We talk ELL: eggplants, laundry, and Lady Gaga.
Warning: This article contains spoilers for the season 1 finale of Netflix’sThe Circle.
But the inaugural season ofThe CircleonNetflixproved to be anything but dystopian, and the show crowned its first winner.
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“I was hesitant just because I am an actor,” he tells EW.
We even slip in a question from Shooby!
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Congrats on your win, Joey.
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How are you feeling today?
JOEY SASSO:Sup, brother!
I’m drinking coffee, talking to these beautiful people.
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Loving life, brother.
Where are you right now?
I’m currently at my apartment putting off dirty laundry because it takes too much time!
Speaking of which, how did you all do laundry onThe Circle?
Then it’s like a magical thing where it just gets delivered to your apartment.
Viewers' opinions of you seemed to change a lot throughout the series.
That’s the story of my life, man.
You’re on camera 24 hours a day, but I was never trying to be anyone but myself.
My favorite tweets or Instagram posts are like, “Episode 1: Get this douchebag out of here.
Episode 8: I will die for Joey.”
He booked us for his after-Grammy party last year.
My boss had come to us saying, “No one’s allowed to leave the bar.
No one’s allowed no selfies.”
It was presidential levels of security going into this, rightfully so.
So I’m serving Adele and Gaga.
Me being me, I needed to break all the rules.
I leave the bar and I go up to Gaga.
I know she’s Italian from Jersey.
Immediately I start flirting with her.
I’m like, “Don’t make me leave this job right now.
I’ll put everything on the line.”
I was sitting there and I go, “When is this ever gonna happen again?”
At this point, we’ve been hanging out for over an hour.
I said, “Steph, can I c’mon get a selfie?
My uncle’s gay and is in love with you, and he’d die for this.”
She said, “Absolutely.”
And after that night it was like, wow, best selfie ever.
There’s no way, especially going on this show, I wasn’t using that photo for something.
Let’s talk about your flirtation with Miranda.
Did you really not know there was an eggplant emoji on the iPhone until you were onThe Circle?
I am 26 years old.
Then you’re trying to just keep this going.
That little thing’s nice."
I was completely wrong on everything, and it’s hilarious to watch.
But you were able to handle yourself pretty well for Miranda.
In the finale, you guys brought up the possibility of going on the date.
Has that happened yet?
A million people want to know what’s going on with me and Miranda.
She is someone who’s so close in my life.
She actually was with me at my apartment here last week.
She’s someone that I love to death.
Would it be safe to say you guys are seeing each other now?
Let them think whatever they’d like because I know a million people want us to be together.
I DM’ed Shooby before this interview to see if he had any questions he wanted to ask you.
He said, “What’s life been like afterThe Circle?”
It’s been really cool, man.
To tell you the truth, life has been completely the same.
It hasn’t changed at all.
I still go to work and sling drinks for a living.
Did you get your $100,000 check yet?
I know you said you want to build out your apartment a little bit.
Yeah, that’s been underway.
It’s something I’m really blessed about because I’ve honestly been broke my entire adult life.
I moved to L.A. when I was 18 years old to pursue my career in film.
For the rest of the time, I’m chasing my career and doing what I have to do.
Being a bartender, working nights is hard work.
It’s something I hopefully don’t have to do forever.
The rest of it is going into my career and finishing up my film that’s in post-production.
What’s the film you’re doing?
I had a seven-year passion project that I started when I was 18 years old.
We need to make this ourselves."
It was budgeted at the time at $5 million to $10 million.
We made it for $13,000 cash.
All this happened while my seven-and-a-half-year relationship literally came to an end.
It’s something that I’m so proud of.
I want to get out there to open doors to hopefully be a player in this industry.
The Circlehasn’t been renewed… yet.
But do you have any tips for future players?
So for season 2, 3, 4, I say just go in there and have some fun.
And don’t letThe Circlescrew with your head because I’m telling you,The Circlehas no chill.
Are you a voice texter?
Or will you never do voice texting after doing this?
It’s weird, I’ve never voice-texted in my life until now.
It was so frustrating to have to do it over and over again multiple times a day.
I know that’s a lucky opportunity to have.
But to save me some time, I kind of had to go back toThe Circlemindset.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
