By Gordon Holmes
Fri, 14 Nov 2008 19:59:26 GMT
Gordon: After last night, I’m kind of sick of “Survivor”, do you want to talk about something else?
Charlie: “The Office” vs. “30 Rock”?
Gordon: I love “The Office!" What’d you think about last night when Pam and Jim…
Charlie: I didn’t watch it yet. I was being very self-centered and only thinking “Survivor.”
Gordon: Alright, we’ll talk about “Survivor.” So what happened last night?
Charlie: I was completely shocked. I knew there was a strong possibility, and I would have put money on someone in my alliance going home last night, but I thought for sure it wouldn’t have been me. Because I had spent the first 25 days building strong relationships and being likable. I was kind of betting on that not making me the first target.
Gordon: In the “Survivor” Power Rankings, you had been my pick for a long time based on, if your alliance fails, Marcus, Corinne, and Randy being the more likely targets.
Charlie: That’s what I thought, because Corinne and Randy had definitely alienated everyone there. But, I’m a fan of “Survivor”, and I know when you’re nice and you’re likable that also turns you into a threat. So, when I got voted off, even though I was shocked, it immediately made sense. And I thought that it was a smart move on their behalf. But, then when I watched the episode and they didn’t vote me off because I was a threat and Kenny had this personal grudge against me, and it wasn’t a strategic move. That kind of surprised me as a viewer.
Gordon: How random was that? He has this clue that he’s reading in front of everybody. It’s not like you were all going to turn your backs while he went to go dig it up.
Charlie: What happened was I didn’t realize that he had seen it before I had seen it, because he was just whispering to Matty. So when I said, “What is that?” In my mind I was the first person to spot the clue. Then when he grabbed it, I thought, “No way, I found that clue, I have just as much of a right to that clue as Kenny has.” So, in my mind he did not find that clue first.
Gordon: Were you shocked that he reacted so strongly?
Charlie: I got along with everyone out there. And as you’ve implied, there are some abrasive, in-your-face personalities out there, and I managed to foster relationships with every kind of character except for Kenny. When Dan and Randy and Susie joined out tribe, they spilled the beans about what people were saying about us from the other tribe and we all had nicknames. And he (Kenny) had coined the nickname “(homophobic expletive deleted)” for me.
Gordon: Oh…
Charlie: So, even when I heard that, I knew I was in for an uphill battle with Kenny. He was, what I thought maybe the homophobe on the show. So I knew I had to work hard to gain his trust.
Gordon: That’s unfortunate.
Gordon: So, you’re out there for 27 days, could you give us a brief take on what kind of toll that takes out of you.
Charlie: It’s difficult. We’ve got nothing out there. You’ve got no food, you’ve got no love, you’ve got nothing to hang on to. But, I’m a huge “Survivor” fan, so every challenge, I just thrived in. I loved it. It was ten thousand times better than my real life. I was having a blast out there. But even though I lost a ton of weight, and you’re constantly nervous about your status in the game, there’s only a finite period of time you’re out there, and you want to take advantage of every second you’re out there.
Gordon: C’mon, you’ve got no love? You had Marcus and Corinne. “Menage A Kota” as Marcus put it.
Charlie: (laughs)
Gordon: Did it shock you last week when Marcus said he’d be willing to throw out his playbook and align with Crystal?
Charlie: Yeah, it shocked me a little bit, but I think he had the best for our alliance in mind. But yeah, I will say that I was frustrated that he didn’t stick with the plan, to the extent that he didn’t target Susie. That made me feel that he didn’t have the basic core principle of our playbook in mind.
Gordon: Dan made comments that he didn’t get along with Corinne. He had mentioned stories she had told around the fire as kind of a catalyst. What kind of stories was she telling?
Charlie: When we were there, it’s true that he wasn’t very close with Corinne, Marcus, or I. But, I don’t think they were enemies like he said they were out there. Corinne definitely has a very strong, in-your-face personality and her stories sometimes give you pause about her character, and you wonder, if she’s just saying these things to be provocative, or are these stories her real life. I think it’s a little bit of both. I think we all were a little bit nervous about, are we ever going to become one of the these characters in Corinne’s stories?
Gordon: My favorite Corinne-ism is “I want to stab her in face.” Do you have a favorite Corinne-ism?
Charlie: I kept saying my abs were getting strong from Corinne because I was laughing my a-- off. Everything she said was so hilarious.
Gordon: Wait, how does laughing your a— off affect your abs? Are they somehow linked in your anatomy?
Charlie: (laughs) I was laughing my abs off.
Gordon: Crystal is coming off as an all-time “Survivor” villain. Does it seem like she’s being portrayed fairly?
Charlie: I can’t speak to my experience with Crystal, because it was literally only three hours. And it was chaos in those three hours. But, it’s really unfortunate to see how she behaves on TV. I understand she has to make the moves she makes, I understand when she voted out Marcus it’s probably what I would have done if I were in her position. But, she seems really mean-spirited about it.
Gordon: Did you know she was an Olympian when you were out there?
Charlie: Yes. And I told everyone. Everyone knew she was an Olympian. She was such a useless athlete that it didn’t matter that she was an Olympian. It was just a funny story at some point.
Gordon: Do you think she was faking so she could step it up for individual immunity?
Charlie: If you want to crank it down, you want to crank it down to the middle. I don’t think you want to crank it down to be completely and utterly abominable.
Gordon: What’s life like as a jury member when you’re not at Tribal Council?
Charlie: You wake up and have breakfast with Marcus. You just have a lot of time on your hands. Marcus and I are very active people with lots of interests, so we went running, we went swimming, we went on hikes, we played games. There wasn'tt a moment where you did nothing and stared out at the beach. It was a blast. No drama to talk about.
Gordon: What was going through your mind when you were at the golf challenge and Marcus didn’t show up with Kota?
Charlie: I knew Marcus wasn’t going to show up.
Gordon: Really?
Charlie: Crystal and Kenny could have been two bowling pins and Susie would have flipped. It was the obvious move, and when I saw Marcus walk away after we picked a new tribe, I knew we had to throw that challenge. When we arrived and the challenge was designed to be an individual immunity challenge, there was no way to lose that challenge. So, the minute we lost that, I knew that Marcus was dead.
Gordon: What do you take away from your time in Gabon?
Charlie: I thought I was going to go in and be this b----y, obnoxious New Yorker. But, I guess I’m just a good guy, and I guess I didn’t ever realize that. The experience for me was more about learning about myself, learning how I interact with people who I don’t usually meet in real life, and learning how I deal with stress and obstacles. Cause most of the people out there complained all the time. Going into this I would have assumed I was one of those people, but that wasn’t the case. So, I was just happy with the way I behaved. I think I was able to play a strategic game and still be a nice person.
Subject: Castaway Interview: Charlie Herschel 
Fri Nov 14, 2008 7:38 pm
