Described as a mixture between the voyeur-based competition aspect found in CBS’s Big Brother and all the online identity mysteries that are brought up in MTV’s Catfish, Netflix’s The Circle is certainly a reality show for the modern audience. Beginning in 2020 and using social media as its main hook, a group of contestants is chosen to live inside a simple apartment building. While that premise may sound simple enough, the only way these people can communicate with each other is through The Circle app that is located inside their homes.
As they cannot see each other face to face at any point in the competition, anybody can truly be whoever they want. Along with minigames, rating exercises, and the voting-based blocking process (in which players are eliminated), The Circle has quickly become a massively entertaining reality show for Netflix subscribers.
The sixth and latest season premiered on April 17th and ended almost a month later, on May 8th, and audiences were once again fully tuned in to this exciting reality show. Whenever he could, party boy Myles Reed was flirting with football cheerleader Quori-Tyler Bullock — even having breakfast delivered to her door. International basketball player Kyler Fuller was almost instantly accused by the wacky and creative Lauren Lachant of being an A.I. robot (Kyle was most definitely real). The most scandalous part of this season, though, had to be when 34-year-old Brandon Baker enters The Circle not as himself but as his colleague, a petite blonde woman named Olivia. While this alter ego was never used maliciously or with ill intent, he certainly fooled Fuller.
While Brandon (aka Olivia) ended up winning the sixth season of The Circle, Fuller finished gracefully as the humble runner-up. Speaking about these moments as well as many other backstage details, the 32-year-old point guard recently sat down with MovieWeb to tell us all about his memorable time on the show.
Pretending to Be Single for The Circle
In order to appear more open to others (platonically and perhaps romantically, if need be), Fuller hid the fact that he was married. His wife, Jackie, wasn’t so keen on this game plan at first. “I studied all the seasons and usually all the winners were single — I [thought] I might need to go into that the same way. Jackie was not with it at first. She was like, ‘I don’t think so. Maybe if you’re just a really friendly husband, maybe it’ll be more inviting.'” Fuller explained his strategic perspective to her, saying:
But then I said to her, ‘Sometimes feelings can overpower the brain, so if someone is really feeling me, they’re going to keep me high [in the rankings].’ Bring the money home, that’s what really matters, right? And she said, ‘Yeah, you’re right.’
With that agreement laying the groundwork, Kyle Fuller went to officially become a part of The Circle.
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Kyle Fuller on the Difficult Choice Between The Circle and Basketball
Surprisingly, Fuller says that he wasn’t even the one who entered his name into the casting selection for The Circle — his wife and her friend thought that he would be great for the game show. Even though he thought so too, a big decision immediately came into play. “The thing is, I was more focused on basketball because I was training for the next season. I soon get a call, and it goes, ‘I’m so-and-so from The Circle, and you’re my guy.’ I said, ‘Oh my God, this is actually happening right now.'” Fuller continued:
“So now I have to think about something.
Either I go play basketball or go to
The Circle
. I had a contract to go to Argentina. But this was my chance to stay home
and make a good amount of money and still be able to take care of my family. I’m gone 10 months out of the year hooping, so I was going to take this chance.”
Fuller also iterates that a lot of his naysayers bring up the assumption that a basketball player of his caliber has no use for the $100,000 prize. “I’m not in the NBA,” said Fuller. “I don’t make that type of money.”
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Kyle Fuller Goes Behind the Scenes on the Rules of The Circle
One of the most interesting parts of the show is the fact that contestants never actually meet each other (except for when they are blocked or during the season finale). For the four weeks in between, this detail seemed to be just as crucial behind the scenes as it was in front of the camera. Speaking on how the producers kept this rule afloat even during everyday activities, Fuller said:
“They had producers that would make sure you would not run into somebody else.
If I wanted to go to the gym, what they’d do was come in with a blindfold and some earphones because I would be passing other people’s rooms on the way there
. They didn’t want me to hear them or see them. I would have to follow somebody to the place that I wanted to get to.”
As much as the show is a meditation on how technology mediates human relationships today, real life social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram were not used while filming The Circle. They would obviously give away who each person was. Instead, a specifically designed app was utilized in order for contestants to communicate with others. While the bios were quickly filled and the photo albums were stuffed with pics they all thought should be seen, the runner-up tells MovieWeb that there was definitely some behind the scenes help when it came to getting their voice messages onto the screen.
“I speak a lot of slang sometimes, and I would get, ‘Kyle, could you please repeat that?‘ if I speak too fast, which happens when I get going,” explained Fuller. “They’ll be like, “Okay Kyle, calm down and say it a little slower.” One of the most used features of The Circle social media app seemed to be the ability to privately chat with other players. Even though it seemed to be a natural action by the players, Fuller explained how there was always approval needed by the producers for such a segment.
“If I wanted to talk to Lauren,
I had to give a reason for why I wanted to talk
to Lauren. ‘Is it strategic? Do you want to flirt?’
You had to say why you wanted to talk to that person and see if it was important enough
. For example, I wanted to talk to Tres Fuego at one point because, at a certain point, we were trying to get this person out and we needed to figure out a strategy.”
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Kyle and His Dog Deuce
When speaking about the beginning of that epic season finale, Fuller says that there was a sequence during that episode involving his canine friend which in fact was filmed but never made it to the final cut:
“When the first five came out, Deuce also came out and everybody got to meet him.
I wished they had shown that part because it was a very important part to me. He was in the trenches with me
— what I was going through, he was there.”
He does give The Circle producers credit though, as Deuce is shown with him as he walks into the lounge before all the other players. Fuller also commented about how his dog added to the suspense when it came to the blockings. “If you’re waiting to see if that person comes inside your room, sometimes what [the behind the scenes crew] would do is knock on your door. The thing is, every time they would knock, my dog would think someone was there and run to the door.”
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Olivia Wins The Circle — Except She’s Brandon
As mentioned at the beginning of this piece, the sixth season of The Circle featured a romance between Myles and QT with a potential first date brewing between the two once the series ended. Fuller is, of course, rooting for them and has his fingers crossed. Before elaborating on the massive twist that threw him for a loop, he discloses that Myles, QT, and Brandon are the ones he talks to the most in post-Circle life. Speaking of the winner — Brandon and his alter ego “Olivia” — Fuller says that he thought the person walking into the room in that final episode was somebody else:
“
The moment that Brandon walked through that hallway — I thought it was a producer just walking past for a second until he was looking at us like he belonged there. My first thought was that the whole world was about to find out how freaky we got in order for me to get that vote. The second was, I think I’m talking to a nice blonde, but instead it’s a 34-year-old man. It was like, ‘I’m your Teddy?'”
“It really threw me,” continued Fuller, “but then once you get to meet Brandon, he’s such a wonderful human being. Everything he told me about his dad and his life was real, so the thing is, if I didn’t win, I was happy that he did.”
The newest season of The Circle is now available to stream on Netflix. You can watch it through the link below:
