Symone and Gigi Goode on How ‘Drag Race’ Prepared Them for ‘Avalon TV’: “It’s the Boot Camp”

Avalon TV’s premiere on WOW Presents Plus is an event that felt inevitable — like it’s making good on a promise made during back-to-back seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Fans of the Emmy-winning competition show were first introduced to the House of Avalon — a creative collective transplanted to Los Angeles from Arkansas of all places — by house member Gigi Goode on Drag Race Season 12. And then a season later, her sister Symone continued the house’s reality TV reign by snatching the Season 13 crown. Through two seasons of Drag Race, Gigi Goode and Symone showcased the attitutde and artistry of the House of Avalon — and now that house is also a TV station.

Avalon TV, a new variety/sketch/reality/talk show, gives the collective a platform to do whatever they want however they want. In addition to putting Gigi and Symone back on our TVs, the series puts collective members Hunter Crenshaw, Marko Monroe, Grant Vanderbilt, Caleb, and Rylie in front of the camera in truly wild situations. From sitcom parodies to a dragified riff on Jackass, Avalon TV fears no genre or format.

Coinciding with Avalon TV’s premiere on WOW Presents Plus, Decider chatted with Symone and Gigi Goode about nostalgia, how Drag Race prepped them for Avalon TV stardom, and what it’s like to bringing this collective to a wider audience.

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Decider: Avalon TV is essentially a dozen shows in one. How did you land on this concept?

Gigi Goode: The whole point of the show was that it’s a culmination of every single genre of television that we all love and have loved for years just wrapped into one. It’s supposed to be like you’re flipping through the channels. 

Symone: Yes, that was that was the whole beginning point for us. 

Gigi Goode: Just when you think that you’ve grasped what’s going on, it changes and then it’s gone.

I’m a child of the ’90s and the show really evokes that feeling of it being Saturday afternoon and flipping channels. How did you decide what kind of shows you were going to do? 

Symone: I think it was pretty easy, because we all have our own individual loves, but we all kind of love the same thing. We want to do a talk show, we want Rylie on the street talking to random people, we want to do skits, we want to do Jackass — it was very natural. We want to make sure that we get every kind of mood, every type of genre, every type of feeling so that people can connect to something. Even if it’s if not everything, they can connect to something.

Gigi Goode: It’s meant to feel really familiar, and it’s meant to feel nostalgic. Even if you claim to not be a television person growing up, “I didn’t watch too much TV, blah, blah, blah” — you will feel some sense of connection to the show because you have seen it, whether you like it or not.

Seeing all of you lined up, that full body shot at the very beginning, it felt very 90210, very Levi’s commercial. It’s almost like you’re showing the younger generation what the vibes were like back then. Was there ever a concern that you needed to do something more 2000s Disney Channel to reach a wider audience?

Symone: I don’t think it was necessarily something like we were like, “this is what the kids need to know!” I don’t think that was the jumping off point.

Gigi Goode: It’s just everything that educated us growing up. I don’t know if we’re necessarily trying to pass that forward. I think if you learn something from the show, which you probably will, then that’s great. And if you don’t, then you just watched something so insane and you have no idea what it was, but you want more. We have really no prerogative behind the show except that it’s entertaining to us and it’s going to entertain you.

With the Jackass parody Dragass, there is a difference between saying, “Oh, we should do a Jackass parody” and then actually having to do it. When you were on set trying to suck a cricket out of a pipe, did you have second thoughts?

Symone: Oh, many! Many! 

Gigi Goode: That’s the whole point of Dragass and Jackass. They were doing things that make them really come out of their comfort zone —

Symone: Which we want! I really wanted to do that because we were always stunning and gorgeous but it would be really fun if people could see us doing crazy, ridiculous things. At one point we were gonna put you on a Porta-Potty full of poo and shoot you up [into the sky] — and I was like, “… Maybe Season 2.”

How did making Avalon TV differ from the commercials and acting challenges on Drag Race? Did those prepare you for this?

Symone: Oh, 1000%. I think it’s the boot camp. We both said, “We came through this and so we can do anything.” So filming this was really fun and we didn’t have the stress of we’re competing.

Gigi Goode: It’s also almost completely reality, so it’s not even something that was insanely preconceived. It just is a lot of what’s happening in the moment.

What about Avalon TV do you think will most surprise your fans?

Symone: I think what we’re willing to show — I think people have this concept of us, that we’re above it all. We get that sometimes, but I think people will definitely get our humor, our humanity, and our creativity. I think people will get to know us on a different level. I think people were shocked at what we unleashed.

Gigi Goode: I mean, I think people are gonna be surprised at how unserious everything is. I think a lot of people think we just have our shit together. It’s like good to go out the door, but it’s a long road getting there, but the road is a whole lot of fun.

New episodes of Avalon TV premiere on Mondays on WOW Presents Plus