Tia Carrere on Celebrity Apprentice Season 12: After School All Stars, Façades, and Playing the Long Game

Tia Carrere said it plainly: "You inevitably get beyond the public persona and the façade that people project. They get worn down and they get tired a…" — and Premier Guide Miami was in the room when it happened.

On February 29, 2012, NBC held a press conference call for Celebrity Apprentice Season 12 with host Donald Trump alongside contestants Tia Carrere and George Takei. Premier Guide Miami's Daedrian McNaughton was on the call. This piece focuses on Carrere — her charity, her read on the show's social dynamics, and the lesson she took from watching other project managers go first.

You inevitably get beyond the public persona and the façade that people project. They get worn down and they get tired and they get grumpy and you really get to see to the core of people.

After School All Stars — and Arnold Schwarzenegger

Carrere's charity is After School All Stars, and the connection is personal and long-standing. "I was introduced to my charity by Arnold Schwarzenegger about 18 years ago. We did some stuff down in East LA. It was primarily an athletic after school program but now it's grown dramatically across America." She had just returned from two months in Hawaii when she joined the cast, and the timing was deliberate: "They just recently opened an after school program in my neighborhood in Hawaii. And I got involved with the Hawaii chapter and I thought, you know what, the money that Celebrity Apprentice provides for charity could make a huge difference in my personal neighborhood. And so it was a very personal thing getting into this."

On the women's team dynamic — and being marginalized

Asked about the divide forming between Lisa, Aubrey, and Teresa and the rest of the women's team, Carrere was precise: "I think it's very apparent that people that know how to play to the camera and get their voices heard — there are others of us that have a much more understated style. And unfortunately that sometimes gets mistaken for weakness or any sort of malleability. So it's easy for them to marginalize." She didn't take it personally, but noted the structural problem: "By design we're in two separate vehicles; that made it very, very difficult to communicate with someone that's hard to communicate with in the first place."

The best thing about the show — when the façade drops

Carrere and George Takei found their most natural agreement when talking about what the show reveals about people once the performance wears off. "You inevitably get beyond the public persona and the façade that people project," Carrere said. "They get worn down and they get tired and they get grumpy and you really get to see to the core of people. And you see which people really aren't very nice and which people you think wow I thought they were so sweet or nice but whoa, they've got fangs. It's very, very interesting to see that front face drop." On Victoria Gotti specifically: "I liked her a lot actually. Even though I called her out as saying I would bring her back in — but I think Victoria Gotti is terrific. She's tough. And she did realize that it was a straight cut thing."

On the Trump family — and Donald Jr.

Carrere was warm about the Trump children working on the show. "I really enjoyed getting to know your family, Mr. Trump. I have a soft spot for Donald Junior — he's just a sweetie. I think it's a great testament to you. You think, wow, very foreboding presence and powerful man. But he's also raised a really wonderful and bright family. And they have very great insights and they're great business people in and of their own right."

Playing the long game as project manager

Asked whether she was eager to take the project manager role early in the season, Carrere described a deliberate patience: "I think the first two challenges people immediately chimed up, oh I'm great at that. So I was like, you know what, I'm going to give this a beat. I wanted to give the game some time to play out and learn how it works. There are some technological things that we needed to figure out. So I wanted to leave it some space to breathe and grow and learn the ropes and let other people make some mistakes before I jumped in." She also had a quick laugh about the medieval challenge — watching George Takei improvise as a herald while she played what Takei called "the 21st Century Raquel Welch cave-girl." "Thy and thine," she said, "swing a sword or something and it's still exciting for the kids." Celebrity Apprentice airs Sundays at 9 p.m. Eastern on NBC.

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