National Post Interview

Here is an interview Lauren and i did for the National Post

http://www.nationalpost.com/arts/story.html?id=2118524

Peak Season, its gallant young Canadian cast members want to make clear, is not a Whistler-based version of The Hills. Of course, there are still breakups, makeups and tequila-fuelled hook-ups well past when it's time to go home from the bars, but there's at least one big difference between the American sensation and the new Canadian reality TV program that begins tonight on MTV: The scrappy Canadian crew is more real.

"We're not rich California kids that drive around in a Mercedes and were born with a silver spoon up our ass," says Lauren Horton, a 26-year-old Ajax, Ont.-native who has a nose ring, wears a black leather jacket and routinely displays her problem with authority on the show. "I watch The Hills and it's so fake. Those girls haven't struggled at all."

"Yeah," says Andreas "Dre" Morel, a 22-year-old DJ from Whistler, B.C. "Not this season, anyway."

There's plenty of suffering and tomfoolery on MTV's new program, which will get the full after-show treatment from Dan Levy and Jessi Cruickshank following every episode for the next 10 Monday nights. On a recent visit to Toronto, Morel and Horton found themselves experiencing the first glimmer of fame.

"Dre was on the phone and didn't notice, but we were coming out of a store and there was this big group of girls like, 'Oh my God! They're from Peak Season!' " Horton says.

"Were they hot?" asks Morel, who spins every Tuesday and Friday at the Savage Beagle, a Whistler hotspot that routinely makes cameos on the show.

"Dude, they were 14 years old!" Morton says, play-scolding. "The point is, we were recognized and the show hasn't even aired yet. It's all going to be so bizarre."

The seven cast members, all in their twenties and white, work in bars and hit the slopes, and the show's prying cameras aren't shy about examining their roller-coaster love lives. Horton and Morel both say they got used to the production (and are adamant that producers never put words in their mouths), but admit their friends and lovers had a hard time adjusting to life under a boom mic.

"When I went out to the clubs, people saw the cameras and would cause drama just to get on TV," says Morel, whose first scene on the program involves the packing of white sunglasses and black cargo pants from the home he and his ex-girlfriend Amanda once shared. "Amanda and I were breaking up, I was going out, partying hard, and that's when we started filming. I tried to be who I am."

By having the cameras follow Horton and Morel for three months, it definitely elevated the amount of attention the outgoing youngsters already receive. With that attention, of course, comes jealousy.

"I see hater comments on the Internet, but I welcome the haters just like I welcome the lovers because they're the ones that are watching," Horton says. "If you're really not interested, why would you have so much to say?"

The key for any participant on a reality-TV program is to leverage the new-found stardom into a post-television career and both Horton and Morel are hatching their plans. While Morel hopes to continue with his burgeoning career as a DJ, Horton is hard at work setting up a promotional company called Black Out Productions, which will, among other things, provide Coors Light girls to Whistler's bars. She says she was pleased with her Peak Season experience. Even if it forced her to let down her guard.

"The producers would say, 'You're the only girl who hasn't cried on the show,' and I told them, 'I'm not a crier,' but eventually I showed my vulnerable side," Horton says. "They broke me, dammit -- and I'm the tough chick!" - Peak Season premieres tonight at 10 p.m. on MTV Canada.