re: Nathan for You Season 4

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Although Nathan Fielder plays a character, Nathan For You works to ensure that storeowners and customers are not aware of this fact. The crew of Nathan For You screens the owners through a casting process, vetting them to check that they don't know the show is a comedy. In a Reddit AMA, Nathan Fielder said, "Often in the casting process we'll encounter business owners that have lots of specific questions about the show and exactly what we're planning to do with them. Because going into a shoot we don't want participants knowing any of that or that it's a comedy show (as this would take away from the acting naturally), we usually end up avoiding these more controlling/protective personality types as the chances they're going to get very upset by an experience they aren't prepared for is much higher. And the goal is never to get people upset."

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According to Fielder and the makers of Nathan for You, the only consistently scripted role is Nathan Fielder, and even he also constantly improvises due to the unpredictable nature of the series. The key to making the show "real," in audience's eyes, is that the business owners and others featured on the show aren't "in on the joke." And it appears that they aren't. Some participants from Nathan For You have related that the series disguised itself and hid that it aired on the network Comedy Central. Jasmine, the woman who goes on a date with "Corey" (Nathan in a mask) in the episode "The Hero," told Reddit that the series pretended to be a MTV dating show, and she heard of the opportunity through her casting agent. She admitted that she didn't even know that she was on Nathan For You until the episode aired on television.

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Sometimes reality can be stranger than fiction, and there are moments where even Nathan is taken by surprise by the business owners' reactions. For example, in the "Gas Station" episode, when the owner talked about drinking his grandson's urine, the whole crew of Nathan For You was caught off guard. In a Reddit AMA, Nathan said, "At first I thought he was kidding, and it took me asking a lot of questions before I realized he was for real. As crazy as it was though, I still felt the need to be respectful of this practice if it came from a culture or tradition I didn't understand. Weird, conflicting emotions inside of me."

Koman told Splitsider that the gas station urine moment was so coincidental and so hilarious that he wondered if it would seem fake. "It’s like, that’s so perfect, will people believe it happened on its own?" he said. "It was just too insane. It was so out of nowhere. Once we were editing, we realized how incredible it was. Because the people the night before were all talking about how comfortable they would be drinking urine. We thought to mention it to the gas station owner because maybe he would just have a small funny reaction that would be good near the ending. It was just the most amazing thing, that you meet what seem like the only three people on earth who will openly talk about drinking urine and you mention it to a fourth person and he would react that way. I still can’t believe it happened."

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He did a great interview I have to go find

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Nathan singing "I can't help falling in love with you" with Marion Cotillard.

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