Sep 28, 2025 10:00 AM EDT<\/p>\n
Tomorrow night, Big Brother<\/a> 27 airs its highly anticipated finale. And we\u2019ll be seeing the return of a familiar face, as former winner Cody Calafiore<\/strong> will be running this year\u2019s jury roundtable<\/a>. But it\u2019s far from the first role we\u2019ve seen him play.<\/p>\n After finishing runner-up on Season 16 of the CBS<\/a> reality series back in 2014, Cody decided to get more on-screen credits. He auditioned for a film called What Happened Last Night, written and directed by Candice T. Cain<\/strong>. She had no sense of his exact background, as she had seen very little reality TV in general up to that point. All she knew was that he was perfect for that part.<\/p>\n \ud83c\udfac<\/strong> SIGN UP for Parade\u2019s Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox<\/strong><\/a> \ud83c\udfac\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWhen Cody auditioned for me, I liked him the best,\u201d Cain tells Parade in an exclusive interview. \u201cAnd I sent him his contract behind everybody else\u2019s back, because people didn\u2019t want to cast the reality star, and I felt that it was unfair to pigeonhole them. And I remember calling him, and I\u2019m like, \u2018Listen, you need to sign this contract before my production meeting, because I need to say that I locked it in.’\u201d<\/p>\n To say she locked Cody in would be an understatement. Since his first credit, he has appeared in a number of her movies<\/a>, most prominently five separate Christmas movies<\/a> under Cain in 2020 and 2021. He even made mention of her work when he returned to Big Brother for the spinoff Reindeer Games, highlighting all the holiday work he had already accrued.<\/p>\n Cain had no idea when she first cast Cody how much that would open the door for other reality stars to start making appearances in her films. Over the past decade, she\u2019s given parts to reality stars like Paulie Calafiore<\/strong>, Cara Maria Sorbello<\/strong>, Faysal Shafaat<\/strong> and Gervase Peterson<\/strong>. Unintentionally, she\u2019s become a whole universe for unscripted standouts to make their scripted debuts. And she\u2019s looking to expand even further.<\/p>\n Read on for Parade\u2018s full interview with Candice Cain, including her reaction to her films being mentioned in the Big Brother house, and how Rachel Reilly<\/strong> was all set to audition for a movie of hers before she became the \u201cMystery Houseguest\u201d of Season 27.<\/p>\n Related: Where is Every \u2018Big Brother\u2019 Showmance Now?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Were you a fan of shows like Big Brother before you started casting more reality stars in your movies and shows?<\/strong> So when Cody auditioned for me, I liked him the best. And I sent him his contract behind everybody else\u2019s back, because people didn\u2019t want to cast the reality star, and I felt that it was unfair to pigeonhole them. And I thought that he had the best audition; he was hilarious, and I gave him the part. And I remember calling him, and I\u2019m like, \u201cListen, you need to sign this contract before my production meeting, because I need to say that I locked it in.\u201d And that\u2019s how I got Cody.<\/p>\n Over the past decade, Cody has been in a number of your movies. What\u2019s led him to becoming involved in so many different projects of yours?<\/strong> And I had the opportunity to do a Christmas movie<\/a>, and something that I tend to do is I will write a script for a person. I\u2019m a savant where I can look at somebody and all of a sudden see a character for them, and create characters. And I had an opportunity to write this script. And I had called Cody, and I was like, \u201cListen, I want to do a Christmas movie. I\u2019ve got a really cute idea.\u201d I pitched him the idea for Ivy and Mistletoe, and I said, \u201cI\u2019d like to write you as the leading role. Is that okay?\u201d And he\u2019s like, \u201cYeah, sure. Why not?\u201d So Cody was attached, Kenny Myers was attached. And they look like father\/son, or at least, in the film world, they do. And then we cast from there. It\u2019s so much fun to work with people and write them such different characters. <\/p>\n Right after Ivy and Mistletoe, we did The Maltese Holiday. And after The Maltese Holiday, he did Magic in Mount Holly. And after Magic in Mount Holly, he ended up doing Joy and Hope. And he has these four Christmas movies under his belt in 2019; we shot all those in 2019. And then I cast him in a TV series. But it\u2019s really fun for me when I\u2019m working with an actor\u00a0\u2013 because I look at Cody as an actor. I don\u2019t look at him as a reality star. I was able to take pieces of Cody\u2019s personality and right to his strengths. And he\u2019s funny! He\u2019s a funny guy. So I was able to insert these humorous parts. He plays this one character in my television series, Welcome to Hope, where you know he\u2019s got this little devious streak, and it\u2019s just that\u2019s how it came to be. He and I developed a friendship<\/a> and it turned into just me wanting to keep him. And there are a lot of people in my shows that I repeat. If I like you, I\u2019m gonna work with you and I\u2019m gonna write for you.