THR Emmy Roundtable: Behind-the-Scenes With Reality TV's Top Stars

The Reality Stars

From left: Phil Keoghan (CBS' The Amazing Race), Tom Bergeron (ABC's Dancing With the Stars'), Padma Lakshmi (Bravo's Top Chef), Randy Jackson (Fox's American Idol), Heidi Klum (Lifetime's Project Runway) and Gordon Ramsay (Fox's Hell's Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares and MasterChef). They were photographed on April 18 at The Residences at W Hollywood.

Tom Bergeron on Arcs

"We did an all-star season last fall with Dancing With the Stars, and the numbers went down," Bergeron says. "We all thought, 'This is going to be great, all the people that you've loved before' -- it was like The Avengers of ballroom dancing. But it wasn't. What we heard -- and I wish my wife had told me this before we started, because she said [it, too] -- 'I like it better when they're struggling. I like to see the arc.'"

Gordon Ramsay on Criticism

"It does at a stage," Ramsay says when asked if criticism in the media bothers him. "Then you become thick-skinned because ... how much shit does one want to read? So I think the longer the seasons go on, the more thick-skinned you become, and then after a while, it's just irrelevant."

Randy Jackson on 'Idol's' Rough Year

"We have a saying in the music business. Do you know how you know that you've made it? As soon as they start hating on you, you must be huge," Jackson says. "So we get all of the hate from the critics, from the journalists, from everybody, "Idol's fallen, the show's over, it's tanking, whatever." I see it and go, "Wow, we must be really good."

Padma Lakshmi on Her Roundtable Colleague's Shows

"A common denominator in all of our shows is that they're about people trying to be better, whereas there's still a large swath of reality shows that are actually exhibitionists and people willfully trying to be controversial or idiotic or just acting out."

Padma Lakshmi on Contestant Pressure

"The pressure brings out more creativity for a lot of our chefs," Padma Lakshmi says. "I think that pressure is also very revealing about what kind of person that chef is. Sometimes, they'll push themselves too far. They will take on more than they can actually execute, given the time constraints and the budget."

Heidi Klum on Responsibility for Contestants

"You take care of them, but at the end of the day, they're not kids. When you sign yourself up for what you're doing, you have to take care of yourself."

Heidi Klum on Complaining Contestants

"I'm always surprised when they start complaining," Klum says. "I'm like, 'Really? You stood in a line to be part of this, now you're here, and you're tired? Really? Go home and be tired. You're here.' And then they say, 'We really only have one day to complete this challenge?' I'm like, 'How many times did you watch this show?' 'Yeah, but we thought this is TV time.'"

Phil Keoghan on His 'Amazing Race' Regret

"I wish we hadn't done the family version of Amazing Race, but I'm proud that we tried it," Keoghan says. "It didn't work, and it came back to the whole thing of having to eliminate kids. It's hard enough to eliminate anybody because they want to be there so badly, and I had to look into a kid's eyes with the tears pouring down with a raised eyebrow and dramatic pause, cameras coming in: 'I'm sorry to tell you, you've been eliminated.'"