll still taste it because you don’t want to hurt your friend’s feelings, and I’m not in the business to hurt someone’s feelings. What fun would that be, to say, “hey, look at that piece of shit they made,” because it’s not a piece of shit. They took the time to make it and that’s half the fun, to be like, “look at this, we can talk about how silly this is, right?” And I think it’s nice when people can poke fun at themselves and find the humor in something that they tried so hard to make.

DEADLINE: What do you think was your favorite moment of this past season, Double Trouble?

BYER: We had two drag Queens, Lagoona Bloo and Selma Nilla, and they were so fun and effortless to talk to. I had a real blast shooting with them.

DEADLINE: Was there a particular guest host this season that you felt really shined?

A$AP Ferg was so fun and he was just down for everything. It was funny cause he was like, “yeah, my friends told me that the show was really funny and I should be on it.” And I don’t think he had watched it, because he was like “so nothing’s gonna taste good?” And I thought that was so funny. It made me laugh so hard.

DEADLINE: COVID restrictions obviously affected the shooting of this season, but how did you manage to make an atmosphere that didn’t seem too obvious in the distancing or masks?

NICOLE BYER: You try to just have as much fun as you can safely. We weren’t masked on camera, so that wasn’t really an issue, but you’re trying to make a TV show and trying to remember in the back of your brain that you do have to stay away from people. You can’t just go up to the contestants. I think being able to do that duality was difficult, but I’ve done a lot of improv and it was helpful to think of it like that.

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