Get brunch with Dan Levy: An exclusive preview of his heartwarming reality competition The Big Brunch
Jeremy Kohm/HBO Max
Sitting across an art-deco bistro table on a Hollywood soundstage, Dan Levy sips on a glass of champagne and shakes his head at how much syrup is in his Instagram feed. "Most of my content is syrup dripping off of a stack of French toast, or bread being baked, or delicious recipes being made that I'm never going to make for myself," the Schitt's Creek star says. "But I really liked the idea of looking at them, and I thought, 'Well, there's a show here.'"
What started as a passing thought as Levy drifted off to sleep one night has now baked into The Big Brunch, an HBO Max culinary competition that will debut on Nov. 10 and is hosted and judged by the Emmy winner.
In many ways, The Big Brunch is a return to Levy's reality TV roots. (He started out hosting a The Hills after show on MTV in his native Canada.) But the actor-producer-creator actually sees Brunch as the perfect fusion of his unscripted experience and Schitt's, which is celebrated for its general positivity. "I'm drawn inherently to things that are well intentioned," says Levy, whose passion for reality TV was reinvigorated after watching The Great British Baking Show and hosting the first two seasons of The Great Canadian Baking Show. "I found it to be this revolutionary idea," he says of Baking Show, "the fact that you can put people together in a 'competitive situation' and it's not about a competition between each other. It's about a competition between a baker and their own potential."
HBO MAX Dan Levy and Sohla El-Waylly judge 'The Big Brunch'.
Levy made sure to bring that mentality to Brunch, which meant casting was key. When describing how they chose the chefs who will compete over eight episodes on season 1, he is intentional in saying they found "10 good people" not good "chefs": "I think the stories that we will tell, that our 10 chefs will tell, will really warm people's hearts," he says, though he promises, "the whole thing is just like a nice warm hug without ever feeling saccharin, because I have a real aversion and a phobia of faux sentimentality and unearned warmth."
All that said, Brunch is a competition — and to help him judge the dishes, Levy recruited chef Sohla El-Waylly and restauranteur Will Guidara. "Sohla and Will offer such strong perspectives culinarily, from a business point of view," says Levy. "I think it's a rare alchemy to have an enthusiast, a chef, and a restaurateur coexisting in a way where we really appreciate each other. I think as a trio, we're able to offer a really comprehensive world of criticism, constructive criticism."
"If our role is to help them grow, you need to criticize," says Guidara. "But it can be constructive criticism [as opposed to] destructive criticism. Investing in people is also just as entertaining, and can actually be quite heartwarming. And isn't that a choice we'd rather make?"
"I didn't realize I was going to be so invested in the contestants," says El-Waylly, joining her fellow judges at the bistro table on the Brunch set just minutes after filming the finale of season 1. "I don't have feelings, but I almost cried," she jokes of seeing the winner crowned. "They're all just nice people who have been supporting each other the whole time. You don't see that a lot with competition shows — even till the end, they were helping each other."
HBO MAX Dan Levy, Sohla El-Waylly, and Will Guidara judge 'The Big Brunch'.
"You don't need to ax people off with a butcher's knife in order to get people to watch," explains executive producer Sarina Roma, with fellow EP Andrew Fried adding that the Brunch team "approached it more from a point of connection instead of conflict."
"It sounds new age-y and hippy dippy and all that kind of bulls---," adds Levy. "But it really is true."
Still, there's $300,000 on the line — a hefty prize amount Levy says was "a crucial amount of money" because "I wanted to make sure that this show wasn't performative. And I wanted to make sure that when someone won, that it was money that will actually change the foundation of their life."
To do that, the judges had to put the contestants' stories aside… mostly. "The food always comes first," says El-Waylly. "We want people who are going to be culinarily technical enough to be able to do something with this money." Adds Guidara: "What's on the plate is one thing, and then the impact that [the chef stands] to make with that is a part of it as well. The idea of this was to try and invest in someone based on their talents and also based on what they could go out into the world and do with those talents."
HBO MAX Dan Levy, Sohla El-Waylly, and Will Guidara judge 'The Big Brunch'.
"That's what the show is about — it's very much about humanity," Levy sums up. "Even though it's brunch, even though I'm screaming about a cinnamon bun or screaming about delicious Kanji, there's that fine balance," he adds, taking another sip of his champagne. "And there's an open bar, so things get loose."
Make sure to check out EW's Fall TV Preview cover story — as well as all of our 2022 Fall TV Preview content, releasing over 22 days through Sept. 29.
Related content:
