When the upcoming season of The Challenge arrives, Chris “CT” Tamburello, a longtime veteran of the series, will be on the cast.
CT has been on 18 seasons over the years, including his appearance on Season 35, Total Madness, and his win on War of the Worlds 2 several seasons ago.
Now, he’s looking to go for another win with The Challenge: Double Agents, and also working on his career outside of MTV, including a recent horror movie role.
He spoke about both of those roles and how competing on the MTV series helped him with the film work.
CT says The Challenge helped him in horror movie role
Most fans know CT for his Boston accent and maturation from a hot-headed youngster into an elder statesman full of wisdom and strategy on The Challenge. At 40 years old, he’s married and has a kid, but still appearing on MTV’s competition series.
However, he just got into movies with his first big role in a horror film called Habitual. He plays Brett Mitchell in the movie, which he is also a co-executive producer for. It also involved being in a scary setting that many people might not want to spend a lot of time in. It’s something he’s dealt with on The Challenge.
“This place was as real as it gets, from the broken-down roof to the fingernail claw marks on the doors of the cell,” CT said in an interview with People. “They were state hospitals built in the 1800s, early 1900s, and they were all pretty much shut down and condemned back in the ’80s.”
A movie trailer has been released showing off some of the setting and a bit of CT. He said his own wife (Lilianet Solares) couldn’t make it through the trailer, which may also be a challenge for some viewers. However, it was a good sign to CT that it was effective as horror.
Habitual arrived online via video on demand (VOD) with Amazon as of Friday, November 13, giving viewers a psychological drug horror film featuring a terrifying rave at an abandoned lunatic asylum in Salem, Massachusetts.
The role came thanks to his childhood friend Johnny Hickey, also CT’s co-star and the film’s director. CT also made it clear that being on MTV’s show with various obstacle courses and brutal challenges helped him with the role.
“The Challenge definitely helped me prepare for this,” CT told People in regard to stunts in the movie. “We didn’t have any safety harnesses or safety nets or anything. There were times you had to watch where you step; There were huge holes in the floor caving in, missing walls. Tetanus is probably rapid, asbestos, ghosts.”
CT’s friend Johnny even said he watched his buddy “jumping through a door like a maniac.”
That was something CT was last seen trying to do on The Challenge: Total Madness, but unfortunately, he was eliminated by a rookie.
CT to appear on Double Agents, speaks on Challenge future
The upcoming Season 36 of MTV’s Challenge series is Double Agents and once again looks to be a grueling battle complete with tough competitions, eliminations, and a twist.
Plenty of viewers will be looking to see if CT can make it further than his Total Madness run or if he might get eliminated by an upset-minded rookie. That was his fate on Season 35, as Jay Starrett made a name for himself with an epic ousting of the veteran.
With Chris Tamburello now 40, it’s putting him up there in age. While he doesn’t appear ready to hang up his gear just yet, he also looks like he wants to get into more movie projects.
“The Challenge, that’s always going to be my first love,” CT also told People. “I loved doing this with Johnny and I think we have more. I would really like to go in forward and assume more of these projects that Johnny’s been getting his hands on.”
Based on CT’s IMDb page, he’s got a 2021 role as well. It’s a television series in pre-production called D.O.P.E. Unit, with CT playing Danny “Knocko” Shea.
As of this writing, there are no release date details, but it’s definitely exciting to see this longtime Challenge star finding additional fame beyond the reality TV show he’s become so popular from.
The Challenge: Double Agents premieres Wednesday, December 9 at 8/7c. Habitual is available on-demand via Amazon Video.