Peak Season: Q&A with Lauren and Dre
With the success of The Hills and The City, it was only a matter of time before the MTV reality machine came to Canada to find some Northern drama – and, with Peak Season, the network has certainly found a drama goldmine. Set in the notorious party town of Whistler, B.C., Peak Season follows the personal and professional exploits of a group of young residents – and, unlike The Hills, it’s genuinely dramatic and doesn’t seem fake. Barely a day goes by without a fight breaking out in a bar or someone getting drunk and cheating on their significant other, and the cameras are there to catch all of it.
Peak Season stars Lauren Horton and Dre Morel were in Toronto last week to promote the reality show; here, they talk about the unpredictable Whistler life and why they agreed to reveal their personal lives to millions of viewers.
After watching the first few episodes, I have to ask: why would you want cameras following you around?
Dre: I know, right?
Lauren: We’re crazy!
I’m not sure how to put this delicately, but: it seems like you’re drinking alcohol in almost every scene.
Lauren: Oh, god! When they filmed this, I was going through a really rough period in my life and I was drinking a lot to kind of drink away my sorrows. There was a lot of time where I felt like I didn’t know what to do, so drinking was the obvious answer.
Dre: I signed up for the show to get exposure for my DJing, but… obviously, they got more than that. They got my relationship and everything.
Do you worry about how people will view you now? Most viewers of The Hills think the people on it are jerks, and this show is being pitched as The Hills in Whistler.
Lauren: Oh, it’s not. It’s definitely not The Hills at all. It’s a big misconception that people have. Within the first episode, people are going to go, “This is not The Hills.” It definitely deals with relationships; that’s a similarity, but no.
Stuff actually happens on your show.
Lauren: Exactly.
Dre: The thing is, too, we’re not just sitting on a couch and talking – we’re out, playing hockey or going sledding. There’s so much stuff to do in Whistler, and they show that.
Lauren: And we’re trying to do things with our lives. Dre’s trying to be a DJ and I’m working on my promotions company, so it’s not just going out and partying all the time.
Dre, are you afraid that you’ll be known as the Spencer Pratt of the DJ world?
Dre: Any publicity is good publicity.
…So you will be Spencer Pratt, then.
Dre: No! No!
Lauren: He’s the furthest thing from Spencer Pratt, seriously. I mean, The Hills – I’m not going to lie; I watch it – but it’s boring compared to us.
What was it like to watch the show now?
Lauren: Strange.
Dre: I think it’s so funny.
Lauren: It’s really fun. You’re just laughing at it. I’ve seen the first few episodes now; we couldn’t stop laughing.
Is this really what your personal lives are like? You go out and get into fights at bars?
Lauren: Yeah.
That sounds exhausting.
Lauren: It can be.
Dre: Sometimes, yeah.
Is there any pressure to play that up for the cameras?
Lauren: No. That stuff was going on when the cameras weren’t there.
Dre: Yeah.
Lauren, in the first episode, you get into a fight with a girl who had been saying mean things about you, but we never find out what she was saying.
Lauren: She was just speaking about personal issues – it was really personal and I didn’t even want the show to get involved in it. A lot of it had to do with my relationship because a lot of things happened before the show, but they didn’t focus on it because I asked them not to. She was just saying some really harsh things about me, spreading rumours about me and I had just had enough.
Dre: She was stirring sh*t.
Lauren: Yeah, just being dramatic. I leave something alone for a long period of time, but then it gets to be too much and I just go and yell. And I did that.
Does that happen in every episode?
Lauren: I hope not! Watching the episodes now is so strange, because I’m like, “How does it look like I’m mad in every single scene that I’m in?” You’ll see, though, my life develops and I change.
And Dre, you were trying to move out of your apartment before your girlfriend got back from her trip? That’s a low move.
Dre: I ran out of time! I think she came home early, to be honest.
Well, the cameras were already in the hall; that scene rang a little false, to be honest.
