The host had a lot of fun filming this 16th season. “I waited all this time to find the show that I had unconsciously dreamed of presenting for a long time! she smiled. I always say that we love this show because we love the people. I loved connecting with these people, with these farmers who opened their hearts to me, who opened their arms to me.”
A role opposite to the one she takes on in the morning in Le Good Morning the Radio Contact. “My job on the radio, waking people up, is to put people in a good mood. So here, I’m going to draw on the funny Maria in me, the one who finds herself around a meal making the audience laugh. But I’m not like that all the time. I have my own weaknesses, I’m also the one who listens to her friends, the one who gets anxious…”
She admits that at one point she could have been afraid, because she knew that the viewers were very attached to Sandrine Dans. “I could have said to myself: “My God, I’m going to be scared, maybe they’re expecting someone other than me.” And then I thought: “Just be you and make the best show you can. Just the way you wanted to make it so you have no regrets about it.”
Thinking they were doing the right thing, the production team gave him sheets of paper with questions to approach the farmers. “I felt very bad about these questions because I have a very good student side that makes that when I have learned my questions, I recite them. So I asked them to let me meet people like when I arrive at a party and I don’t know anyone.”
“I saw that nothing was written”
Although she cannot reveal much about this new season, Maria Del Rio promises some really great encounters this year. “In other years, I would watch the show as a viewer and see relationships that matched, others that didn’t. And I would think: “What a crazy scenario!” This time I experienced it from the inside and saw that nothing was written. I witnessed the beginning of beautiful stories…”
Unlike some other years, filming did not take place during the summer, as Maria had asked to take two real months off.
“When I agreed to take over the presentation of Love is in the meadow, It was on one condition: to be able to continue to host Le Good Morning of Radio Contact. It was important for the synergy of the group that we form with Olivier Arnould, Gary and Valentino. But that forced me to put in the hours during the season. And during the summer, I really needed to take a break to get back in better shape.”
Between March and July, the rain played spoilsport: “The first few days of filming, I thought I was filming in Iceland, laughs the host. But there were also some beautiful days. And I even had little calves named after me! It’s great. I really discovered life on the farm, even though I spent my entire childhood in my grandparents’ village near Madrid and I remember there were pigs. Those were my best years! This filming also allowed me to consider this job of farmer even more. I became aware of the work involved and the sometimes unfair things they experience.”
RTL tvi, Sunday, 20.45