<\/p>\n You talk about Cody being a brother to you. Let\u2019s talk about his actual brother who you mentioned before in Paulie. You\u2019ve had him, as well as his partner Cara Maria from The Challenge in your movies. So how did you end up getting connected with other reailty stars?<\/strong> And, with the festival, I needed somebody that was really big, that really didn\u2019t have to talk. And it\u2019s funny because I had originally it was the role of guy in my film, Royal Runaways, and I had originally written it for Jesse Godderz. And something happened, and Jesse was not available. And I reached out to Paulie, and I\u2019m like, \u201cListen, I need a big dude that is, is gonna follow instructions, who\u2019s coachable.\u201d And he\u2019s like, \u201cWell, my friend Faysal Shafaat, you could reach out to Fess.\u201d So he introduced me to Fessy. And I was like, \u201cHey, you want to come on? \u201cThe poor guy comes on. And I\u2019m like, \u201cListen, I really like the way you look and how you present yourself. I wrote you some lines.\u201d He\u2019s like, \u201cOh, okay, cool.\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cYeah, you\u2019re gonna have to say him in a French accent.\u201d He\u2019s like, I\u2019m sorry. \u201cWhat? \u201cSo, we had a dialect coach come in and teach him how to speak French. And it was hilarious. <\/p>\n I met Cara when she came to some premiere. And I knew about Cara before I met her, because Paulie called me and told me about her because he had gotten off The Challenge the first time. I just love those guys, I really do. My heart is with them so much. And I like being able to give people opportunities, and if people want opportunities, and they\u2019re kind to the people that are close to me, I\u2019m going to take care of that. That\u2019s just the type of person that I am. <\/p>\n Andrea Boehlke, who was on Survivor, she auditioned for me for What Happened Last Night, and we cast her. She was great. And then, if I have parts, I\u2019ll call her. She\u2019s terrific, so personable. She\u2019s just a lovely human being. Gervase is hilarious. I can\u2019t remember how I met him. I think it was through a cartoon I helped cast called Kindly Kenny. And I think he did a voice. I know that Vecepia did a voice. But yeah, all these reality people follow me, which is great. I\u2019m very grateful. And, fortunately, I\u2019ve developed relationships with them.<\/p>\n During Reindeer Games, we had Cody mention that he had been in holiday movies. And this summer on Big Brother 27, contestants were outright having conversations about your films. What was your reaction to having your work get mentioned in the house?<\/strong> And so I\u2019m telling Cara about this. I was like, \u201cI asked Paulie about Rachel and she was supposed to audition.\u201d And she\u2019s like, \u201cCandi, I think she\u2019s in the Big Brother house.\u201d I was like, \u201cReally?!\u201d And she\u2019s like, \u201cYeah, I don\u2019t think she auditioned, because I don\u2019t think she knew about it.\u201d I kid you not. We were about to go on the Avatar ride at Disney\u2019s Animal Kingdom. And Cara texted her and left her this big text message about, \u201cHey, I\u2019m with Candi Cane, and she wants you to for this show, and wants you to audition for it. What\u2019s going on? She wanted to know why you didn\u2019t.\u201d Well, I\u2019m sure when Rachel gets out of the house, she\u2019s gonna see that from Cara. <\/p>\n So that actually happened back in July, before any of this dialogue came up. And what\u2019s really funny is that we\u2019re, you know, I\u2019m currently writing a Christmas movie called The Christmas Bow, and it\u2019s about a reality show that takes place during Christmas. And I said to Cara, \u201cI\u2019ll write a fictionalized version of you to be the host of this fake Christmas show,\u201d and she\u2019s like, \u201cCandi, I would love that!\u201d So now it\u2019s really funny, because now I\u2019ve got reality people talking about me and we came up with this idea in July. So now people are going to be like, \u201cOh, you came up with the idea after seeing it.\u201d Just bizarre. My life<\/a> is so weird.<\/p>\n Are there any reality stars you would want to have in your movies who you haven\u2019t yet?<\/strong> Mike Bloom has the great fortune of having parlayed decades of nerdom in movie and TV watching into almost a decade of writing and talking about it! Since joining Parade in 2017, Mike has largely covered reality television, becoming one of the go-to journalists for Survivor, Big Brother, The Amazing Race, Dancing with the Stars, Top Chef, The Challenge, and more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source parade.