‘Playground’s Robin Antin Talks The Pussycat Dolls, Reality TV And Working With Bestie Megan Thee Stallion

Robin Antin is back at it in the world of reality TV, this time taking on a new show based off of her Los Angeles dance studio, Playground.

Known for its iconic red letters and world-renowned dancers and choreographers, Playground has become one of the top professional studios in America.

“All of a sudden, we started seeing Play, Play, Play pop up,” Antin, owner of the studio and creator of the iconic girl group The Pussycat Dolls, tells DECIDER. “We were like, ‘Wow, it’s the first thing that pops up, so it must be getting a lot of attention all over the world.’ We thought, obviously reality shows are a great way to expand the brand and expand the awareness and the attention to the world, and to all of the younger generations, obviously that want to dance.”

Now, with a new show dropping on Hulu today, the name Playground will shuffle its way into households worldwide.

A perfect mix of Love Island meets Dance Moms , there’s love, fighting and more than enough drama to fill up Playground’s studio — with the cast dancing through it all. DECIDER sat down with Antin to get the inside scoop on what fans can expect to see in the show, how The Pussycat Dolls are incorporated throughout everything she does, and details about her new friendship with executive producer Megan Thee Stallion .

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DECIDER: This studio has been around for seven years. Have you always known you wanted to do a show about it, or was this a recent inspiration?

Robin Antin: We’ve been talking about it for the past few years, it didn’t just come out of nowhere. We just thought it would be great to do a reality show because it would show the world [more of what] they’re already seeing out there, like when they turn on their Instagrams and they look on their Explore page. All of a sudden, we started seeing Play, Play, Play pop up, and we were like, ‘Wow, it’s the first thing that pops up, so it must be getting a lot of attention all over the world.’ We thought, obviously reality shows are a great way to expand the brand and expand the awareness and the attention to the world, and to all of the younger generations, obviously, that want to dance.

I’ve been dancing my whole life, but I’m really an inspiration to a lot of women and men and all genders that truly have never danced in their lives, that want to come in and learn how to dance. We came up with a beginner/beginner hip-hop class or beginner/beginner heels class where you can learn after never taking a dance class or ever dancing in your life. And we thought, putting that out there to the world to let everyone know that dance is a form of expression. That you can be feeling at your lowest or you could be feeling down or sad or whatever it is, you come into a dance class and you just sweat and you’re just having so much fun. No judgment.

That’s what Playground is, no judgment. We don’t we don’t expect anyone to be the best of the best and yet we have the best of the best, because Playground became so popular because all of a sudden the best dancers were showing up the best choreographers were coming to us, [the] best teachers asking us, “We’d love to teach there, we’d love to be a part of yours and Kenny’s [Wormald ] journey” and really that’s true. This is a combination of, we let everyone dance together.

I’ve always said that Alexis is one of my favorite dancers of all time, she’s just such a unicorn. She’s someone that just blows my mind. And then Deanna is someone that I’ve always believed in, more than a lot of other people just because I know that she’s worked so hard and she tries so hard to be the best. She has it in her DNA. It’s all about confidence, even for me. I will take a dance class as the boss, and I’m like, I gotta be the boss, I gotta be on point, I gotta be the best and if I forget the choreography, people are gonna look at me and go “what?!” but I tell people, that’s just the way it is. That’s the way it is in life. It’s okay to forget the choreography. It’s okay to not be the best ever, you just have to keep trying and trying and trying. And that’s what training is all about.

We really do push the training on dancers, although a lot of these kids now with TikTok and all of these platforms where you can learn how to dance from, it’s a different world than it used to be when Kenny and I were coming up dancing. We were in ballet class, jazz class and every kind of class and that’s how we learned how to really dance, and how to have a real foundation. We have a lot of teachers at our studio that do have the training, and we have a lot of teachers that don’t have the actual training from the beginning and didn’t take ballet class, but they happen to be incredible.

I was there [at Playground] last night, and we just opened up a new studio, right next door. So we have on one side, Dexter’s wild hip-hop class with like 100 people in there, and then right on the other side of our studio there’s Alexis teaching her insane hip-hop class, there’s 100 people in there. And it’s funny because it’s like a competition. It really is like they’re all competing with each other [to see] who’s the best, but they’re not doing it in a way that is like, “I can be better than you, and I’m going to show you up, and we’re gonna fight.” In the show, you do see some fights, though.

What was it like working with Megan Thee Stallion on this? Were you surprised when you found out that she would be producing it?

RA: I was blown away, I gotta tell you, when they said that she was coming in to audition for one of her videos. We brought in the best of the best for her to look at because we had an idea of what she was looking for. It was a lot of different styles, different body types, different hair, different everything, all ethnicities. First of all, I have to say this. We sat down at the chair with the table and then the dancers were in the front, and we sat down and she took my hand and she said “I cannot believe I’m sitting next to Robin Antin.” And I’m like, “What?! Meg Thee Stallion is saying that to me?” I just was so blown away, because she said, “I have to tell you, I have been a fan of The Pussycat Dolls since I was a little girl, and I followed you and I’ve watched everything you’ve done, and I’m just so honored to be sitting next to you right now and doing this” and from then on, we’ve been really good friends and she’s been so sweet.

Just having her as an executive producer is definitely one of the massive highlights of my whole entire life. She’s such a good, nice girl too, besides being Meg Thee Stallion. She’s all about empowerment, and about making people feel confident. And she’s so real. That’s what I really love about her. She doesn’t have any filter, but in a good way. She’s very truthful and very honest, even with the dancers that she was auditioning for at our studio. Everyone here wants to be their best of course, but you know, there are times where you might get in front of an artist, like Meg Thee Stallion and all of a sudden forget the choreography. And you’re like, ‘Oh my god, what? I’ve known it this whole time.’ And this happens to everyone, including me. So having her on as an executive producer is wild. Every time I tell people about it they’re like “What? This is crazy.”

You’ve worked with many shows in the dance/reality TV genre before. Was there anything different or more challenging about this time around?

RA: Well, yes, I would say that the difference between this one and the other ones, having The Pussycat Dolls reality shows and I was obviously on The Kardashians a lot — that one actually was different because I wasn’t told, “You have to do it this way.” They gave me the freedom to do what I wanted to do, which was amazing. On this show, it was similar. Kenny and I definitely had those moments where we just did our own thing. The funniest part that I know I’m gonna say every time I do press, is it was finally time for me and Kenny to get it out as partners, because we’re such good partners, and we respect each other so much, and he’s so talented, so good at what he does. Sometimes I watch him and I’m blown away by how talented he is, and he’s really smart, and he really understands the business and the brand and how we work together is incredible, but we do have our riffs, we do have our moments. I don’t even know if I want to say we don’t get along. We disagree on on many things. You know, he wants it this way, I want it this way.

Playground premieres on Hulu July 26.

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