Lorena and Jason, the couple from Hollywood, looked like one of the early favorites on The Amazing Race 12. On the second leg, the duo dominated everyone, finishing in an easy first place. The other teams talked about how tough Lorena and Jason were. Then, the teams went to Burkina Faso and ran into the deadly camel milking challenge. The team went from first to almost last, thanks to a dry camel. However, starting in last on the fourth leg put Lorena and Jason in an almost impossible situation, which got even more dire thanks to a devastating U-Turn thrust upon them by Shana and Jennifer. Lorena and Jason stopped by yesterday to discuss their time on The Amazing Race.
Below you will find the written transcript as well as the full mp3 audio.
So let’s start at the beginning here. Were you two fans of The Amazing Race? Was one of you a bigger fan than the other? How did you all apply? How did it all work out?
Jason: We were fans, definitely fans. A lot of my family, they were fans. My aunt was a huge fan of the show and all her kids were always talking about doing it and things like that and we went through the whole process, applied and now we’re here.
So you guys are in first place after the second leg, looking pretty good and then comes the camel. Obviously Lorena that was a really frustrating event. Was there any aspect to that that we didn’t get to see? Or was it just as simple as the camel was dry?
Lorena: No, there was a lot of aspects to it. I mean I was out there like, three hours I think, trying to milk that camel. In the beginning, actually, you didn’t get to see me drink the milk first with the … there were just a lot of long technicalities that happened with me and the camel in the beginning that wasn’t shown. And then that frustration built to what you saw. So my frustration that you saw on TV didn’t come until way, way after.
Jason: In the beginning she actually milked it really fast, drank the milk in front of the wrong judge, and basically had to re-milk the cow. That’s what really happened. So you know there was a build up to her actually losing. That was after an hour and a half, two hours of : ‘Okay, this is not working out. I let my boy down. We were in first place, now we’re in last.’ Sh*t happens quick.
How hard was that for both of you to watch on TV?
Jason: It was hard, I mean it was hard to watch … we’ve already been through it so we’ve already been through the emotions. Watching it on TV is just kind of a weird kind of nightmare. Seeing it again you’re like: ‘Oh, wow, this did happen.’ It wasn’t that bad though because we’ve already gotten over it. The hardest part was probably seeing all of our friends excited that we were in first place and going into the second leg going: ‘You guys are going to win this thing.’ And then all of a sudden on the next race: ‘We didn’t think you were going to make it. Wow.’
Onto last nights episode, do you guys have any lingering bitterness over the U-Turn used on you? And did you know before last night that it was meant for TK and Rachel and it was kind of a mistake?
Lorena: I actually didn’t know that we weren’t meant it for. We always thought it was meant for us. I never quite understood why they did it, but now watching it makes sense because they thought it was TK and Rachel behind. They thought that TK and Rachel … that it was us, behind them, you know?
Jason: Yeah they thought that was TK and Rachel they thought was us. They thought we were on their tail but we were still an hour behind them and that obviously just really, kicked us in the balls when we were down there.
It’s kind of hard to tell with the editing, but would guys have had any shot at passing any of the other teams had you not been U-Turned?
Jason: I think so. I think that, you know, the course of anything in life that if you change one little aspect, everything else changes. So basically if we wouldn’t have been U-Turned, the way they were racing may have been a little different. You just never know, there are so many little factors involved. It’s just pretty chaotic. Yeah basically when we got to the very end of the race, we were about an hour behind TK and Rachel and we did both take detours. We started an hour and half behind … we saved about 30mintues. We caught up. Even though they were playing two detours. So we actually played a really great leg and that’s why it was so upsetting because we blew past it.
Was there anything over the course of the season so far that was edited out of you guys that you wish CBS would have shown?
Jason: I do wish they would have shown, when we hitched the camels up and we ran to catch up to Julia and Marianna, we ran the opposite way for about two and half … two miles. Some kids on bikes told us that they knew where the school was. So we went two miles, and they showed a little bit of it, but they didn’t really show how hard we were all running racing through the mud. The cameraman fell in the mud … it was chaos. It was a major footrace. I wish they had shown more because it was very exciting getting to the school.
Lorena: I wish they would have shown our alliances too. We were really close to Kynt and Vyxsin. It was really back and forth.
Jason: Kynt really helped us out. We were trying to help them out, and they were helping us out. I remember one time Kynt got a map for us when everybody was trying to not give us a map because we got stuck in customs. And that’s something that they should show to, but they can’t. So many custom problems. We liked everybody, you know? Nate and Jen, TK and Rachel, Kynt and Vyxsin, they were the ones we hung out with the most and I think it was sad for us to go but I think they were glad that we left to because they knew we were pretty strong.
Is there anything coming up in the future for you two outside of the game that you’d like to talk about?
Jason: Oh yea, oh yea. For me I’m really excited because I’m working on a documentary about the real Hollywood entourage. So that’s going to be something that I think everybody is going to want to see. I’m just producing it and putting it together, but my friend is directing it. We’ve been gathering the footage for the last 12 years, so we’re really excited about that. Yeah and then we’re acting in it.
Lorena: Um, well, I just shot a spot on Moonlight that came out and it was pretty cool. And a lot of people are talking about that scene so I’m hoping that, and after the writers guild get’s done, that that’ll make for a little bit more opportunities for me getting some roles. Work on my craft and my passion number one.
-Interview Conducted by Oscar Dahl
(Image Courtesy of CBS)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
