Posted on 11/15/2011 by Gina in The Amazing Race and Cast Interviews
by Gina Scarpa
Laurence and his son Zac started out strong in the most recent leg of The Amazing Race. They arrived in Copenhagen, Denmark first but many teams quickly caught up with them. A challenging Road Block for Zac and a confusing trip to the pit stop proved to be their undoing and they were eliminated from the race. Today, we talked to the father/son duo in an exclusive interview about their experiences on the race.
Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Whose idea was it to go on The Amazing Race?
A. Zac: I think it was CBS's idea that we go on the Amazing Race. We don't have cable at the house. We hadn't really watched it or followed along with it. I think it definitely helps out if you study each episode but we did our homework before we went on. Watching all the episodes in that short period of the time isn't the same.
Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Did being on the race change your relationship in any way?
A. Zac: We've done a lot of adventures together and been in different countries at the same time. It worked out well.
Q. Gina, RealityWanted: You remained pretty calm throughout the race. Were there times that you got stressed out or overwhelmed?
A. Zac: I think there were times that we got stressed out but one of our main strategies was to remain levelheaded throughout and you saw a lot of teams getting emotional and having drama. They seemed to get out faster. We dealt with problems as they happened.
Q. Gina, RealityWanted: What was the biggest contributor to you and your dad going from first to last in this past leg?
A. Zac: We were second to the roadblock and we lost our lead. The main thing, I would say, is that we had a 3 ½ hour lead and the tower didn't open until 7am. We lost our big lead.
Q. Gina, RealityWanted: You don't strike me as the dancing type...
A. Zac: That was kinda crazy. When I signed up for the race, I thought I'd be jumping off cliffs. When they brought out the tights and face makeup, I was scared. I definitely didn't want to be there in tights but the adrenaline and jetlag... I'd never done any choreographed dancing.
Q. Gina, RealityWanted: I really thought you were going to beat Jeremy and Sandy to the pit stop. What went wrong?
A. Laurence: We just got lost from the last challenge to the end there. We were misdirected three or four times. Denmark, in general, there wasn't a willingness from the people to help us. We weren't the only team to experience that. What was very interesting was even when we were less than a few blocks away from our destination, we were still looking for the place. People that were familiar with the area were not familiar with the very place we were looking for.
A. Zac: We asked for directions and no one knew where to go, even people right across the street.
Q. Gina, RealityWanted: What are you up to now?
A. Laurence: I am in the San Diego Film Festival at the end of December. We are showing a documentary and people can learn more at worldwindproductions.com.
A. Zac: I've got another sailing adventure going on soon. Maybe I'll do like an adventure kind of show. You can also check out my blog, which is zacsunderland.com.
The Amazing Race airs Sundays at 8/7c on CBS.
(Image courtesy of CBS)
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