'Property Brothers' Jonathan and Drew Scott on 'Celebrity IOU' Season 8 and Which Stars Were the 'Opposite' of What They Expected
Property Brothers made bona fide stars out of Jonathan Scott and Drew Scott, and they're back to help more celebrities from the silver and small screen, as well as sports, give back to their loved ones with HGTV's Celebrity IOU.
In the Season 8 premiere, Drew and Jonathan team up with This Is Us star Mandy Moore to celebrate her close friend of 15 years, Celina, who she says is like a surrogate mother to her children with husband Taylor Goldsmith. The Scotts and Moore worked together to deliver Celina an updated backyard space for entertaining, but encounter some hiccups along the way—like a patio that's actually unsafe until they get down and dirty working on it.
Other stars in Season 8 include Wanda Sykes, Danny Trejo, Mira Sorvino, Tony Hawk, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Zach Braff.
The brothers chatted with Parade about the eighth season of the heartwarming series—and about how to make your own space feel like the home you deserve (even if you don't have an Oscar winner to help you demo).
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Which star have you enjoyed working with most on Celebrity IOU this season?
Jonathan Scott: "It amazes me every season that we still continue to get this incredible roster of huge talent. But if I had to think of a single incredible moment, it would have to be Wanda Sykes on a roof with a flamethrower.
"It was a blow torch, we torching down a membrane. That was an issue that popped up, the roof needed to be replaced. And she's like, 'We can handle this.' And we literally, before you know it, we're up there, and she's—she's fearless, that woman!"
Which star has gotten their hands the dirtiest in their Celebrity IOU project?
Drew Scott: "It always blows my mind, because I'm expecting that there will be somebody that's like, I don't want to do that,' or 'I don't want to this.' But they all get hands on. Tony Hawk was up on the roof as well, and he's never done that before.
"Zach Braff was hilarious because he's he's never done this before. He had some ideas from the design side, but he kept showing up on days that we he wasn't supposed to be there helping. We didn't know he was coming. He was just there. And I'm like, 'Are you not filming a show or something right now?'"
Jonathan Scott: "'You have a life?!'"
Drew Scott: "He's like, 'No, because that that project actually got delayed.'
"Mark, who he's trying to give back to—him and his wife had saved up to give their kids a house with a yard and everything, but they didn't realize the house they bought had all of these issues that were hidden. The person who renovated it did illegal work, never got an occupancy permit, so the house was not structurally sound. And their kids are living in the house, especially in the area where where the issues were—that was the kids area.
"We ended up being the timeline delayed over double what it was supposed to be, and Zach just showed up and said, 'I don't care about anything else. I want to get Mark and his family into the house. So I'm here for extra hands if you need it.'"
Jonathan Scott: "Even looking at someone like Mandy Moore, she, that was a miserable project."
Drew Scott: "Walk to Remember!"
Jonathan Scott: "Yeah, well, Drew kept slipping in, like, references to her movies or her pop lyrics and things like that, and to the point where we're like, enough, but no, it was, it rained through the entire project, and it was an outdoor space that we were doing. And so I was like, 'Maybe we can just postpone this for a couple weeks till it warms up.' And she was like, 'No, we're doing this.' And so she showed up slicker, and all she was ready to dive in so that sometimes it's dirty work, because you're just literally dealing with dirt. Sometimes it is just a torrential downpour."
Drew Scott: "And I will actually say too, because Mandy Moore, she always looks so beautiful. She's so put together, and she's so warm and friendly and everything. But she wasn't like, 'Where's my makeup?' or anything like that. She just showed up on her own. She didn't even take the slicker off. Most of the time we're in the rain, she is drenched, so she doesn't have glam team doing stuff for her. She's just in there doing the work."
Jonathan Scott: "And she still looks lovely."
Drew Scott: "Yeah, damn her! But she the funny thing too, is she even wore some different like knit sweaters, and we're in the rain working, and I'm like, 'That has got to be uncomfortable with that.' She's like, 'Doesn't matter. Let's just get this done.' So she was putting the awning together, she was framing out the kitchen. It's so impressive."
Jonathan Scott: "The difference is, I need my glam team all the time, because this takes a lot of work to put together and be presentable."
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Were there any fun moments with celebrity guests that didn't make it to air?
Jonathan Scott: "There are so many that we could do an entire episode of cut out bloopers and things. But there was one with Danny Trejo. We were picking him up, it was raining, and he was on a street corner holding an umbrella with a chainsaw, and it looked like something out of a horror scene. Then he comes over, he sticks the chainsaw in the trunk and hops in, and he's just like, 'Hey guys, what's up?' But that scene, there just was too much good stuff in his episode that we had to cut it out, and so nobody will ever see that."
That sounds like a deleted scene from Machete.
Jonathan Scott: "And you know what? He actually did use the machete. I don't know if this all got in there too, but there was a overgrowth in the neighbor's yard of bamboo. If you've ever planted bamboo, it takes off like crazy, and it can take the whole yard. So the inside of the wall for the garage that we were converting was all bamboo, and some of the shoots were [very] thick. It was crazy, and it was structurally unsound because of it. Danny gets in there with a machete, and just hacks it up like that. I'm like, 'I guess we didn't have to be here for demo!'"
