Viviana Knows Best – Just Ask Her: Next Action Star’s Viviana Londono

Some reality TV contestants have beauty, some have brains, and very few even have both (although most of these people are found on The Amazing Race). Then there is Viviana Londono, the Colombian beauty on Next Action Star who just had to be the center of attention at all times.

We first encountered Viviana when she auditioned for Next Action Star in New York City. We were told she was a Colombian-born New York City club dancer whose dream is to make it as an actress in Hollywood. The judges were so blown away by her audition that they declared her “ready for anything” and sent her on to Round Two in Hollywood.

Right off the bat, Viviana stirred up trouble during a martial arts lesson. Eric Chen, one of the top martial arts experts in Hollywood (so you’d think he knows what he’s talking about) dared to criticize Viviana. He told her that she lacked confidence and that she needed to “attack the technique.” Viviana interpreted this as the ultimate insult and was not going to stand for it, not even from someone from whom she was supposed to be learning. Immediately, Viviana stepped out of line (literally and figuratively) and moved to the front of the class where she interrupted the lesson by calling out Chen to disagree with him about lacking confidence. The two had a heated verbal exchange for a few minutes before coming to some kind of understanding, whereupon Viviana stepped back in line and the lesson continued.

For her first screen test, all three of the show’s judges agreed that Viviana overacted in a big way, but that “something keeps you watching her.” Yeah, it’s called Train Wreck Syndrome, because she’s sobad, she’s amusing. You just can’t believe anyone would be that bad, so you continue watching and being amused by her. She’s the kind of actress whom, if she ever does make it in Hollywood, the only type of award she’s likely to win is a Golden Raspberry (better known as a Razzie, which awards the worst “achievements” in film over the past year).

She’s also proven that she’d get along famously with Roberto Benigni (the Italian actor and star of the hit film Life is Beautiful), although he’s actually funny, because you never know what either is going to do next. However, unlike Benigni, when Viviana runs around a screen test set congratulating herself by yelling, “I did good,” and spouting “pearls of wisdom” such as, "If I'm not here in Hollywood, I don't want to be anywhere else," it’s just kind of sad.

Since Viviana needs to be the center of attention whenever possible, she does whatever it takes to accomplish this, sometimes using the most inane details. Case in point: On a day when the 20 semi-finalists were getting makeovers, Viviana interrupted Stylist Brenda Cooper as she was telling the group about the day’s planned activities. What was so important that she had to interrupt poor Ms. Cooper? Well, Viviana has brown eyes and she forgot to put in her blue contacts with which she originally auditioned. She wanted to go upstairs to put them in, because she didn’t feel like herself without her blue contacts. Isn’t that just tragic? Cooper finally had to tell Viviana, “You have to be the best with what you were given.”

Another example from the exact same moment (which must be a record, even for Viviana) was her tendency to touch her breasts in public. Cooper was trying to address the finalists as a group and had to stop several times to ask Viviana to refrain from touching her breasts. Do you think she listened? Of course not; she’s Viviana.

At the salon where the makeovers took place, Viviana even made Cooper promise not to give up on her until she thought Viviana has achieved the perfect look, of which Viviana ultimately disapproved, saying she’d been made over from an “exotic bird” to look like a “Salma Hayek wannabe,” which would be in insult to Salma Hayek, if it weren’t so amusing.

The only thing as big as (or bigger than) Viviana’s need for attention is her ego. She told Howard Fine, one of the top acting coaches in Hollywood, that she’s always had a problem with the traditional interpretations of the two “gods” of acting. That’s like saying, “Everyone who thinks the Earth is round is wrong and I’m right because I know it’s flat.” Only someone with an ego the size of Texas could make a statement like that. Fine has worked with the cream of Hollywood’s A-list, from Brad Pitt to Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Connelly, and Viviana presumed to tell him about acting theory?

Some of Viviana’s fellow semi-finalists were shown covering their mouths, presumably to keep from laughing at her. Quite justifiably, Fine joined a growing list of professionals who had put Viviana in her place. He told her in a remarkably cool voice, “it just may be that I know some things that can help you.” This of course, was a polite way of saying, “Shut up you self-centered, self-important, attention-seeking bitch and maybe, just maybe, you’ll actually learn something that can help you on your way to your otherwise-unattainable goal of being a successful actress.”

During rehearsals for her second screen test, she claimed that, “the text is too strict for me,” preferring to ad lib instead. To date, she is still the only person to ever knowingly do so in a screen test. (Some of the finalists fudged some of their lines, but at least they didn’t ad lib.)

Once you’re an established actress, you can decide whether or not to ad lib, but as a contestant on a TV show who is trying to make it as an actress, you’re not experienced enough to make that call. Of course, since she considers herself a makeover expert and acting theory expert, she probably thinks she’s experienced enough to make that call as well. The bottom line is that if you can’t follow a script, you’ll make enemies with every single writer in Hollywood, which, to say the least, is not exactly going to help you get work.