12 Dates Of Christmas: Garrett Spills The Tea On Casting & Decisions
Warning! Spoilers for 12 Dates Of Christmas below!
Following the contentious 12 Dates Of Christmas reunion on HBO Max, Garrett Marcantel is taking the time to clarify a few things that the fans didn't quite understand on the show. Many people haven't experienced an entirely positive 2020, which made this holiday season all the more special. To help everyone get in the mood, HBO Max released a brand-new dating competition 12 Dates Of Christmas, which was inspired by some of our favorite holiday-themed romantic comedies. Created by Sam Dean (who was also behind Netflix's Love Is Blind), this show was an extremely fun ride.
Eight episodes and a reunion special later, 12 Dates Of Christmas has now come to a dramatic end. At the moment, Chad Savage and Kate Steinberg are still very much engaged, and they even moved in together. Things have been a little more complicated between Faith Fernandez and Anthony Assent, but those two still have a lot of love for one another and are trying to figure it all out. When it comes to Garrett Marcantel, the fans were shocked by his decisions to eliminate Jose Ramirez and insist on Dominick Whelton. However, the 12 Dates lead is now trying to shine a light on a few things that we didn't get to see.
Garrett Marcantel opened up about his journey on 12 Dates Of Christmas during an interview with Screen Rant, offering some much-needed context to the fans trying to understand certain decisions and behaviors showcased throughout the season. First, Garrett reflected on making it clear to the casting directors that he wasn't straight, and how he was pleasantly surprised to find out that they were intentionally casting gay men. But Garrett then revealed a surprising tidbit that provides a lot of context to the fans: "I didn't know that I was going to be a lead until just before the castle." Garrett added: "It's just different with a male and female dating versus a male and a male dating when there's a lead involved. I think the question came up with the other gay contestants. Like, 'why is Garrett the lead?' That was a conversation that was brought up once or twice and didn't make it to the show." While he acknowledges that most of the contestants were respectful toward the process, Garrett also offered an important insight: "I didn't know that I was going to be the lead. And so you see how people respond to that situation, if they're able to go with the flow or if they resist it a bit."
Later in the interview, Garrett also gave us the definitive 12 Dates Of Christmas filming timeline that everyone's been asking for. "I actually flew in on Valentine's Day to start shooting in the castle. So I was like, 'Yeah, gonna find love on Valentine's Day!' And we left [Austria] at the end of the first week of March." Garrett remarked on the fact that none of them had access to their phones, so the COVID-19 pandemic was a complete surprise that they had to deal with once they wrapped filming in Austria. He added, "The Louisiana episode was the very last thing that we were able to squeeze in [before the lockdowns]. That was, like, March 14th or something. Then we filmed the finale in the summer, in June, once production was able to figure out how to work with COVID." Garrett concluded by saying that they filmed the reunion just a few weeks before it aired, so it was actually very recent.
12 Dates Of Christmas has been gaining a lot of momentum on HBO Max over the past few weeks. Hopefully, this will become yet another successful dating competition for the fans to keep tuning in.