Next week, Lifetime‘s breakout hit about the cast and crew of a Bachelor-style reality show, UnReal, will return for its highly anticipated third season. (Australians can catch it on Stan.)
The show-within-the-show is called Everlasting, and this season, taking queue from its real-life inspiration The Bachelor, it’ll be introducing a “suitress” by the name of Serena (Caitlin FitzGerald).
What that basically means is we’ll be seeing a non-stop parade of tanned, glistening abs this season, otherwise known as male contestants. Money, dick, power indeed.
One of those is Aussie boy Adam Demos, who plays a surfer boy-turned-Peace Corps member by the name of August (really).
“He’s a bit of a do-gooder, that’s why he enters the show, to promote his brand and that sort of stuff,” Demos told PEDESTRIAN.TV. “He’s laid back and relaxed, so I’m sort of that guy, but I don’t hook up a hammock to sleep outside [like he does] just because I get claustrophobic, I’m not as far as him.”
Ever since season one star Nathalie Kelley (who played runner-up Grace) told us that ~certain~ actors on the show began believing it was The Bachelor for real, we needed to find out for sure just how similar the two shows were.
And hey – season one lovebirds Freddie Stroma (who played suitor Adam Cromwell) and Johanna Braddy (who played winner Anna Martin) ended up getting married FOR REAL, so it’s already pre-e-e-e-tty similar to the IRL thing.
First things first: does anyone ever get mixed up between the ‘real’ equipment (sound, lighting, cameras, etc) and the prop stuff?
“Yeah, 100 percent,” said Demos. “I’ll ask people where catering is, and they’re an extra, just dressed up as crew. It’s bizarre, but then they’ll use [footage]. They’ll be shooting UnReal, and then they’ll go into Everlasting and you’ll do an elimination ceremony, and then they’ll cut, and they’ll keep actual crew in the shot to get your close up. In season one and two you can see our crew in there half the time as well, the sound guys and everything.”
And those trailers you see on screen? They’re fully functioning trailers, i.e. not prop trailers. Makes sense, even if it’s a bit confusing to get your head around.
“My first scene was the arrival scene at the mansion,” he continues. “So you’re sitting in the car, and that’s UnReal, and then you see all the hosts and the fake crew dressed up, and then they call action for Everlasting, and they queue you to walk out. So you really feel like you’re on a reality show, because that’s what it would be like.”
So how about this idea of the actors playing the contestants starting to get a little… uh…. competitive?
“Yea, 100 percent,” Demos says again (it’s definitely a phrase of his). “And everyone starts asking each other, ‘So how long are you going for? What’s going on? Like do you end up with her?’” He rolls his eyes. “Just ASK THE SHOWRUNNER. It’s not that hard.”
But you can understand the competitiveness. Actors aren’t given the entire script from the get-go. Characters and plot lines can be (and are) tweaked along the way, so the only clue these guys have as to how far their character goes is by the length of their contract.
“You never know who’s gonna win, but you sort of know how long you’re lasting,” said Demos. (In fact, Kelley told P.TV that she was initially told her character Grace would ‘win’ only to find out later that wasn’t the case, closely imitating the events of UnReal.)
“Some of the actors start believing and start buying into the storylines and stuff. It gets weird, man. It gets confusing.”
But if anyone thinks Constance Zimmer, who plays producer-turned-showrunner Quinn King, is as much of a psychopathic chaos maestro as she is in the show, you’d be dead wrong.
“Absolutely not,” Demos says, when we ask him if they’re anything like one another. “If I could be half the professional and human that she is in life, you’re winning, man. She’s the nicest person ever. She’s in every scene, she’s directing episodes, she’s got a family in L.A., she flies back on the weekends, she walks on set, she makes all the extras feel welcome and laugh, the crew, and then she goes into a scene and she’s just unbelievable. Like she’s perfect from the first read.”
UnReal season three premieres February 27 on Stan, where you can binge seasons one and two now. Watch the trailer (again) below.
And here’s our full interview with season one star Nathalie Kelley, who has all the tea.
