Murtz On The Scene: Exclusive Interview With The Bachelor Canada‘s Brad Smith

Features, Interviews, Top Story

Tonight marks the launch of one of the most-anticipated premieres in Canadian television history as The Bachelor Canada kicks off with former CFL player and current free agent Brad Smith as its leading man.

Son of senator and former CFL commissioner Larry Smith, Brad has the best job in the world, but the real question is how the show will fare considering the sporadic success of Canadian takes on successful American reality franchises.

At a recent press conference and premiere screening, the show’s executive producer Claire Freeland said that the show received her American counterpart’s approva and that Mike Fleiss was “thrilled” with the first episode.

“We met with Mike Fleiss’ company before we started the show because we wanted to get an understanding of how the show worked, the mechanics and what’s happening behind the curtain. It was a very eye-opening experience for us. The scope of the show is enormous and obviously much larger down there,” she said. “For us, we didn’t want to tinker with the format because we have the American shows on Citytv and that’s what our viewers are familiar with but there were certain things where it made sense to make tweaks or slight adjustments to and they were really encouraging and open to it.”

Supervising producer Sean DeVries elaborated and said that the Canadian team got a sense of what they were going to do after watching the American team shoot the first week of Emily Maynard’s past season of The Bachelorette and that the main difference is the liberties they took with the way the show was shot.

“Because it’s made in so many different territories and for so many different budgets, we found a way to make it as good as we possibly could. I don’t know if anyone noticed but we shot it slightly different,” he said. “We shot it at a different frame rate so it feels a bit more filmic than the 60i which is very reality. We gave it a bit of a different look which was probably the biggest change.”

Aside from the slight camera adjustment, the format and structure of the series remains the same.

I discussed the show with its star and Brad and I talked about many topics including the show’s realism, his quest and why people should tune in.

Murtz Jaffer: When you go into The Bachelor, do you feel like it is a job that you have to do really well at or is it more just being part of a kitschy reality show?

Brad Smith: I think you have to find the in-between of what you just said. If you take away the word ‘kitschy,’ it is a reality show at its base. The foundations of it were based on it being a quest for love or the fairytale quest for love. It’s become less so about that and more dramatic based on the fact that it turns into a ratings-grab when the girls lose their minds. How do you get the best of both worlds? How do you get the girls to go after the guy and the guy to be there for the girls? It’s so many moving parts. How do you make sure that the moving part is the one that is going to go in the direction of facilitating what the show is about which is the love aspect?

MJ: Can you really find love on a show like this or is it just a matter of picking the best girl that ‘fits’ so you have an ending?

BS: It’s so funny that you ask that. I didn’t think that they were going to pick me because I said that at no point was I going to facilitate their ending of the show. I said a lot of things that I shouldn’t have to get picked but I think the realism that I brought and the fact that not only was I realistic about the ending but that I was also realistic about my intentions. I want to find that girl but I am not going to give you an endpoint to what I am going to do if I find her. So it’s like we see what this guy is after (the girl), but we don’t know what he’s going to do. It makes it better because we don’t know. Can we put him in the best situation to find her? Yes. Now that we have seen the 25 girls, there’s some phenomenal-looking girls and some phenomenal personalities and for me, when I went in there, my intention was 100% to find a girl. If she was there, I was going to find her. If she wasn’t, I would have been happy not facilitating my end of the show which was finding her.

MJ: One of the things they do on the U.S. version of The Bachelor is attach a theme to it. When Jake Pavelka was the guy…

BS: Wings of Love! Spicy chicken and spicy sausage!

MJ: Exactly! I just kept thinking we’d hear ‘O Canada’ or something whenever you showed up. Some really cheesy, over-the-top, Northern reference. Why do you think they avoided doing that?

BS: I think that they are going to get the CanCon. They are going to take you to the best Canadian places that we can find. I can tell you, you saw the super trailer with all the exotic locations and one of my favorite locations that we went to was in Canada. Why don’t Canadian reality shows work in Canada? It’s because you’re taking a format and then putting the same format in Canada and doing the show on the same set…

MJ: With a lower budget.

