Ready to Be ‘Naked and Afraid’? See How to Sign Up for the Survival Show
Published Aug. 28 2022, 12:23 p.m. ET
Another season of Naked and Afraid XL is coming to a close tonight, Sunday, Aug. 28, on Discovery, and it’s only a matter of time before producers need more contestants to bare all and bear the wilderness either in that show or its predecessor. Wondering how to sign up for Naked and Afraid? We’ve got you covered below!
In tonight’s finale of Naked and Afraid XL: Frozen — the ninth season of the supersized XL edition of Naked and Afraid — contestants Jake N. and Waz A. fend off hunger pangs in the frigid isolation of Montana’s Rocky Mountains, while trying not to become a grizzly-bear snack, as seen in a TV Insider preview. “Trying to find a meal to stay alive, it’s a constant struggle,” Jake says. “We haven’t eaten since day 10. We need to do it soon. I’m definitely starting to hear those tummy growls.”
The ‘Naked and Afraid’ casting application is open.
Renegade 83, the production company behind Naked and Afraid, has a casting application for the show on its website. According to the company, casting agents will reach out to you to schedule an interview once they receive your application and photo.
According to Renegade 83’s eligibility requrements for the show, you must be 21 years old, you must be a U.S. citizen or a permanent U.S. resident, and you must not be a candidate for public office or become one until one year after your episodes air.
The casting application asks for basic biographical and contact information — your name, birthday, gender, email address, phone number, place of residence — and asks prospective contestants to describe why they want to be on the show.
A casting director for the show says you have to prove your survival skills.
Kristi Russell, who has done casting work Naked and Afraid, told Channel Guide Magazine what it’s like to find talent for the show in a 2015 interview. “Every season, the number of people applying increases,” she said. “Unfortunately, the number of people who actually are qualified enough to get on the show remains the same, and that is a scant number of submissions.”
According to Kristi, the casting agents for the show are looking for three talents: fire, water, and shelter. “If you can come to us and prove that you can start fire in more than one way, that you have a really deep and wide knowledge of shelter-building, and if you can name three or four ways to get water, and you can prove it… [If] you can actually show us that you have the skill set, you’ve got a huge leg up on everyone else.”
Searching for “these really elite survivalists,” Kristi and her colleagues started seeking out “really interesting survival stories,” she said. “For instance, ‘I was in a boat that capsized off the coast of North Carolina, and I was out there for 40 days on my own, and I managed to survive.’ While this person might not have the traditional survival skills of fire-making and shelter, they clearly have the mental fortitude to survive in the most harrowing of circumstances.”