Drew Scott: "I was rightfully afraid of him! He always plays like, the bad guy role or some scary role, or like a Quentin Tarantino movie type role, and he's actually a big teddy bear. He's such a nice guy. He's funny, he's charming—it's the best part of Celebrity IOU, for us and for the audience, is to see completely opposite sides of what you would expect, like Mandy Moore, who is a sweetheart just getting out there and being badass, or seeing Wanda Sykes, who's funny, up on a roof with a flamethrower."
Jonathan Scott: "You also see some where they're exactly what you'd hoped they'd be like. Tony Hawk is the nicest human being on the planet, I am pretty confident. I don't think he knows he's a celebrity. He's just so nice. At one point, we were driving with him, and there was a guy on a skateboard just on the side of the street, and we pulled up and Tony rolled his window down. He's like, 'Hey man, love your deck!' And the guy's like, 'Tony Hawk, what?!' He just about fell over. Tony's down for whatever. He just is so down to earth."
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Have any of your guests made you starstruck?
Jonathan Scott: "I do have these moments where I think back, I'm like, wow, I never would have guessed, you know, 20 years ago, that I'd be standing here with Brad Pitt, you know, demoing a wall."
Drew Scott: "Or Viola Davis teaching me how she got her intensity from her father. It's electric. It's such a pinch me moment with any of these celebrities."
Jonathan Scott: "I remember there was a scene where we were driving with Terry Crews singing, 'Making my way downtown,' and I was like, 'This is straight out of the film and into this car.'"
Drew Scott: "Zach Braff is the same, because I love Scrubs — that's my sense of humor, it's my style. I wanted to be an actor and a director, and I always thought that's the kind of thing I want to do. To pick his brain and hear his stories and stuff from back in the day when he got started, it was pretty fun."
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Drew, congrats on becoming a dad again, and Jonathan, on becoming an uncle twice over and a dad! Do you have any advice on how to make homes more kid-safe without sacrificing style?
Drew Scott: "Baby gates, and here's so many different styles you can get nowadays, and they're all great. We got ones that tied into our black wrought iron railings, so it actually looks very aesthetically pleasing. Even our fence around around the pool is a black that ties into the frame that we have for our glass.
"Also even small clips, like for cupboards or cabinets or windows—there are very simple, small ones that are straps or a metal latch that you can that you can get. Jonathan actually showed me one for travel if you're in a hotel room, which I think is brilliant. It hooks [onto] the door knob, and it's easy to put on and take off with tape, without damaging it. And then the kids can't open the door to the hotel room."
Jonathan Scott: "Your kid-proofing changes as they get older. But one thing that is incredible are bins and bin storage, and you can get them anywhere from IKEA to Pottery Barn Kids, you name it. We have the open storage bins, and then we label everything so it's not only easy to put things back, but it's easy for the kids to access. So we'll have like, a dinosaur bin or an animals bin or a cars bin, and then everything goes in there. When you give kids access to the stuff that they want all the time, they're less likely to try and climb and find something else that they're looking for, so you want all of those items to be down low and accessible for the kids, and then you can put other things away in cabinets.
"There's also a an incredible product, and I can't remember what it's called, but they're essentially like puzzle piece floor tiles. They're spongy and they come in beautiful designs. The entire playroom floor is covered in this. It's waterproof and scratch-proof, and you can clean them in the dishwasher. It saves the hardwood underneath from getting damaged, and the kids can crawl around, lay around, drop things, spill things—doesn't matter, it's easy to clean up."
Drew Scott: "I will say that, Jonathan, my wife, everybody made fun of me because I was like, 'No, even when we have kids, I want the living room, dining room to be pristine. No mess. The playroom and the kids rooms are gonna be organized morning and night.' And they're all like, 'Sure thing. Super organized dad.' And it has been a very big challenge, but just little bits of commitment has helped us get to where we are."
Jonathan Scott: "I was always like, 'I can't wait for you to realize that kids don't care about your rules.'
"As kids get a little older, you can start to teach them certain things. In our home, our kids are great at cleaning up the playroom, because they'll be in there and it'll look like a bomb went off, stuff's everywhere. And so I told them when they were three and five, 'All right, I've got a rule, guys: Anything you leave on the floor when you go to bed or when we leave the house, that means you don't want it, and I throw it out, or I donate it.' And they're like, 'No!' So I did it the first time, and they're like, 'Oh my gosh, how, why? Why?' And they're seven and nine now, all I have to say is, 'OK, so you guys don't want this stuff?' and they immediately put it all away. It goes in the bins. They do it. They clean perfectly every time."
Access exclusive content from the new episodes on HGTV’s digital platforms at HGTV.com/Celebrity-IOU and by following @HGTV and #CelebIOU on Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter), Instagram, TikTok and Threads. You can also engage with Drew and Jonathan on Instagram (@mrdrewscott and @jonathanscott) and Facebook (Drew Scott and Jonathan Silver Scott). The new episodes of Celebrity IOU will be available to stream the same day and time on Max—Mondays at 9 p.m. beginning Aug. 12, 2024.
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