BS: Right, right. How do we make the Canadian version Canadian but stick to the look or the aesthetic that we want. That’s probably why it took so long to get here. It’s not a show that you can fake because if you fake the budget and if you fake the look, you are going to fake the people that are on the show and then it’s not going to work for the people who are watching. That’s why it took a long time to find the right production company and the right network.

MJ: Was that a concern for you? If I was The Bachelor Canada, the first thing that I would think of is that I don’t want to be in some ghetto coffee shop in Moncton which is probably where the majority of the dates are going to be. When I saw the trailer, the first thing I noticed was that you actually went to Paris! They actually funded a trip to France! That immediately added a degree of legitimacy to the show for me. Did you have that concern, that this was just going to be a knock-off? A cheap Canadian version of The Bachelor?

BS: When I had gone through the process and it was a long process of about four months (in which I only met with The Bachelor people four times), they basically told me their intention for the show. They said that they wanted to make it Canadian but we want to do what is inherent to The Bachelor which is do the amazing things that you’ll never be able to do. Right off the bat, I knew what I was getting into based on where I was going. The show far exceeded even what I had thought. Not only is it a good Canadian television show, it’s just a good television show on any level.


Brad Smith

MJ: I know that one of the interesting things that happens on The Bachelor is that everybody tries to see the couple together while the show is still airing. Is it hard avoiding that sort of thing? Do you have to monitor where you go so that people don’t see who you’re with.

BS: That’s suggesting that I pick someone!

MJ: Right, I am trying to think of a way to phrase it without giving anything away!

BS: Just speaking from my perspective, people think that the show is the hard part. That’s a walk in the park compared to the in-between period. Being secretive is something that I don’t enjoy doing. Not only that, you only have a small demographic of people (which for me is about four) and then my PR girls who know the outcome of the show, and even then, they don’t know everything that’s happened. You can only be 100% yourself around this small group.

MJ: Is that hard?

BS: Oh yeah. When you look back at everything that’s happened, come December, when I look back at the entire experience, you can’t replicate it. It will never be duplicated and I would never give it up. All the things that we did, even within that little snapshot… 10 years from now when I am working at KFC, I can tell people that I did this. It’s something that can never be taken away from me. Even though it’s a rollercoaster of highs and lows (sorry for the cliché), the emotional taxation that goes on during the filming process is exceeded by the elation you have when you realize it’s going to be good.

MJ: How would you define who Brad Smith is. I have read the press releases that say you’re a former CFL player, son of a senator… how do you want people to see you?

BS: I am just a normal guy. I have gotten in trouble with the PR team and with everybody who wants to tag me with the Prince Charming label. I really do appreciate that connotation but what I know that is Canadian about me and what Canadians will appreciate is that you’re putting a normal guy with normal girls in an extraordinary environment hoping that it produces something like love. When you do that with people who seem attainable like myself, then it gives everybody the hope that maybe this show isn’t the same as every other show. Maybe this show is the one that has it right. Putting the guy in there that doesn’t have everything but what he does have is the sincere desire to find that one girl if she is there. And be realistic about it. That’s the Canadian version that I wanted to be a part of. Realism. Take realism and reality TV and mash it together. You’re going to get the drama! You don’t need to cast for it.

MJ: Speaking of that, the theory is that they always keep one girl in there that the guy is never going to pick but they need to have her in there for the ratings. I am assuming you weren’t influenced at all. Gabrielle (the series’ assumed villain based on tonight’s premiere episode) for example. Was she someone that you were genuinely interested in… I looked at her and I was like ‘there’s no way he is actually going to pick her, she is just great TV.’

BS: I’ll preface it by saying that Gabby is a great girl. I don’t get to see any of that happen. I didn’t hear about any of that until four weeks into the show. What I do get to see seven or however many hours of the best of that person on our date. I don’t get to see the downside. That’s why Ben (Flajnik) picks Courtney. Everyone can get mad at him but he is happy right now so we should all be happy for him. The fact of the matter is that at the end of the day, if I don’t see that side and I pick that person and I am okay with the way that my decisions went, I have to be okay with that. If I am not, then I have done a disservice to myself. As a guy, if a girl says to me ‘don’t look at her,’ she is wasting her time with me talking about another girl and I am thinking she is intimidated, jealous or she’s telling the truth. 66% is telling me that there must be something about the girl she is talking about and that actually makes me want to spend a little more time with her. I don’t need a girl that gets along with everybody else. I just need her to get along with me.

