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Sinbad reflects on Celebrity Apprentice run, advice for some
By April MacIntyre Mar 29, 2010, 14:34 GMT
Donald Trump, Fame Pictures, Inc - Santa Monica, CA,
On NBC's "Celebrity Apprentice," the comedians and a baseball great have now been fired by Donald Trump, the executive producer and main man of the blood in the board room series.
So far Carol Leifer, Sinbad and now Darryl Strawberry have taken the ride home.
Sinbad, the second one to go, is a self-described "kid from Benton Harbor, Michigan, who just had a dream of making this work and to become one of the best at what I do" yet it wasn't enough to keep in the game, after he served as project manager on the Kodak corporate campaign.
Today Sinbad says there is "so much more that I want to do."
"I don’t really stand and look at what I’ve done so much, as there’s so much more I want to do. So, I’m not done yet. Right now, I’m on the road doing shows. We’re going to put this other tour together, including some music and comedy. It’s going to be healing the world through comedy and music. Looking forward to - I’ve been trying to put the finishing touches on a couple of movies, and looking for some TV projects. Even if it’s not one to star in yet, just to do some more - walk onto some show. I like dramas as well as comedies," he elaborated on a conference call about his time on Celebrity Apprentice.
You did pretty well to a point, what happened?
Sinbad: You know what, we did well. The thing is I know they have to edit the way they do. I think because when they know you lost, they take whatever the comments are, but I think we did really well. I know the way I work, because I’m more of a - I walk in a room, I’m walking the spot, and I look at it and then I kind of make my thoughts to myself or I say them out loud, and they might have been a little bit confused.
But I saw what we were going to do, and I know a lot of it was just going to - some things weren’t going to be able to happen until the next day because we were waiting for equipment.
So, I wish they could’ve seen on the show that - all the things that we did do that first day.
Can you tell us a little bit about the charity that you were playing for?
Sinbad: Omega Boys and Girls Club of San Francisco/Oakland. And the - and also, the StreetSoldiers.org, which is another group. But, they’re all in this same group -- Dr. Joe Marshall, man, he’s something else. They get kids off the street. They keep kids from being in the streets. They send kids to college. They try to stop violence.
They have a radio show where kids were calling in.
And when I first heard about them, they blew my mind - what they were doing. And, it’s just a wonderful organization. It’s a very unique - as a matter of fact, he’s become a pioneer. They send him around the world to talk about stopping violence. How do you stop violence among these young people?
Were you surprised at anything?
Sinbad: Well, you know you never know what to expect. I didn’t have any expectations. I just know -as a reality show, I think it’s one of the best run reality shows. I had fun with it. It was a lot more work than I thought. It’s a lot of work.
But it’s fun because you know; you're with some cool cats, so it was okay.
How much do you think different people’s personalities might play in how well they do?
Sinbad: I think personality is probably about 80 to 90% of the show, with who you are and how you work with people, and just because celebrities have very distinct personalities, and it works for what we do. And everybody there is successful in doing what they do, but sometimes being a celebrity, you can clash with other celebrities. Because you know, you kind of play in your own little world.
I think guys might have gotten my personality - you're not being flippant. You know, like Michael Johnson said, “Man, he would talk to the guy on the phone, and then he’d crack a joke.” I said the printer messed up. Why you jumping down his throat? If I’m trying to get something from a guy and I need it, why would I go off on him? I figured if I’m - I’m more light with a person, I can get more done.
Like, you're finding out - I think with Cyndi Lauper and the girls, a lot of women are having problems with Cyndi Lauper. But you know, I like Cyndi, and how she is and what she does works with how she writes her songs.
Save for the fact that you didn’t have someone manning the actual merchandise for Kodak and explaining it the way Summer did, I think that you would’ve won. I mean, do you agree?
Sinbad: Oh, yes, the biggest mistake we made - and see, the thing about the girls that was smart. Summer took it upon herself to do that. In our group, I don’t think anybody wanted to man the equipment.
Listen to this. The only one - I said I like cameras and technology, but I couldn’t do what I was doing and man the equipment. Or maybe I should’ve done it. But we couldn’t find a person to man the equipment.
Yet Bret Michaels walked around all lost, like a lost little soul...
Sinbad: You know why? He wanted to do posters and be - that’s funny. Everybody goes, “I’ll do anything you want me to do,” but no one looked around - I mean you wouldn’t know it -
Michael Johnson’s good at it, Curtis Stone was good at it, Goldberg’s good at it, Darryl Strawberry; everybody - with these guys there’s no project manager. You'll see it in the next shows.
