The Mark 2010

The Mark caught up with the creator of Canada's next hit reality TV show, Lake Shore, to find out if it's really the next Jersey Shore.

Snooki and The Situation were back on television last night in the premiere of Jersey Shore, season two. The whole gang is back to their old antics, but this time they’ve moved down to Miami, where their tans can flourish year-round. And though the cast moved south, their GTL (gym, tanning, laundry) mantra may be making its way north of the 49th parallel with Canada's sexy new reality show. The show is still in the early stages of development, but it will be called Lake Shore, named after and set in the glamourous condominium district of Toronto.

The Mark spoke with the creator and producer of Lake Shore, 25-year-old Maryam Rahimi, who isn’t wasting any time making a name for herself in the Canadian television scene. She told The Mark about drawing on Jersey Shore for inspiration, creating a solid concept that will be relatable and entertaining, and the drive and ambition that made it all possible.

The Mark: Where did you grow up?

Maryam: I was born in Kuwait and raised in Montreal.

The Mark: So how did that translate into the idea of working on the show in Toronto? What inspired you to bring your project here?

Maryam: Toronto is so diverse, it's amazing. And our show is about being unique, being diverse, and coming from different backgrounds.

If I lived in Montreal I would have had to do a couple of different castings, but the one audition that we held in Toronto, we had about 500 to 600 people come through the door, and 300 people got to meet with the judges. It was just fantastic, we got such a diverse and such different personalities in our castings that I don't think that you would necessarily get in other cities because of a lack of multiculturalism.

The Mark: Speaking of the auditions last week, how did they go?

Maryam: We went about the auditions in an unusual way. We held it at a club and at times we had music playing and told people that we had cameras watching and we had casting assistants going around the crowd, picking people and bringing them to my attention. So we really gave them different things in that environment to work with and we actually are locking down our solid 25 top candidates that could potentially be our eight cast members.

The Mark: What characteristics do you value most in other people?

Maryam: People who keep their word, people who are trustworthy. And ambition, because it inspires me to continue pushing forward.

The Mark: And how do you think that will play into the way you select the cast for the show?

Maryam: Well that's a little different because we select the cast for the show by what's trendy, stylish, and in demand. What are the things the distributors and broadcasters look for and what's the market for this reality show we're making? What's generally popular, what do people want to watch on TV?

The Mark: What role do you think drama and theatrics play in selecting cast members?

Maryam: We're picking people of different personalities and they each bring a different set of dramas. Like we're probably going to have a Muslim gay, for example. I mean you can imagine the kind of drama that person would bring because, first of all, being Muslim is already tough enough to be in a reality show, and their being gay just doubles that. If we have a Muslim, imagine we have an episode that highlights Jacuzzis and bikinis. I'm sure you can imagine the kinds of things that will come out of that.

The Mark: Your original plan was to cast Persian-Canadians for the show, just as Jersey Shore is mostly Italian-Americans. Why the shift?

Maryam: I like the fact that in Jersey Shore they are young, sexy, and each person very much has their own sort of personality and opinions and I like how they were put under the same roof and drama came out of that. And we spent quite a bit of time just thinking about the concept and how it should be different and what makes it special and when we did all these brainstormings, we realized that especially in Toronto it would be so much more interesting to have different people from different backgrounds come into conflict than to have just one culture.

The Mark: So how do you feel about the comparisons that are being drawn between Lake Shore and Jersey Shore?

Maryam: We were inspired by different shows, anything you can name under the sun. I have no problem with that – they want to compare us to Jersey Shore. Hey, Jersey Shore is a successful show. It's quite entertaining. I think that's the point of reality shows, to be entertaining. It's like the junk food for television. So I have no problem being compared to Jersey Shore – it's good!

The Mark: At 25 years old, you’re fairly young to be a producer. What experiences have you had to prepare you for such a big project?

Maryam: My father is a fairly accomplished business man. I've been raised under his roof and I think my whole life has been business lessons. From the time I was a child, all the dinner conversations and lunch conversations have been around business. And also you know I've been very active in doing different productions of different types, from small- to medium-size. I haven't done anything as big as this but I've done enough to know how a production goes and what you need to make it work.