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sep 28, 2025 10:00 AM EDT Tomorrow night, Big Brother 27 airs its highly anticipated finale. And we\u2019ll be seeing the return of a familiar face, as former winner Cody Calafiore will be running this year\u2019s jury roundtable. But it\u2019s far from the first role we\u2019ve seen him play. After finishing runner-up on Season 16 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2056111,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[306423,382582,382579,22405,368005,382581,21741,353385,32215,382576,382573,382574,340015,24122,382578,382572,308295,350925,382575,21913,382577,382580],"class_list":["post-2056110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-big-brother","tag-big-brother-27","tag-candice-t-cain","tag-cbs","tag-christmas-movies","tag-cody-calafiore","tag-entertainment","tag-exclusives","tag-interviews","tag-ivy-and-mistletoe","tag-joy-and-hope","tag-magic-in-mount-holly","tag-rachel-reilly","tag-reality-tv","tag-reindeer-games","tag-royal-runaways","tag-survivor","tag-the-challenge","tag-the-maltese-holiday","tag-tv","tag-welcome-to-hope","tag-what-happened-last-night"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Meet-the-Filmmaker-Turning-Big-Brother-Players-into-Movie-Stars-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2056110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2056110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2056110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2056111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2056110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2056110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2056110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Actually, no, I wasn\u2019t a fan. I didn\u2019t really watch the shows at all, honestly. I first met Cody in 2015 for my movie, What Happened Last Night. And it was a matter of choosing the people that were the best for the part, and the executive producer that I worked with didn\u2019t want to cast Cody because he was a reality star. And the only reality show that I really enjoyed back then was Survivor<\/a>. I\u2019ve been around the industry since I was a little girl. And I\u2019ve never been on a reality show or anything like that. And I separate the two. I look for talent. <\/p>\n
So I look at Cody like a little brother. I became very close with him, very, very close with him. Very close with his brother, Paulie. Paulie actually was on the phone the other day. I\u2019m going down to Florida to shoot a new series, and Paulie is coming to hang with me, because that\u2019s where he lives now. I\u2019ve been to his house and was with his dogs<\/a>, and my kids went down there. We\u2019re super close. <\/p>\n
Well, Paulie came to set a couple of times on What Happaned Last Night. And, again, he and I just grew very, very close. Honestly, both of the Calafiores, I look at them like brothers, I really do. Paulie and I even have nicknames for each other. We call each other \u201cDaddy Shark\u201d and \u201cMama Shark.\u201d We\u2019re a really strong support system for each other. And of course, through Paulie, I believe I met Jesse Godderz. You kind of get the word of mouth; people just get introduced. Because I\u2019m very flexible. My sets are very open, and I\u2019m like, \u201cHey guys, you want to come and chill? You could come see what it\u2019s like to be on a film set.\u201d<\/p>\n
I am so flattered. It\u2019s really funny, because I went to Disney with Cara. I was in Florida, and Cara Maria I went to Disney with my daughter and my daughter\u2019s best friend<\/a> and her dad. And Rachel was submitted to play a role in the TV show that I\u2019m currently filming called Heavy Hitters. I wanted to see her. I actually reached out to Paulie. And I was like, \u201cHey, what can you tell me about Rachel Reilly? Because she submitted, and I\u2019d like to give her a shot, if you\u2019re friends with her. I know she has a Big Brother tie.\u201d And he\u2019s like, \u201cNo, she\u2019s great. She\u2019s really nice, and whatever.\u201d So I asked for the audition, and she didn\u2019t audition. And I was like, \u201cWhat?! She snubbed me!\u201d And I was kind of offended that she snubbed me a little bit. <\/p>\n
I think it might be kind of fun to work with CT from The Challenge, just because I like his attitude. I think he\u2019s a good-looking dude. I think it\u2019d be a lot of fun to work with him. And to be completely honest with you, I would love to work with Rachel Reilly. If she wants to be in a Christmas movie that badly, I want to put her in one so that she has that opportunity. I would love to do that and see how she likes it. I feel that I can coach anybody. I was an acting coach. I was an acting teacher<\/a>. I\u2019ve been an actress since I was a child. I can help anybody give a great delivery. And that\u2019s not to say that she doesn\u2019t have experience or anything. But I would be honored to work with her in a Christmas movie if she wants something that badly. Bring it on!<\/p>\nAbout the author<\/h2>\n
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