Two decades after co-starring on MTV's Laguna Beach, Lauren Conrad and Kristin Cavallari finally shared their first paired scene together. And it's all thanks to The Reunion: Laguna Beach on Roku.
After stepping away from the cameras for years, Lauren was “finally ready to come forward and share her experience, which led to what I consider a pop culture-defining moment of Lauren and Kristin coming together to shoot the first scene one-on-one they've ever shot together,” Brian Tannenbaum, Roku Head of Originals, tells Gold Derby in our Meet the Experts: Spotlight panel.
The special didn't just reunite the two former frenemies, but also the entire Laguna Beach cast, including Stephen Colletti, Jessica Smith, Alex Hooser, Talan Torriero, Dieter Schmitz, Lo Bosworth, Trey Phillips, Morgan Olsen, and Christina Shuller. Several behind-the-scenes executives and artisans from the original show also returned to “emulate that style of storytelling” from 20 years ago.
Unlike other TV reunions, this one was told across “three time periods,” Tannenbaum explains. “There's them live on a stage, looking at old footage, but then also shooting in the future verité.” The Q&A portion of the program was hosted by Casey Wilson, whom Tannenbaum calls a “super fan of non-scripted TV.”
Gold Derby: Twenty years after Lauren, Stephen, Kristin, and so many more of these folks became household names, Roku staged an epic reunion with the entire cast coming back. Why was now the right time to pull this off?
Brian Tannenbaum: We are quite proud of the launch and performance of our Laguna Beach reunion special. Twenty years was a monumental moment for the cast. They truly were and remain great friends, so it was a real authentic opportunity to bring them all together. If you ask them, they would say that it finally felt like a time where they could watch it and reflect on it as adults and come together. For us on the Roku…