Catwalk queen Naomi Campbell stepped out at the Mipcom TV market to hype season two of “The Face” and confessed that she is happy for other models to step into her stilettos should the series become a hit global format.
The 43 year old supermodel is signed up for season two of mentoring duties on modeling competition show “The Face” for Oxygen in the U.S., and next month heads Down Under to topline the Australian version for Fox 8. A U.K. adaptation – which also features Campbell – bowed earlier this month on Sky Living.
But if the format takes off internationally don’t expect the supermodel to be cast as one of the three models whose job it is to mentor wannabes competing to become the face of Max Factor.
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“I know a lot of wonderful models. If the format was sold to Brazil I know who should play me,” she said during a round of press interviews at Cannes’ palatial Majestic Hotel.
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Campbell will nonetheless retain her executive producer role on “The Face,” created by Shine America and distributed by Shine Intl., wherever the show travels.
A notoriously prickly interviewee whose temper is legendary, her brief audience with Variety – the interview was scheduled to last 15 minutes but her minders call time after 11 minutes – is polite if guarded.
So why has she agreed to do a reality TV show, especially as unscripted is no longer part of the cutting edge?
“The concept was right for me, unlike a lot of other TV concepts I’ve been offered,” she says. “I liked the mentoring aspect and sharing my 27 year knowledge of young, aspiring models.”
For any adaptation – versions of The Face in Canada, South America, Asia, Africa, and France are “in talks” – she will help chose the three models who do the mentoring, she says.
Campbell, not surprisingly, predicts a long shelf life for “The Face”; “American’s Next Top Model” is still around a decade after it started.
“To have a launch pad like that at the beginning of your career is incredible. It is a dream,” explains Campbell referring to the winner of “The Face” becoming the face of Max Factor.
