Posted at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 26

When viewers think of reality TV vet Janice Dickinson, “nurturing” isn’t the first word that pops to mind.

Try “demanding,” “confrontational,” “unpredictable” and, well, “loud.”

But on the new season of “The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency,” producer Stuart Krasnow said, fans will see the self-proclaimed original supermodel’s softer side.

“I think that you’re really going to see this very den mother side of Janice that I don’t think we’re used to seeing,” Krasnow said. “actually very, very moving and very real.”

When the show begins its fourth season at 9 p.m. Tuesday on Oxygen, Dickinson will move into a house with her models—giving her the perfect opportunity to advise them on everything from proper nutrition, health, romance and finance, she told reporters recently.

“[It will be] all the things that your average model won’t receive unless they’re living in a house like this,” she said, adding that she got the idea from her early years as a model, living in an agency house in Paris.

Dickinson’s model house, however, is a little more state of the art electronically. She asked Christopher Ciccone, Madonna’s brother, to decorate her private room and install a surveillance system in the residence.

“They’re being observed by me, the Dr. No of modeling, 24/7,” Dickinson said. “They can’t get away with what they think they could get away with.”

Dickinson, keeping with the theme of her kinder, gentler self, said that she may be a “pretty tough boot camp sergeant” to the models, but she only demands of them what she asks of herself.

“It’s so engrained in me to do this because here’s my motto: if I can dish it out to those models, I better be able to take it,” she said. “If I’m going to put my butt in a bikini, my ass better be off the back of my kneecaps. If I don’t look good, you know, who am I to be doling out all these commands?”

Ah, now there’s the Janice Dickinson we’ve come to know and love—the one with complete self-confidence.

“This is the fourth franchise I’ve done, and I’m sorry, excelled in,” she said. “Excuse me, I just didn’t fall off the tomato truck.”

Don’t miss what else Dickinson had to say after the photo below.

Q: Janice, talk about the stakes in doing this show. What does it mean to you?

JD: What does it mean to me? It means everything. I eat and sleep for kids achieving their dreams. It allows me to give back in a field and an industry that I worship.

Q: Has the criteria for models changed in your lifetime for “supermodels?”

JD: Oh absolutely. With what the network and the agency is trying to achieve on “The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency,” it’s a show that is so unique and different [with] the agency ethic.

We are trying to bring diversity and equality into the agency with a vision that doesn’t quite fit the magazine and the editorial mold that’s out there as to date.

Q: Who is the most important support person behind the scenes for your models on your show? Is it the hairstylists, the makeup artists, the costumer? Who’s the most important person that a model relies on?

JD: You know, the most important person a model has to rely on is the agent. The agent is the one that sees that the model isn’t wearing too much makeup or needs to put some more on, that she needs to cut her hair to keep up with the times or take it down.

It’s the mentor and the agent, which is what I’m supplying, you know, for the girls with my experience. I also need to add that without stylists, hair, makeup, Kraft services—just everybody around you, photographers, assistants, lighting guys, you don’t have what—it’s a collective team.

So you can’t have one without the other. You really can’t.

SK: I’m just going to be a little bit in support what you said because I think it’s hard for you to say this about yourself. As a producer behind the scenes, every model is obsessed with the idea of having more access to Janice …

They really, really do trust what she has to say and since these models are up for real jobs, and potentially real campaigns and real exposure—it’s not an elimination show—so every piece of information they get from Janice, it could be the difference between getting a job or not getting a job …

So, you know, it goes way beyond what we documents on the show. Her relationship with them is very real and very genuine, and she’s very much in their lives on every level.

JD: My only regret is that I’m not really on my daughter’s 15-year-old radar. As soon as she comes into the house it’s like lock the room and it’s like barricade away from me. But you know, I think that’ll change.

Q: Was there ever any time during the season where you just needed some privacy, where you just wanted to kind of retreat into your room?

JD: That’s hilarious. I don’t know how. I honestly don’t know how. So the way to do it is—yeah, that’s the best question of all. The way to do it is, in actuality, meditation and yoga.

That allows me the decompression if I could—in a perfect world, I’d have an acupuncturist follow me around with a huge needle right through my brain.

But the only way for me to do it—and anyone else—you have to take that time, that 20 minutes in the morning and in the evening, just to decompress. Otherwise, my heart will burst. It’s too much.

Q: And were the models actually allowed to come upstairs and, you know, go in your room...

No, never. No, off limits. There has to be a decorum of modesty. … They’re never allowed in my room, ever.

Q: Were there any moments that you wish hadn’t been caught on tape?

JD: Yeah, well there were hundreds of moments that I wish I hadn’t been caught on tape. For example, bad lighting. You know, I see myself in my 50s not looking 20 at times. Age is sometimes, you know, hard for anyone to cope with.

You’re going to see bad lighting and you’re going to see, you know, particular harsh exits. For example, one of my favorite models is a kid called Kehoe from Reno, Nev. And this kid is effervescent and he’s a brat, but he’s got something basically that no one else has in this agency.

He’s got that it factor which you see and I see, and the audience will get, that he’s just like the bad apple but will turn out to be the entire orchard. He’s just wonderful.

And you see me at odds with this kid with tough love always, just putting my foot down and shutting the door on him just to toughen him up, addressing issues like sobriety, being the bratty kid, cohabiting with the kids, showing up on assignments where he wasn’t even invited.

I saw sides of myself that I didn’t like [when dealing with this kid]. Who likes to sit there with me saying get the [bleep] out, you know, get the [bleep] out of my agency, get the [bleep] out of my house.

But you know what? It’s in the show and it’s a reality. And I don’t necessarily like the harsh language that comes out of my mouth but that’s who I am. And I do work on my language. I try.

Q: So let’s talk about that it factor. How do you pick the models? How do you see something that separates them from everyone else?

JD: My experience in working with some of the great models of my day, of all ethnicities, starring the great Lauren Hutton herself—just seeing a kid from the Everglades, Florida growing up, you know, wrestling with alligators, just—she’s got that it factor. I mean, she’s a tomboy.

What I look for is that thing in the eye. I can’t explain it until I see it in back of the camera. But you can see it. It’s a hunger. It’s a hunger. I can’t explain it. It’s an it thing. It’s a hunger to get what you want and then excel in it.

Q: Between men and women, do you think anybody does it better than the other or does it just depend on the person?

JD: I’ll tell you, we have a kid on the show thanks to Stuart bringing it to our attention. His name is Martin. He’s hearing impaired and he is gay. So he’s got all things going on that make him the perfect model.

He is beautiful. He’s beautiful inside and you see a swan slowly developing in front of our eyes where it gives hope and a role model, and a play to a whole generation of kids out there thinking that they can’t do something.

You see him slowly learning ballet and you see his insecurities on the show about how can a deaf guy—and he calls himself deaf so I’m quoting him and I don’t know if it’s PC—but he says how can I, a deaf guy, take a ballet class when I can’t hear the music?

Well I, along with the ballet teacher, taught him how to do it and you see the look on his face of achievement where he was able to get the dance moves. I want to start to cry when I think about it.

It’s just so wonderful that we’re allowing things like this to happen. And it’s not scummy television. It’s just wonderful television.

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