Project Runway is back and Heidi Klum is in a talking mood! She sat down with LA Confidential magazine and chatted about the move to Lifetime, her forthcoming book and the disastrous Emmy gig.
Are you happy with the show's new home at Lifetime?
It's been great. They really wanted Project Runway to come on, and the lawsuit put a downer on things for a second, but they're excited to have us. They're very accommodating, particularly where food is concerned [laughs]. Food is so important when you're on a set. People are working from seven in the morning to nine or 10 at night, so it makes a huge difference if there's random mush or something really great. Maybe because I was pregnant, they always had doughnuts.
Was there a risk involved in moving the show to LA?
HK: People will ask us, "Why LA? LA isn't a fashion capital." But if you look at the history of American fashion, it started in Hollywood with designers making gowns for all the starlets. Sometimes I joke with Tim [Gunn] that we should do Project Runway on an island. "Here's 15 minutes, now go into the bushes and find whatever you can and make an outfit." I picture Michael [Kors] and me, super tan in our director's chairs and me in a bikini saying, "Welcome to the runway!"
I think you just planned season nine. In other exciting news, your new coffee-table book, Rankin's Heidilicious, is coming out in October.
HK: It's very naughty. I've been shooting with this photographer, Rankin, for seven years, and working with him is fun because he always makes me look different. And he always gets me to take my clothes off for some reason. We'll do some job, and then he'll say, "Why don't we shoot some more things," and I'll wind up without anything on.
Of course it does. Are you excited about your Emmy nominations?
HK: Definitely! I was nominated last year [for Best Reality Host], and the five of us from that category hosted the awards. Man, we got so beaten over the head for that! It's not like the four boys and. You get hired to do it, they give you a script and you learn your lines. If I could have, I would have done the whole thing in German, with subtitles--everyone in dirndls and on swings and milking cows. Each nominee would have had to ride in on a big cow and milk it.
Now that would have been something to watch.
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