The Bachelor is diving into more and more drama as the weeks progress on Season 27 and Zach Shallcross’ search for love. More than fifteen women have been eliminated by this point as he continues to figure out who he can see a future with and who should be sent home without a rose. While diehard fans are sure to tune in on Monday nights to enjoy watching his quest for a happily-ever-after, the Bachelor himself shared what makes him cringe as well as how he stops himself from dropping spoilers.
Zach Shallcross spoke with CinemaBlend at the SCAD TVfest event in Atlanta, GA, which also debuted an exclusive first look at an episode of The Bachelor and delivered a live taping of the Click Bait with Bachelor Nation hosted by Joe “Grocery Story Joe” Amabile and featuring his fellow Bachelor in Paradise alum (now wife) Serena Pitt. With several episodes of Season 27 already aired and many left to go, I asked Shallcross if he has a hard time not accidentally dropping spoilers in interviews, and he shared:
Constantly! If you see me, if I get asked a question, I always look behind to find the producer who's staring right at me to make sure I don't mess up or say anything. It's really hard because I don't know what I can and can't say, per se, because you go through this wild experience… and you want to share that, but I can't. So I have to be sneaky or secretive, and it's hard, but it will all pay off. I think surprise is fun.
As a reality show, The Bachelor obviously doesn’t follow a set script for Zach Shallcross to know what exactly airs in each episode, and how much he can (or can’t) publicly reveal just yet. The leading man of Season 27 was clear that he wants to share what happened with fans, but for now, he has to do his best to remain secretive and preserve the surprises for viewers at home.
He also shared that he doesn’t go into every episode on Monday nights completely blind to what will happen. When asked if he ever has an idea of what’s been cut into episodes before they air, he explained:
I do get a little bit of a heads up. I don't know fully for the whole season, but leading up to each episode I get just under a week heads up in advance. So that's always nice, because I don't like to watch with people. I like to watch by myself, in like a dark room. I don't like watching myself, so I just do that. And it's nice. It makes it a lot easier when Mondays come around and the memes start coming in. I'm like, 'I saw that coming.' [laughs]
Bachelor Nation fans can be relied upon for many things, including making memes and image edits out of the highs and lows of the search for love in any particular season. In fact, viewers on Twitter wasted no time in comparing Zach Shallcross’ one-on-one date in a museum to an iconic Ross/Rachel episode of Friends.
In light of the Bachelor’s reveal that he prefers to watch Season 27 alone and doesn’t like watching himself, I had to ask if there are any points that he wants to hit mute or look away, and he immediately responded:
Oh my god, all the time! I watched myself dancing in Episode 2, for example. In my mind, I thought I was a lot better. Not a good one, but I thought I was a little bit better. And now I cringe at like half the things I say. I'm not even joking you. Half the time I'm watching it, I just have to look [away]. 'I can't believe I said that.'... And it's also weird, watching yourself romantically, with everyone else watching you romantically, and your family and your sisters. It just all plays a role and you're just like, 'Oh my god, I'm cringing so freaking hard right now.'
There are some things that being filmed in romantic situations might bring to light for the person in front of the camera; in Zach Shallcross’ case, that includes what kind of dancer he truly is. He’s also not only experiencing what he went through from in a different way by watching, but realizing that everybody else – including his family – can watch as well.
He previously spoke about what it was like to film an all-nighter and his experience in being constantly followed by a camera crew. At SCAD TVfest, he weighed in on whether or not he was able to keep it out of his mind when filming that his family would someday be watching:
Interestingly enough, yes. There comes a certain point, and it's not like a specific moment that I can remember, but you just kind of get used to it. The camerapeople aren't camerapeople anymore. It's Mark, it's Rob, it's your friends that you get to know. It's your new normal for that period of time, to where you just kind of forget about it and you forget that it's a TV show, which is honestly weird to probably hear from the outside. But it's your reality. You don't have a phone, you don't have this and that. It's just life at that point. So it's weird, and then you rewatch it and you're like, 'Oh, shit, that's right. They were filming me. I'm an idiot.'
Zach Shallcross as well as the women vying for his heart are cut off from the outside world (at least when it comes to their phones) compared to life before and after The Bachelor, and the format meant that he was able to get used to having people with cameras around all the time. Watching it back is just a different experience! The Bachelor made it clear that even though he’s cringing nowadays, forgetting that it was for a TV show enabled him to truly try to find a partner. He said:
That [immersiveness] helps with the end desire that you hope everyone's wanting. What I'm wanting is that partner and if it's not immersive, then it feels like 'Okay, we're just filming a TV show. It's not like an actual partner can come from this,' whereas it does feel so immersive. It does feel like real life to where you can allow yourself to express yourself and not treat it like 'Oh my god, you're gonna be watched by people.' But then you watch it and you cringe. It's part of the deal. It's part of the deal.
Some awkwardness (like the Night 1 elimination) is bound to happen in any season of any show in Bachelor Nation with the cameras almost always running, and nobody can be portrayed in the most flattering light 100% of the time. Zach Shallcross did get some solid advice from former The Bachelor lead Sean Lowe, and the season is likely only to get more dramatic as more episodes air. For Shallcross, the immersiveness was good for helping him search for partner.
It just remains to be seen if he truly does find that partner! Whether fans are watching live on ABC or streaming with a Hulu subscription, the search for love is still in the very early stages in Season 27. We can just hope that nobody is there “for the wrong reasons” as The Bachelor continues! New episodes of the hit show with Zach Shallcross air on Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.
