‘LEGO Masters’ Season 4: Amy Corbett & Jamie Berard Tease Bigger Prizes, Bolder Builds & Kittens
Season 4 of LEGO Masters is coming with bigger bricks and bolder builds in the Fox competition series, where the winner won’t just walk away with a cash prize. Judges Amy Corbett and Jamie Berard are returning alongside host and executive producer Will Arnett.
The reality competition will see 12 teams of challengers competing for $100,000, a shiny trophy as the season’s winner, and the title of grand champion. For the first time, the winner will also immortalize their build forever when it’s transformed into a LEGO set, which will be displayed at the LEGO Store flagship.
Throughout the season, viewers will be treated to awe-inspiring builds, ranging from Cirque du Soleil-inspired creations to constructing an explosive volcano. Other exciting new challenges include building remote control cars with LEGO, crash tests, and creating LEGO pet palaces for a group of kittens on set.
Below, Corbett and Berard tease what to expect this season and some of their favorite moments to come.
It’s all in the loglines, all in the trailer. What is your favorite four motif for Season 4?
Jamie Berard: I think we’re very fortunate to have Will Arnett on it, really at the forefront. On a scale of one to four, he’s definitely a four. That’s all I got.
What was the decision behind introducing a new reward this season, with the winners getting their own build made for the LEGO store?
Berard: Oh my God, it’s every kid’s dream. It was actually pitched as an idea trying to make this season especially special, and it was just thrown out, and we did not expect it to go anywhere. And then we actually were able to make it work. And if you’ve ever seen teams motivated, $100,000 gets them so far. But to have your own LEGO set, something that you’ve created translated into a LEGO set, that was just like leagues ahead exciting.
With that in mind, were you looking for anything different in a LEGO build from the competitors this season?
Amy Corbett: It’s all about the finale build. So we’ve revealed it to all of you guys, but we didn’t necessarily reveal it to our builders right away. It was all around their finale and [those] builds. But we wanted them to think a little bit differently. We wanted them to think not just about themselves and how they were represented in the bricks, but how other people and people who would maybe own this set would relate to it and what they would find interesting and exciting in the styling and the build rather than the subject matter.
Berard: We often tell people on the show, if you couldn’t explain your model, what is your model? How does it speak for itself? And that’s very much when you’re at a store, and you see a LEGO set on the shelf, and there’s nobody there to tell you all of the thoughts behind it and why you should be interested in it. It really is about creating that captivating moment that people can connect with and then want to own and experience themselves. It was kind of nice to see that the builders really have to embrace that and try to come up with something that you at home would be equally inspired by and want to build.
What is it exactly that makes the perfect LEGO build? Is it a mix of personality and story behind it? A complex design?
Corbett: What is the winning formula? In the competition, we’re always pushing our teams to show us their technical ability. How can they use the bricks, the storytelling, how can they captivate and make all the details matter, to really push creativity and imagination? And then, I guess there’s just that special something that makes it feel unique and new, something you haven’t seen a million times before, what makes it special. But there’s a lot of little nuances that go into that to make it work.
Berard: I think we almost take for granted that everyone on the show is going to build something amazing. And so when you’re in that environment, you know everyone is capable of building awesome stuff. It does give you that extra motivation to say, “How am I going to stand out from this crowd?” And that’s when we really get excited because we continually see the builders that have seen the show year on year and just see the caliber of talent and what’s being done. They’re already coming into this with some ideas. They’re already coming in knowing the level that they’re going into. And that’s where we continually get excited because that’s where people really impress us and show us something different.
Tom Griscom/FOX
Did you have any favorite challenges this season? I saw something about LEGO cat sanctuaries!
Corbett: I mean, who doesn’t love having cute kittens in the studio? So that was certainly a great day for filming. It was a really fun challenge for our team because they had to take their kittens — they all have unique personalities — and make houses for them that would really suit them. And so we definitely had a lot of fun with that challenge.
Berard: And the Cirque du Soleil! If you’ve ever seen their shows, they’ve just elevated performance art to a whole ‘nother level. They came into the studio, and everyone got to see a Cirque du Soleil show perfectly curated just for us. But then they had to somehow translate all of that beauty, all of that creativity into a LEGO model. But it wasn’t in the usual context; we actually brought them out of their comfort zones and tried to pair them together to create something that they’ve never had to do before.
Did you guys each personally have a favorite build from the season that you can share without getting in trouble?
Berard: I think there’s a moment that we will both remember forever. Because it was so ambitious and mind-blowing, it’ll be hard to top, I’ll have to say that. And we say that every season. But this time, it was genuinely a moment where we had to–
Corbett: The three of us were looking at each other like, is this happening? Are they really going to do this? And when they pull it off?
Berard: We were, for the first time, trying to go, “Whoa, is this really what you want to do?” We’re normally trying to encourage them to go bigger, you know, make something more amazing. And this time, we’re just kind of like, “Wow, we have to think about this. And where is this going?” Because it is beyond what we had ever expected.
It feels like this is a “you’ll know when you see it” kind of thing
Berard: Oh, you’ll know. For all of these challenges, we do our best to try to get a sense of where they could go, we test them, and we actually had builders in the background that try these things. And when you just have something that you have some expectations on either end of where it could go, to have that totally go in a different direction, that’s the level of excitement that we felt where we had genuinely no idea how it was gonna turn out.
Any surprises we can expect in Season 4?
Berard: I think beyond having [cameos], there’s an introduction to a universe that people at home will know and love, like 2K Games. We actually have a challenge where the builders are making remote control cars, and the winning car will actually become a digital version that people at home can experience in their own game. This is like a double win this season that not only is there a LEGO model at the end of the winning team, but there’s a digital model that kids can experience in a game space. So, I would say that was actually pretty impressive.
Could you explain your roles at LEGO and one of your favorite builds based on intellectual property?
Berard: To be able to be a broadcaster, I think hopefully what we bring to the show is our depth of experience, and Amy and I actually balance each other quite nicely. We challenge the teams to have the creativity, the storytelling, and the technical ability. We deal with that every day in our jobs. We actually work with creative designers; we design LEGO products. And we’ve also worked long enough in this that we’ve gotten a lot of exposure, not only to the things that the LEGO Company has made but also within the fan community. I’m a LEGO fan at heart, and I go to fan events; I see what people can build. So, I have an expectation of what’s out there and what people who are really good at their craft can do. So the fact that we can bring that to the table, it helps when people are looking to us for guidance or when we’re judging these. We have something to speak from. We actually can help them improve, hopefully, their craft and do something amazing that they didn’t even think was possible. And it’s just those years of experience.
Corbett: And then favorite sets that are from a property, I think that the Disney Villains with the different icons is one that I’ve been eyeing up in the employee shop every time I walked in, actually.
Berard: And I have to admit, I’m a huge Star Wars fan, so if it flies, I probably own it.
LEGO Masters, Season 4 Premiere, Thursday, September 28, 9/8c, FOX