No one tells a person you do this, you do this, you do this, you do this. Everybody kind of finds out what’s needed and jumps in because we’re all grown people. And it’s not really a job, so you just do it.
Bret just wanted to be told what to do. And at the time he was asking, we didn’t even know what we were going to do yet.
How did you feel about Rob Blagojevich with his call to his attorney when he was slinging those F-bombs?
Sinbad: I think he forgot he was on mic. Because he pulled away and went to the front of the room, but how - and he forgot he was still being miced.
It was a really telling moment.
Sinbad: It was.
Yes. I mean, he forgot that he was on mic, which is easy to do. I mean, when you're doing these shows, you actually forget that everything you're doing - or you think it won’t be used.
Who was the most formidable female contestant, do you think in your estimation?
Sinbad: That’s going to be Holly Peete Robinson.
Is Donald Trump as intimidating across that table?
Sinbad: No. He's not really intimidating because it’s not really my job.
And the only thing that got - had me going is, you want to stay for your charity. You really want to make this work for your charity. But, he’s not the one that’s intense. What’s intense is you’re hoping that - you don’t know which one of your guys is going to throw you, so that’s what gets you, man.
Who’s going to give me up?
If you really want to win this game, you got to be a little cutthroat. You got to throw someone under the bus.
Sinbad: Yes. But, Donald wants the people throwing. That’s what he lives for. You throwing each other underneath the bus. And, he’s going to make you - he’s going to keep searching until you find somebody.
What do you think was the most surprising thing about being on the show?
Sinbad: Yes. You know what the thing that really was amazing for the show was how fast that they would go, and really how much you could get done in that timeframe. I mean how much you could get done. And really, actually, how well you could work with a group of people you just met.
How do think it would’ve turned out different if you did give Bret Michaels a specific task?
Sinbad: Well, we did. They just never showed it. Nobody that edited - I gave him something to do. And then he wanted me to over-explain how to do it. But we were all - we were in the middle of doing stuff. I said, “Dude, just do it.” He wanted - “I need to know to do it.”
If you’d noticed the first - you see this is going to happen. You’re going to see in the shows to come. If you noticed that - and we were in the restaurant. That was - we got lucked out because we had Curtis Stone.
And Bret really didn’t have to do anything. And so, no one really knew what we could do until this task, and I think you'll find in future episodes, Bret’s always going to be like this.
And when I gave him something to do, he might do a little piece of it, but I still don’t know what happened that day, because I didn’t even know he was in the basement. Something had happened and he just kind of went off, so I don’t know what happened that day.
What was the specific task you gave him that we didn’t see?
Sinbad: There was some stuff to do with some of the graphics. But then again what you didn’t see was all the equipment that he had for his event. He called his guys up. Bret was busy most of the time. He had a set up almost like a rock concert, so he spent a lot of his time setting his gear up.
You and Carol Leifer were the first two to go, and you’re both comedians. What do you make of that?
Sinbad: You know what, I don’t know if it’s just coincidence, but we could’ve - if Cyndi Lauper had've gone, then it’d been a rock star that had gone. So you know, I just - I don’t think it means much whether a comedian goes first or last. I think - well, Carol - see, they messed up on Carol. Carol’s a smart person.
Explain the balloon fixation for Blago.
Sinbad: Well, once he decided he was going to do balloons, that’s all he kept talking about, like it was a big thing. I’m like, “Dude, just get the balloons.” Okay, whether you noticed or not, we had balloons even in the diner.
What we did, we just called the balloon guy and the guy brought them. There’s no big thing. He just made this thing about the balloons - about the balloons. The balloons were cool, but it was like - I guess he wanted to make sure we knew that he got these balloons.
He pushed himself aside in the board room. Because think about it, Bret Michaels - even though - he let Curtis do his thing. All he had to do was say, “Well, Sinbad help me with this.” He wanted to stay out of the firing range. Which was pretty smart. He said, “I’m going to stay out of the firing range.”
Selita Ebanks - Do you have a few words of advice for her?
Sinbad: Selita man, they don’t know much about Selita, and people see - or a person say that they’re a model. But Selita, man, is a girl from the Cayman Islands, you saw she came through when it was time to cook, and she’s a lot tougher than they even know. She’s got a lot more inside of her.
I think sometimes - see, there’s a lot of - they got a lot of chiefs over on the women’s side. And you could even say that they bumped heads. Even most of the guys do, but they bump heads heavy, you know. Very strong personalities.
