The cast for season 33 of The Amazing Race has been announced, the lineup featuring a handful of people known to the masses for the viral videos they are featured in. Kim and Penn Holderness, who star in popular family videos on YouTube, and Taylor Green-Jones and Isaiah Green-Jones, stars of a wedding dance video that went viral, are among the contestants.
The season begins January 5 and sees the 11 two-person teams venture to England, Scotland, Switzerland, France, Greece, Portugal and Los Angeles. The winning team gets $1 million.
The Amazing Race began filming in February 2020, but was held up due to COVID. Production concluded this fall.
Phil Keoghan hosts. Bertram van Munster and Elise Doganieri created the show.
“The world is our sound stage on The Amazing Race, and the safety of our cast and crew when traveling is always our No. 1 priority,” said van Munster, co-creator and executive producer. “We made the tough decision to stop production in February 2020 and are excited that, despite the challenges of filming and traveling internationally in a pandemic, we were able to welcome this amazing cast back to finish what they started and complete their journeys of a lifetime safely this fall.”
The Green-Jones couple is from Portland, Oregon. The Holderness pair is from Raleigh.
The other teams are married couple Akbar and Sheridan Cook of Martinsville, New Jersey; friends Anthony Sadler and Spencer Stone of Sacramento; father and daughter Arun and Natalie Kumar of Detroit; Caro Viehweg and Ray Gantt, a couple from Los Angeles and Toms River, New Jersey; married couple Connie and Sam Greiner of Charlotte; twins and radio hosts Marianela and Marissa Gonzalez from North Bergen, New Jersey; singing police officers Michael Norwood and Armonde “Moe” Badger from Buffalo; Raquel Moore and Cayla Platt, flight attendants from Chicago and Gulf Breeze, Florida; and friends Ryan Ferguson and Dusty Harris from Columbia, Missouri.
Keoghan told B+C the producers sought some cast members “that are part of the zeitgeist”--people with a bit of buzz to their names. Sadler and Stone, for their part, stopped a gunman on a Paris-bound train, which turned into the movie The 5:17 to Paris.
“We implemented many new safety features that made this historic season possible, including having the cast and crew fly by private chartered plane,” said Doganieri, co-creator and executive producer. “The Race has been highlighting the beauty of traveling for over 20 years, and we are extremely grateful to showcase again the wonders of the world with this incredible cast.”
Jerry Bruckheimer, Bertram van Munster, Jonathan Littman, Elise Doganieri, Mark Vertullo and Phil Keoghan are the executive producers for Jerry Bruckheimer Television and Earthview Inc. in association with ABC Studios and Amazing Race Productions. ■
