‘Celebrity IOU’: Drew & Jonathan Scott Dish on Stars Getting Hands Dirty on Show

Better stock up on those boxes of tissues in the New Year because Drew and Jonathan Scott are back for Celebrity IOU. The popular HGTV series returns January 1 and sees the Property Brothers link up with A-listers to surprise special people in their lives with home renovations. Through the process, the celebrities share personal stories of their respective bonds, which along with the results are truly heartwarming.

The episodes kick off with Ray Romano and Anna Faris, followed by Mayim Bialik, Sterling K. Brown, Rosario Dawson, Regina Hall, Zoe Saldaña, and Fran Drescher. We caught up with Jonathan and Drew to preview the projects they’ll tackle and how the celebs are not afraid to get their hands dirty.

Are you finding that you have to be more selective with the stars who want to participate?  

Drew Scott: You know, Dwayne Johnson just keeps harassing me. Dwayne wants to be on. I’m like, “Listen, I don’t want to travel to Hawaii right now.”

Jonathan Scott: He wants to come in on a helicopter hanging with one arm to show off the guns, but we don’t have the budget for that.

Drew: Seriously though, if he said he wanted to do that, I would pay for that personally. But honestly, there are a ton of people who do want to come on the show. We only have so many episodes. The main thing for us is making sure we’re telling different stories. We don’t want all the stories to be the same. We’ve been so fortunate when you think of the dynamic mix of everyone we’ve had on. There are so many touching stories. If you don’t cry every episode you watch, you’re a heartless beast.

Jonathan: We’re always trying to find different stories with the recipients. It gets emotional. I also love how into it some of these celebrities get, especially ones who have never done demolition before. They’ve never done any renovations. There seems to be this running joke now that started with Halle Berry, who tackled Drew to the ground. Now Zoe took Drew out. Now Rosario Dawson knocked Drew to the ground. It’s like the new thing where these powerhouse women get so excited about the demolition they take Drew out.

Drew: My thing is I have to stop challenging superheroes and Jedis to fights.

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When you see Ray on the show, there seems to be this competitiveness too. For him, if Brad Pitt did it, Ray wanted to do it. 

Drew: There is is a competitiveness. I remember in past seasons when Allison Janney wore one of her red carpet dresses for demolition. So Rainn Wilson wanted to top that, so he brought these medieval battle axes and went shirtless doing a demo. They are trying to one-up each other.

Jonathan: It’s true because of someone like Ray Romano. He is not trying to be funny. He is just funny. The crew is cracking up laughing. Everybody brings so much.

Drew: Another memory, do you remember Taraji P. Henson’s nails? She was wearing these long nails during demolition. That’s what is impressive to me. Just how many days they will come to be part of the entire process. She is there wearing her outfit to get dirty because it was a backyard renovation. I said, “You might damage those nails.” She was like, “No, I put these on for today”  She wanted them to dig for gardening and prepping the space. They are all in.

How was it working with Anna Faris and Mayim Bialik?

Drew: The thing I do love is Anna was like. “Do you need me here at 6 a.m.? I’m here all day.” She stepped up to the plate.

Jonathan: She would show up to set even before we got there.

Drew: It’s the commitment. You know how much they are giving back. For some of the celebrities, they’ve known these people for two decades or more. That’s a lot of love. These people are willing to do anything. Even Mayim Bialik is willing to drive heavy machinery ripping out stumps. That’s a scary thing for someone to get in the back of a backhoe or do a thing they’ve never done before, but they’re doing it.

Jonathan: You can tell Mayim is a perfectionist. She couldn’t get the stump out so she tried everything with this big piece of equipment. She was not going to go on her lunch break until it was done.

What are some of the big projects you tackle this season? Ray Romano initially wanted to do a bathroom for his assistant but slid in the bedroom work too. 

Drew: You pegged it. The timeframe when we’re doing projects on Celebrity IOU. We have a lot to do in a short time. So when we’re having big add-ons like entire rooms, that’s tough. But we love Ray. He did it in a very funny way. He was sweet. He said, “Since we’re doing this, let’s do one more thing.” Then it became one more thing and another. At the end of the day, we have to assess what is realistic. We have a short timeframe where people are out of town or away.

