A 'Bachelor' Exec Has Revealed How They Cast Their Stars, So If You Wanna Put Your Hand Up...
A producer of The Bachelor has spilled on several topics around filming the hit TV show in a recent interview, including casting and what filming was like for Locky Gilbert, 30, and his love interests during COVID-19 lockdown (she actually reckons it made for stronger connections).
Chatting with Media Week, executive producer Hilary Innes revealed this season features two episodes produced while contestants were back home. Osher Gunsberg had stayed in The Bachelor mansion while Locky did lockdown in the pad. Dates, cocktail parties and rose ceremonies were all conducted virtually. The result made for “very fascinating viewing”, said Hilary.
She continued: “Suddenly you break out of The Bachelor world and go into people’s lives and seeing how they do things like making breakfast in their trackie dacks. And it is a really interesting place to go and explore The Bachelor world from for a change. Everyone will relate to it because they are all going through it.”
She added: “There was obviously chemistry happening between some people and Locky and we needed to keep everyone engaged with the process and each other.”
Also in the chat, Hilary addressed the, um, rather strange predicament Locky found himself in after he fell in love with two of the women – a plot twist teased in the premiere episode. Apparently – somewhat surprisingly, actually – it hadn’t ever happened on the Aussie version of the show before.
“Locky by his own admission falls in love with more than one girl, where before we haven’t found love and famously the Honey Badger (Nick Cummins) couldn’t choose someone, we have a Bachelor who has fallen in love with more than one girl which is a first for us in Australia,” Hilary said.
Locky himself touched on the topic in a recent interview with us, saying: “It’s a hard, hard experience and there would be people out there that say that that can't happen. But with the Bachelor world, [I feel like] it's crazy if that didn't happen.”
He continued: “You're put in these scenarios where I was talking to all the girls for nearly five, six months and that's all I was doing, I wasn't concentrating on anything else … All you're doing is thinking about a future with these women. I was trying to find the true love. And I did find that.”
And finally, Hilary spilled the tea on how producers went about choosing the Bachelor and Bachelorette each year. “There is no rhyme or reason to selecting The Bachelor, " she said. "We went with Tim Robards and Sam Wood who were tall dark and handsome alpha males who knew what they wanted. Matt Agnew was more the cerebral handsome which we had never had before which was very interesting. The Honey Badger [Nick Cummins] was more quirky and funny with a big profile. Locky was a little bit in between.”
If you're keen for an Insta-stalk of all the women vying for Locky's heart, head here. You can also read MTV's full interview with 2020 Bachelor Locky Gilbert here.
Main Image Credit: The Bachelor, Network Ten
