New Reality Show Lets Actors Compete for Roles on This Soap Opera

Life often feels like a competition, especially in show business. A new reality show in the works has the end goal of becoming a soap opera star, believe it or not.

The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives producer Jeff Jenkins is now developing The Bold and the Unscripted, Variety reports, a new competition series in which contestants vie to appear on The Bold and the Beautiful - with the ultimate winner receiving a recurring role on the soap.

"The Bold and the Beautiful has been doing what they do for 40 years, they just launched their app, with 3,900 episodes available to watch. So we've partnered with [executive producer] Brad Bell on this format that we're taking out," Jenkins, 58, told Variety in an interview article published Wednesday, May 27. "I think it's going to be such a fun show, very unexpected. I've never seen anything like it. And frankly, that's also what gets me out of bed, taking buyers' opportunities that they haven't heard before. I don't want to bring you the 300th version of Real Housewives."

Here's the upcoming series' official logline, in part: "The Bold and the Unscripted (working title) will bring together a group of reality TV stars, all with thespian aspirations, on the iconic soap opera's actual studio lot and soundstages to compete for weekly opportunities to secure speaking roles and guest spots on The Bold and the Beautiful."

Jenkins also weighed in on how to survive in the unscripted world in this day and age, where things seem to keep changing.

"I think it all goes back to very basic tent poles that we all know. It comes back to storytelling and characters you want to spend time with," he told Variety. "The challenge now is, how do we find them? Because the pond has been very fished. How do we find new subculture or character types, and how do we match that with the kind of zeitgeist interest that the public has?"

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This story was originally published May 28, 2026 at 8:37 AM.