“From Sony Pictures Studios, it’s America’s game,” announcer Jim Thornton has said thousands of times, theme music rolls and a studio audience yells, “Wheel of Fortune!”
“It was very fun and fast-paced,” Lauren McCartney, a Glen Carbon, Illinois native said. “I had such a great time filming and being part of the TV set experience.”
Contestants match wits in buying vowels and consonants, then taking a guess at the puzzle’s phrase.
Lauren McCartney, a Glen Carbon, Illinois native who is studying film and acting at Georgia State University, was a recent contestant on a Wheel of Fortune “College Week” episode. The episode aired Monday, Nov. 21 at 6:30 p.m. on KSDK.
She said she’s always watched the show with her family and they always joked that one of them should go on there. She learned the show was taking online auditions, and submitted a two-minute tape to the website. She was contacted by one of the show’s producers and later selected to be on the show.
“It was very fun and fast-paced,” she said. “I had such a great time filming and being part of the TV set experience.”
She said some of the puzzles were tricky, however, she did lots of preparation prior to the show.
“I did a lot of studying beforehand,” she said.
“I watched a ton of different episodes. I remember up to my audition date, and the date I taped the show, I was watching 3-5 episodes per day. They have an app so I was playing and I was reading books. I was playing Wordle and all sorts of things.”
She didn’t go on the show with any expectations and she kept an open mind.
“I didn’t know how it was gonna go,” she said.
“I have some knowledge of how film sets work. I’ve been on film sets, but never been on a television set. I had no idea. I was just blown away by how organized and how fast pace everything was and how many moving parts there were.”
She was ecstatic to finally have her moment.
“I’m so glad I have the film experience and acting experience at school because I feel like my stage presence was great,” she said.
“I wasn’t nervous at all, I was just really excited because I finally got that moment of being on television.”
The studio was much smaller than what she anticipated, she said, and she learned the wheel weighs 2,400 pounds. Contestants are taught how to spin it properly.
She enjoyed interacting and mingling with other college students. They still keep in contact today. LSU student Chris Langley was the night’s victor.
“We all still have a group chat and keep in contact,” she said. “It was a highlight being around some fun energetic people.”
Had she said she won, McCartney said she would have used the prize money to travel.
“I wanna travel,” she said. “I love to travel and I want to go on a fancy trip. I love the beach and the water.”
She shouted out her family for support including Dr. Connie McCartney (mother), Stephen McCartney (father), Christopher and Nicholas McCartney (brothers), and Pauline Boyce (grandmother).
“It [was] a surprise to watch it back, I remember it was so fast paced and so quick,” she said. “I only really remember one specific thing that I answered, everything else was a complete blur. It was a fun experience.”
McCartney is interested in acting and anything fashion related.
“My main goal is acting but I’m also interested in fashion, fashion styling, fashion design, costume design, set design,” she said.
McCartney graduates from GSU Spring 2023. She is also a graduate of Madison High School.
