TVLINE | Who are the threats you’re going to keep an eye on?
Honestly, everybody here is here for a reason and everybody here probably wants to prove something, so I feel like everybody is a threat. I feel like once you start actually playing the game, there’s a lot of strategic people and there’s a lot of muscle. I’m neither, so I feel like that’s actually gonna be a benefit for me.
TVLINE | Who has to be the first boot?
Honestly, nothing personal, but I would probably vote out Kyle, just because he just won. I just saw him win. There’s three people from that squad here, and from watching that season, how tight they all are and to the death, I feel like, yeah, getting one of those three out would be probably the first move I would make.
TVLINE | Who is not here that you were expecting to see?
I don’t know if I was expecting him to be here, but I would have been stoked to see Richard Hatch here. It just felt like that would be, you know, Season 50, the original winner. He played such a memorable game in that very first season, so it would have been cool to see Richard play in this new era.
TVLINE | Is there any part of your game you’re hoping to course correct this time around?
The last season I was on, “David vs. Goliath,” the very first day I got caught looking for an idol and I was backpedaling literally from the first day. It made me a lot more like, I don’t know… I’m not gonna be caught looking for an idol again. But that was then, this is now. It’d be fun to have a little bit more firepower and try to find idols or advantages or whatever because I chickened out after that first day. I was like, “It’s gonna ruin my game.”
TVLINE | Did you vote in the fan vote? Anything you’re hoping to get from that?
Obviously I’m hoping from the fan vote that they give us food and supplies because I do think it’s fun to watch people rough it, but watching people starving is not necessarily, I think, that entertaining. Also, being out here, to have a little bit of that makes a big difference when you’re starving.
TVLINE | Have you been keeping up with the new era?
I’ll be honest, I have watched everything, but I haven’t done recon. I didn’t know who was gonna be here. I have been a little busy, so there are people where I’m like, “Did they win? Maybe? I think?” But again, I think in a way there’s so many, hyper-strategic “Survivor” diehard players, to present as somebody who’s kind of like, “Oh, did you win your season?” kind of like, avuncular, early Alzheimer’s guy, I think that might be good.
TVLINE | Do you think there’s anything you’re going to have to adapt in your own gameplay to fit in with this faster-paced game?
You know, it’s funny because until I’m playing it, I don’t know what it’s gonna be like. I remember in “David vs. Goliath,” there were some big moves made at Tribal Council, and it was kind of like, “What happened?” And then afterwards, it just goes back to the social game that you were already playing. So I feel like you have to be aware that those things are out there, but I think you still have to just play a social game.
TVLINE | Any hot takes on the new era?
I really like the dynamics of camp life and how that creates a power dynamic, and what it says about people and the social experiment elements of it. That’s what really attracted me to “Survivor” in the first place. So, I like that the game elements can sometimes amplify those situations or give a turn that’s already established. What I don’t really like is when those plot twists come before you ever even meet the people. Somebody right out the gate is having to figure out how to lie about some random thing because they went on a journey and you never really get a sense of how they gel in the overall dynamic. So I’m hoping that it’s gonna be rapid-fire. There’s so many of us, 24 contestants and 26 days, it’s gonna be a bloodbath. So I think it’s gonna be like nonstop, so I just hope that some of the player-generated content like Angelina wanting a jacket and that turning into an actual storyline, that some of those things can still emerge amongst all of the drama of voting.