Jonathan: That’s what happened with the Fran Drescher episode. For Fran, the recipient’s house was riddled with termite damage. To the point where we thought the ceiling was going to cave in. None of that was what we thought originally we had to do. That added another 30 percent to the timeline for what had to happen. In addition, what made me a little nervous is Fran is such a stylish person herself, she took over the design. She wanted to handle all of that. That can make me afraid because sometimes we have to decide quickly to make our deadline and sometimes if they talk about design for too long you run out of time. She was quick and got the decisions made and everything turned out perfect in the end.

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What I love about the show is it humanizes these celebrities that we often put on a pedestal. At the same time, what do you say to those who say “Why aren’t they just doing it themselves? They are rich.” 

Jonathan: It’s not a simple thing to take on a renovation. A lot of people have asked why wouldn’t they have paid for this renovation years ago. In this climate these days, finding sub-trades, and landing a GC (general contractor) is almost impossible, as well as finding designers who are available. It can take a year or more to get a project done. We have all this together. So when celebrities reach out, it’s the perfect scenario because we can get it done. It’s the greatest gift you can give. It’s pretty complicated, but I don’t really know any other group that can pull it off and in the timeline we do.

Drew: With these celebrities too, it’s heartwarming to see them in a way you’ve never seen them before. This shows a different side. When you see them with the people they’ve known before,  it’s like they are kids getting together. Like younger versions of themselves. That’s exciting for fans. At the end of the day, the show may inspire people in the way of design. But in reality, the whole point is for people to be motivated to do something for someone they love or someone else. We’ve been able to accomplish that.

Jonathan: This has happened a few times where we’ll reach out to a celebrity and say, “Hey, big fan of your work. If there is anyone you’ve thought of giving back to, we’d love to have you on the show. Celebrities will reach out to us saying there is someone I’m thinking about. I love the show. We’ve also had a couple of agents for certain celebrities who reached out because they wanted a renovation for themselves. They are pitching for themselves. We’re like, “That’s not how it works.”

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You have two new shows in the works along with other business ventures. How are you juggling work and life? 

Drew: It’s tough. I think a lot of people can relate to how you juggle work life and personal life. The main thing that I love my Linda and I check with each other often. When I get heavy with work, it’s very easy to commit to my family as a secondary thing. I work to be there for my son Parker. Even before this interview,  I was there for his arts and crafts class because it was the last one of the year. It’s about checking in with your partner and letting them know you’re there.

Jonathan: This is actually an AI right now. I’m really with my family. Seriously though, I agree with Drew. It’s about making those big decisions. We’re only filming our shows in L.A. now because we don’t want to be on the road all the time. I love the idea that I can bring the kids to school every morning, and I’m home every night for dinner. Those are the things because we own the production company, so we can make the call on that stuff and it all works out. The fun things are when we get to do something a little bit different. For the holidays, I love we are going to Drew’s for dinner one night. They’re going to come over here one night for dinner. Those sorts of things break up the work and make it worthwhile.

What can you tease about your two upcoming shows Backed By the Bros (working title) and Don’t Hate Your House with the Property Brothers (working title)? What makes them stand out? 

Jonathan: Backed the Bros is pretty incredible. You get two people each episode to pitch us, buying an apartment building or triplex or building or want to turn their garage into a rental unit or something like that. Every scenario is different. These are people who dove in and got way over their heads. One of the couples spent their kids’ entire college fund and retirement savings on a property that turns out is not zoned and will never be zoned for what they want to do. So we come in and bring our team and resources and back them to get them through it, so they can have an investment property that is worth it.

Drew: It is stressful for those people I love it’s so different than our other shows…Don’t Hate Your House is more of a dire situation where people don’t know what to do. We don’t like people thinking it’s a completely lost cause or thinking wasted money. There is a way to save every house. We can make any house beautiful. We love taking these dire situations and transforming them into real homes.

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What are your guy’s New Year’s resolutions? 

Drew: I like to make New Year’s resolutions throughout the year. Multiple times a year. My thing is why wait until the New Year because you’ll always put it off and put it off. As busy as I am with a 19-month-old running around and with work, I am back with my workout schedule and making sure I’m eating a little bit cleaner and working out every day. So keeping with that.

Jonathan: I have a wedding to plan [to Zooey Deschanel]. The stress is on to get that done right.

Celebrity IOU premiere, January 1, 8/7c, HGTV