Constance Zimmer and Shiri Appleby return in Season Three of Unreal. Photo / Supplied
Constance Zimmer and Shiri Appleby return in Season Three of Unreal. Photo / Supplied
When the savage and hilarious drama series Unreal showed up in 2015 and immediately grasped the pop culture zeitgeist, it revealed just how many of us are secretly fascinated by reality dating shows.
Creatively exploiting the weirdly prominent position that competitive dating shows have in the contemporary cultural conversation, Unreal takes viewers behind the scenes of a fictional Bachelor-esque programme called Everlasting and lays bare the brazenly manipulative, soul-sucking machinations that drive such endeavours.
It's received acclaim for centreing on two complex female characters: ruthless-yet-vulnerable Everlasting showrunner Quinn (Constance Zimmer - House of Cards), and self-destructive-yet-hopeful segment producer Rachel (Shiri Appleby - Roswell).
"What I find really satisfying about being on this show is that we're telling the story of two women whose jobs are more important to them than finding love," Appleby tells Weekend on the Vancouver set of Unreal. " I think that's something unfortunately not seen that often on television, so there's a strong response. Also I think fans of reality dating shows like to be able to see behind the curtain. It's a show unlike anything else."
The especially bonkers second season of Unreal culminated in a double murder, and as we head into season three, Rachel is taking time out from the toxic environment and must be lured back to the show by Quinn.
"Rachel is really focused on this new healing practice called Essential Honesty," says Appleby. "And she feels that if she can live a life that's about being honest and doing what's right, then she can come back to this environment and do it differently."
In the new season, Everlasting will for the first time focus on a female suitor ("Suitress" - don't say Bachelorette): a successful tech entrepreneur named Serena, played by Caitlin FitzGerald (Masters of Sex).
"Rachel decides, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to bring in a female suitress, someone that I really respect and admire," explains Appleby. "Which is sort of her answer to the feminist movement that's going on. Rachel's point of view is: I wanna show the world that a woman can be strong, be successful, be powerful, and she can also be desirable to men. I think that's Rachel's way of winning the world."
As anyone who's watched Unreal knows, honesty, essential or otherwise, doesn't figure very prominently in Rachel's job, which entails manipulating the contestants to create the most possible drama.
Constance Zimmer and Shiri Appleby in Unreal Season 3.
Where Rachel serves as the compromised heart at the centre of Unreal, Quinn is the show's raging id (see sidebar). "I've been the first one to say that Quinn terrified me," Zimmer tells Weekend. "The first season we were shooting the show, I thought 'I can't do this, everybody's gonna hate me, everybody's gonna think I'm such a bitch.' And everybody behind the scenes kept saying 'No, everybody's gonna love you, it's such a strong female'. I hadn't seen this kind of character played this way, so it was very challenging."
"I give a lot of credit actually to the fans and the people watching the show, because they're the ones who were constantly commenting: Here are two female characters that are so unlikeable, yet we all can relate to versions of them and why they're doing what they're doing, and why they are who they are."
Zimmer admits that portraying Quinn's intensity takes its toll on her.
"It's fairly exhausting, because I'm going against everything I naturally, instinctually want to do as Constance, and I can't do any of it. And I'm constantly having to put on this armour. It really does feel like armour. Because she's so closed-off and so tightly wound."
It's an intensity that Unreal fans can't get enough of.
"I think what people are attracted to with Quinn is that she's just telling facts. Quinn's just unfiltered and honest and sometimes people don't like that. But I have to have fun with it because otherwise it wouldn't come across as being a multi-dimensional character. So that is fun. But it is exhausting."
Quinn's Best Lines
As the unscrupulous producer of reality-dating show Everlasting, Quinn (Constance Zimmer) dishes out plenty of devasting one-liners. Here are some of her best:
"Cash bonuses for nudity, 911 calls, cat fights. Have a great show everybody!" "I need sad faces, OK? Your puppy died, your implants got infected - I don't care!"
To the host of Everlasting, when he mentions he can sing: "You know, I can shoot ping pong balls out of my vagina, but no one wants to see that either."
To an assistant: "This might qualify as coffee from whatever fly-over state you came out of, but there's no way I'm drinking this hillbilly monkey piss. So get your butt down to the corner and get me a real latte."
On the contestants: "They want the truth like I want pube lice."
Lowdown
Season three of Unreal weekly on Lightbox from Tuesday February 27
