Mike Darnell: Simon Cowell Learned To Be A Mean Judge For Fox — Underneath Hes Different

Simon Cowell wasn’t always the mean judge character he played on American Idol.

Mike Darnell, who shepherded Fox’s run at the top of U.S. reality game in the early-to-mid 2000s, revealed Cowell is not like the grumpy, unimpressed persona he adopted for American Idol and brought to The X Factor and his other reality shows.

Recalling when Idol was in development, Darnell said he had instructed Cowell to “walk into a room and actually verbally tell someone, ‘you’re out’,” but that the initial feeling after trying it out was that the character was it was “too harsh.”

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Darnell had first noticed Cowell’s frankness during a small audition taping in Hollywood and was keen to lean into a different kind of reality TV judge, as the trend at that time was for nicer, more supportive critiques. Cowell was already adopting a frank tone on the British version, Pop Idol, which ran on ITV between 2001 and 2003.

“I knew we had to get Simon Cowell as he was the star of the show but we needed something different in the U.S. — the mean judge, the frank judge. In all the other shows before him, everyone was polite and nice, and I knew that was going to be thing. 

“Simon, to his credit, was willing to do anything,” said Darnell, who is now President of Unscripted Television at Warner Bros Discovery, during a career retrospective session at Content London.

“Simon Cowell learned the character,” added Darnell. “Underneath he’s a different character. Watch Britain’s Got Talent or America’s Got Talent now and he’s much softer version now.”

Cowell ultimately went on to perfect a bad guy image that helped drive the 19 Entertainment and Fremantle North America show to the top of the ratings charts for an unprecedented run between 2003 and 2011. He has taken on a much more supportive role in more recent seasons of his reality shows.

Gordon Ramsay, on the other hand, wasn’t faking it at all, said Darnell. “He is not doing a character,” said the exec, adding that his anger at contestants and colorful language during the filming of Hell’s Kitchen and other shows was “all real.”

Darnell, who recalled several stages of his career during his talk in London, laughed with a certain pride when he said Hell’s Kitchen was the “most-bleeped show in American television and it still is.”

Addressing why he left his post as Fox’s President of Alternative Entertainment in 2013 to join Warner Bros., Darnell said: “American Idol was biggest show in the US by 10 years by a long way. It was like having the Super Bowl every year, but like all things [the ratings] started to come down, and my job became very difficult. It became a question of, ‘How do we fix this?’ but it wasn’t broken, it was just aging.”

He said he was offered a new three-and-half-year contract but believed his future “would have been fixing something that wouldn’t be fixed.” At the same time, his former colleague Peter Roth had taken on Warner Bros.’s unscripted divisions and, “because it was him, I thought the timing was right.”

“Simon, to his credit, was willing to do anything,” said Darnell, who is now President of Unscripted Television at Warner Bros Discovery, during an interview session at Content London.

“Simon Cowell learned the character,” added Darnell. “Underneath he’s different. Watch Britain’s Got Talent or America’s Got Talent now and he’s much softer version now.”

Cowell ultimately went on to perfect a bad guy image that helped drive the Syco and Fremantle North Americashow to the top of the ratings charts for an unprecedented eight years between 2003 and 2011.

Gordon Ramsay, on the other hand, wasn’t faking it, said Darnell. “He is not doing a character,” said the exec, adding that his anger at contestants during Hell’s Kitchen and other shows was “all real.”

Darnell, who was taken on a career retrospective during his talk in London, laughed with a certain pride when he said Hell’s Kitchen was the “most-bleeped show in American television and it still is.”

Addressing why he left his post as Fox’s President of Alternative Entertainment in 2013 to join Warner Bros., Darnell said: “American Idol was biggest show in the US by 10 years by a long way. It was like having the Superbowl every year, but like all things [the ratings] started to come down, and my job became very difficult. It became a question of, ‘How do we fix this?’ but it wasn’t broken, it was just aging.”

He said he was offered a new three-and-half-year contract but believed his future “would have been fixing something that wouldn’t be fixed.” At the same time, his former colleague Peter Roth had taken on Warner Bros.’s unscripted divisions and, “because it was him, I thought the timing was right.”

Cowell was recently quoted saying U.S. networks are expressing new interest in reviving his other reality music competition The X Factor, which aired on Fox between 2011 and 2013 and was a much smaller deal than the American Idol juggernaut.

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