MJ: Is it weird kissing so many girls in such a short amount of time or is that just the Lothario lifestyle that you’re used to prior to the show?

BS: Since you have seen the trailer, it does look like I am the makeout king and the makeout bandit especially with the cowboy hat on… I do have to say that in the context of past shows I have seen, I was within the logistics of number. I was respectable and I think it was just edited to show the romance and that it is there but I don’t think that I went overboard and I don’t think that I was inappropriate.

MJ: The two standouts to me from the premiere are Kara and Whitney. Can you tell me a little bit more about Whitney’s entrance from the limo? I don’t know if that’s actually how she came in or if it was editing but it was the standout moment of the premiere to me.

BS: This is the best part. There’s five girls in each limo. They stop, you go inside, and then they reset five girls in the limo. Once they go from 1-5. There is no stopping. I think she was the fifth girl in the first limo.

MJ: She didn’t even say anything and she was just totally breathtaking.

BS: When she is hugging me and she said ‘come and see me inside,’ and I was like ‘oh you know I will!’ The Whitney entrance I remember specifically. There were like five or six girls who stepped out and I was like [speechless motion]. Whit was definitely one of them. When I was holding her hand and I was like ‘I really like what’s going on here’ everyone in production was laughing and screaming.

MJ: In terms of the girls, were you ever scared that they would cast major Canadian stereotypes? Like a girl would just come in and say her father was a lumberjack and her mom produces maple syrup.

BS: [Laughs]. No. The casting people were so good with me. I figured that they would cast for all demographics but in the end, they would cast like-minded people who were there for me to have a connection with. You don’t want to put girls in who are just wasted spots.

MJ: What did the girl after Whitney did? Did she get the same treatment?

BS: I forget who is #6. You really have to be respectful because everyone is so excited. Whenever I see the show, it always looks like they are so composed. What Gabby about me that first night was the most correct thing that anyone has ever said about me. “He was so nervous, but so collected.” That’s the way I was feeling. I could get my words out, but inside I was just a hamster in a wheel.

MJ: Why do you think people should watch this show?

BS: Innately, you want to be critical given the track record that we have had with Canadian reality shows.

MJ: I am glad that you are so open about that because most people don’t like to admit the fact that a lot of the Canadian shows haven’t worked.

BS: Well a lot of the Canadian shows have and a lot of Canadian shows haven’t, it’s just the ones that we see in our minds are the ones that initially worked and then faded off because you’re using the same format and not making it different. That’s the best part about The Bachelor Canada. We are taking trips not only in Canada but all over the world and we’re doing it with Canadian people. A Canadian Bachelor. A Canadian host. From the first episode, this overwhelming sense of realism the entire time. It’s a totally attainable story. Not only will they be blown away by the first episode but when they see that 90-second super trailer about what’s coming up on the rest of the season, that’s one of the best things I have seen. It’s not just ‘ladies, I am taking you on a date… to Arby’s around the corner.’ People will like me or not like me but they are going to want to come on the trip with us because if that’s the first episode, there is a lot more to see.

MJ: Did you get any advice from American Bachelors?

BS: No, I would have loved to but I think the process between picking me and going on the show was about two weeks. It was a quick turnover. The best advice I got was from the DP (director of photography). He said ‘Brad, I am always going to make you look good.’ He didn’t mean aesthetically. He meant by not putting me in compromising situations. Moreso than that, he said ‘the kid that I saw when we were shooting your backstory at home is the kid that I want to see here.’ That was the best advice I got.

MJ: That’s great, thank you so much.

BS: Thank you, nice to meet you.

The Bachelor Canada premieres tonight at 9 p.m. on Citytv

Murtz Jaffer is the world's foremost reality television expert and was the host of Reality Obsessed which aired on the TVTropolis and Global Reality Channels in Canada. He has professional writing experience at the Toronto Sun, National Post, TV Guide Canada, TOROMagazine.com and was a former producer at Entertainment Tonight Canada. He was also the editor at Weekendtrips.com.