Dre: Well… I signed up for the show and they asked if they could film that and I said, “Yeah, for sure.” But the conversation wasn’t faked. It’s as real as it gets. It was crazy.
Lauren: I saw the awkwardness when she walked in.
Dre: It was pretty emotional.
People always talk about how fake The Hills is. Are there elements of Peak Season where you have to do retakes?
Dre: No, this is a documentary series. We give them our schedule and they meet us wherever we are and they film us. That’s it.
How long did it take you to get used to the cameras?
Dre: About a day.
Lauren: It was really quick. It’s bizarre, because it gets really intense, really quickly and then you get used to it.
Lauren, how was it watching the show with your grandma and the rest of your family?
Lauren: Oh, god, I’m not looking forward to the comments when I get home. My nan is older – she knows me and she knows exactly who I am, but I still get that little twinge. But the rest of my family won’t say a thing because I’ve been confident my whole life, so they’re used to me being vocal and sticking up for myself.
Dre, you were born and raised in Whistler, but Lauren, you grew up in Ajax, Ont. Why did you move out there?
Lauren: I went out to visit friends. I have friends who live there in the winter season and they go to ski, and my best friend and I went out to visit them, and she came home and I stayed.
How long have you been out there?
Lauren: Three years. I fly back in the summer, but I’m parked there.
What’s your least favourite moment from the first few episodes?
Lauren: Oh, mine is when I’m sledding with my friends and one of them takes a swig of vodka and spits it out into my mouth. That was definitely not my highest point of the show.
Were you not aware that they were filming?
Lauren: I did, but I didn’t know if they were going to put that in!
Of course they were!
Lauren: Yeah, well, I know that now.
Dre: My least favourite moment is in the first episode where I call [now-ex-girlfriend] Amanda “The One.” It’s a knuckle-biter.
What’s it like to relive all the breakups and arguments with boyfriends and girlfriends?
Dre: I don’t know. It’s going to test us, for sure. A lot has happened since we stopped filming the show, for sure; Amanda and I became friends and now we’re going to watch the show and…
And you guys will see what people were saying about you when you weren’t around.
Lauren: Yeah, that’s the one thing – we don’t know what each other filmed. It will be interesting to see. Me and [ex-boyfriend] Scoot, I don’t know what he said.
Dre: I didn’t say anything about you. I swear.
Lauren: I didn’t say anything about you, either! Nothing!
Peak Season has an extensive cast; were you all friends before the show or did your paths cross more because of filming?
Dre: That’s what Whistler is, though. Everyone knows each other and everyone runs into each other.
Lauren: Yeah, you have a group of friends here, a group of friends here and a group of friends here, and everyone’s connected somehow.
And you can’t hug somebody without somebody getting mad, apparently.
Lauren: That’s just what happens.
Dre: That’s how rumours start.
Lauren: Yeah. People take things the wrong way. They see a hug and they whisper about it and it gets blown out of proportion, and the next thing you know, people are sleeping together or they’re dating. I don’t know.
Dre: It’s brutal.
Again, that sounds so exhausting. It’s like high school, except you’re grownups.
Dre: Oh, thank you.
Lauren: I don’t think I’m grown up! But yeah, I guess it can be exhausting. I get stressed out about it sometimes.
Dre: It is like high school, though.
Lauren: It’s grown-up high school, definitely. Everyone knows each other and everyone talks about what you’re doing. But I think people can relate to it. It’s not just high school; adults do the same thing. People just talk. Everyone talks about one another, I find. Maybe it’s not in a negative way, necessarily, but it’s like, “Oh, by the way, did you know this?” Or “Did you hear about this?”
Dre: Whistler’s always been like that, though. Always. No matter what you do.
Are you nervous about being the spotlight and having people criticize you and your personal life?
Dre: Not at all. I’m ready for it.
Lauren: I’m prepared.
Dre: I signed up for it. We both did.
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