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At its ‘Peak’
Canada launches the anti-’Hills’
When Lauren Horton blows off work to drink up and toboggan down local ski slopes, one thing is clear – she definitely is not Lauren Conrad.
Horton stars on the new Canadian MTV reality series Peak Season, which on the surface seems like the U.S. MTV’s Los Angeles-based The Hills.
But the brunette Canuck’s straight-forward honesty, love for Whistler nightlife and easy-going personality contrasts with that of the prim-and-proper blond American reality star, and that’s just the way Horton likes it.
“I think with The Hills, they’re kind of pushed to say things. Like there are people behind the cameras saying, ‘OK, be like this.’ And Peak Season isn’t like that; it’s real, it’s our lives,” Horton explains at a screening at the Masonic Temple in Toronto.
Peak Season follows the lives of a group of twentysomethings living in Whistler, B.C. Stephanie Just and Dré Morel are Whistler locals, while Morel’s ex-girlfriend Amanda Scheller moved to the resort town when she started dating him.
Then there are other Whistler transplants: Horton moved to Whistler from Ontario, while Matthew James and his girlfriend, Elle Hetherington, hail from Australia. Peak Season also stars Ian Ross, a singleton who loves to joke around with his buddies.
Like The Hills, Laguna Beach and The City, Peak Season will have its own Aftershow. But Morel maintains that Peak differs from those MTV reality shows because it is a documentary.
“It’s not a U.S. show. We don’t have crazy budgets. We don’t go and crash our parents’ Beamer,” he says. “We’re just living our everyday life and they’re documenting it.”
When the cameras started rolling, Horton and Morel said they adjusted pretty quickly to the third party. When filming started, Morel explains, “It was different and awkward. But after that, it was every day they would be there, like, following you around, and you were just used to it right away.”
And the stories and emotions are real: “I mean, the first scene I shot with them was breaking up with Amanda, like in her hotel – or in our townhouse – and that was just pretty emotional.”
While American MTV shows feature hotspots like Los Angeles and New York City, the cast of Peak Season claims that Whistler is the ideal location for a Canadian MTV show. “We know so many people and they’re all good-looking and interesting and dramatic, so there’s always something going on,” says Horton.
You can also expect a lot of craziness on Peak Season – the wild nightlife certainly puts Brody Jenner’s birthday party on The Hills to shame.
But don’t expect these MTV stars to be living the high life; they have real jobs, which were sometimes made difficult because of the camera crew.
“It was a little bit hectic when I was bartending,” says Horton, a bartender-turned-promotions entrepreneur. “They want to be in there filming me work and it wasn’t just, you know, one camera. There’s a bunch of cameras, right? But, like, where I worked was really cooperative.”
Unlike The Hills’ cast, the Peak Season stars say the show is edited to reflect their true personalities and real lives. “I didn’t really see like a ton of editing,” says Horton. “They’re not taking things and contorting them and making it what it wasn’t.”
With the exposure Peak Season has already brought to the show’s stars, they are already getting a taste of the limelight. “We’re doing this,” says Horton as she taps Morel on the knee, “’Can you believe what’s going on right now?’ It’s pretty, it’s very surreal, but it’s really exciting. We’re having a great time.”
The two aren’t letting fame go to their head, though.
“There was a group of girls who wanted their picture taken with us, and to watch how excited they were, to make someone’s day like that was cool. That’s what I really enjoy, watching someone, like, super-stoked,” reveals Horton.
“Like, you know, I’m just a normal person, Dré’s just a normal person. But they were so excited to be in the picture with us, which was like, if I can make someone’s day then I’m pretty happy about that.”
While the Hills stars have other interests – Conrad writes fiction, Audrina Patridge acts and Heidi Montag aspires to be a singer – Morel and Horton hope the show only helps with their regular jobs. Morel would like more DJ gigs, while Horton is working on her own promotions company.
Will genuine friendships fall apart after the series airs, à la Montag and Conrad? “Let’s watch the episodes before we answer that question,” says Morel.
Horton adds, “We’ve got to see what goes down. Who knows what’s been said …”
Find out what Horton, Morel and the rest of the Peak Season cast have to say about each other in the première, airing Monday, Oct. 19, at 10 p.m. on MTV.