The 'Survivor 45' contestants chat with EW about what traits will set them apart from the rest of the cast.
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00:00 When I was 17, I went to the International Pun Championships and I became the youngest
00:05 award winner in history.
00:06 I'm always happy to be the person making ridiculous puns, even if other people feel punished,
00:13 so to speak.
00:14 Growing up, big family, but being the minority in your family is crazy.
00:22 I'm the only girl.
00:23 I got four brothers, two big ones, two little ones.
00:27 You know, our family was so categorized and busy growing up, literally.
00:33 My mom would call them the big boys and the little boys.
00:36 I would be just kind of like hanging in the middle, you know, like, "Oh, we got to take
00:38 the big boys to practice.
00:39 Oh, we got to take the little boys to drama class," or whatever.
00:43 They would kind of like jockey them and then it would be like, "Okay, well, what about
00:46 Sabaya?"
00:47 So I've always kind of been this independent, hanging in the middle kind of person.
00:52 I feel like you're so in the middle that you almost get missed.
00:56 Sometimes that's a good thing.
00:58 And being okay with that is a great thing.
01:01 I don't feel like I'll have that chaos cast trigger, to be like, "Oh, well, if you're
01:07 not thinking about me, then I'm just going to blow this up."
01:10 Because I've felt that before without it meaning anything.
01:13 You know, my parents, they love me.
01:15 You know, charge it to their head, not their heart.
01:17 And I feel like because I give grace initially, it'll allow me that time to be patient and
01:24 just let things kind of unfurl and then see how it goes in my favor.
01:28 One obvious thing that makes me unique is I have a world record for most nuts tossed
01:33 and caught in a can in the head in one minute.
01:35 So I don't think anyone has that or comes close to it.
01:39 I beat the record.
01:40 It was like 37.
01:41 I got 93.
01:42 So that's a unique thing that no one here will ever be able to take away from me, I
01:46 hope.
01:47 I mean, I was just scrolling through social media one day and I passed by Guinness World
01:50 Records, their post.
01:51 And they just had all these nut-inspired records.
01:54 I was just watching through it.
01:56 And then there's this guy slowly tossing nuts onto his head.
02:00 And it's like, I could easily beat that.
02:03 So I practiced for 30 minutes.
02:04 I beat it.
02:05 And I was like, "You know what?
02:06 If I just practice for a couple more hours."
02:07 And over the course of a couple of weeks, I practiced 20 minutes every now and then.
02:12 I could have gotten over 100 if I pushed an extra couple of days.
02:15 But I was like, "What am I doing with my life right now?
02:17 I think this is good enough."
02:19 I'm not afraid of embarrassing myself.
02:22 I'm not afraid of failure.
02:24 I'm not afraid of putting myself out there at all.
02:28 I really have no other choice but to be 100% who I am because that's always who I've been.
02:34 So some people have reservations or have strategies.
02:38 I literally have none.
02:40 My strategy is to have no strategy.
02:44 And then I've moved around a lot in my life, whether that's on my parents' accord or whether
02:51 that's on my accord.
02:53 And so being in the restaurant industry, I've made friends with the most unlikely people.
03:00 I've made homes in places that I'll never live in again, but I'll always go back there
03:06 and feel at home.
03:07 I'm really good at establishing relationships, even if it's just somebody who I was walking
03:12 on the trail with for a day.
03:13 We still have this lifelong bond and we still have this lifelong friendship from only 10
03:18 hours together.
03:19 So I'm really good.
03:20 I think my life experience really puts me in a position to be a person who makes genuine
03:27 connections with strangers.
03:29 I've been doing Tai Chi for 24 years, ever since I was a kid, six years old.
03:33 Most people don't believe that you start at six, but my father taught me and he had been
03:38 doing it for 40 years.
03:40 And now I'm a world champion in Tai Chi push hands and I travel all over and love this
03:46 art.
03:47 So I do teach seminars, I do tournaments and whatnot.
03:50 So I guess you wouldn't be able to tell that with the cheetah print, you know, but...
03:55 I'm not great at not being transparent, direct or honest.
04:00 And all of those sound like great qualities, but in the game of Survivor, where inevitably
04:04 I'm going to have to deceive someone, I'm going to have to tell so much of their face,
04:07 I'm not voting for you.
04:09 When I am voting for them, I'm very worried about how that is going to negatively affect
04:13 my game.
04:14 You know, in high school, I didn't have a ton of friends, so I had a lot of free time.
04:17 And one of the things I did in that free time was competitive punning, which is basically
04:22 a round robin style competition where two contestants at a time come up with puns on
04:26 a subject that's given to them five seconds prior.
04:29 The first person to not come up with a pun within five seconds is eliminated.
04:34 If you make an illegal pun, you're also eliminated.
04:36 There are a ton of ways to be eliminated, basically.
04:38 The last person standing is the winner.
04:41 And when I was 17, I went to the International Pun Championships and I became the youngest
04:47 award winner in history, which is a very pun fact, if you will.
04:51 I just love puns and I just make them all the time.
04:54 And I saw this competition and I was like, yeah.
04:58 And so it's just a big part of who I am.
05:00 I think just being silly and, you know, I think people say that puns are the lowest
05:04 form of humor, but I think everyone laughs at them.
05:06 Everyone has a reaction to them, right?
05:08 Whether it's a laugh or it's a groan, I think they just bring people together.
05:11 So I'm always happy to be the person making ridiculous puns, even if other people feel
05:16 punished, so to speak.
05:18 Something that makes me different than everyone else out here is the fact that I grew up half
05:22 Japanese and half white because, you know, growing up, I really had this internal struggle
05:27 of feeling like I was too white for the Asian kids, but I was too Asian for the white kids.
05:32 And I didn't really find out where I fit in along all my friends until, you know, I was
05:37 roughly like end of middle school, early high school.
05:39 And I realized that the things that made me different from the people around me were also
05:43 the things that made me interesting to them.
05:45 So you know, it was learning how to use that to my advantage that I think is a pretty unique
05:49 characteristic that I'll have out here.
05:51 I really don't think anybody else has had to like work for their own survival and literal
05:58 and figurative terms the way I have.
06:00 And I've had to do it literally every year of my entire life.
06:03 It's a combination of me being an attorney, of course, but it's also just like going through
06:08 the world as a black queer woman.
06:10 Being on the bottom of your tribe is nothing if you've been on the bottom of society forever.
06:15 You know, like I know how to maneuver.
06:18 I know how to climb my way up.
06:19 I know how to figure it out.
06:21 I just, I just do.
06:22 And I'm kicking ass, you know?
06:25 I think my journey of getting sober really young is unique.
06:29 Part of the recovery process is essentially taking a good hard look at yourself and all
06:34 of your shortcomings, all of your character defects and saying, yes, this is me and I
06:37 need to work on these things.
06:39 And then essentially being given a set of tools to let go of control.
06:42 And it's like the serenity prayer in action, right?
06:45 Like really always assessing like what's in my scope of control and what's not and radically
06:48 accepting what's not.
06:49 And I feel like that gives me an edge because it's going to help me stay grounded when it's
06:54 the fan and everyone's paranoid.
06:55 It's like, there's only so much that's in my control, especially in Survivor.
06:59 And if I try to hold onto the reins and control everything, other people are going to see
07:04 that.
07:05 It's going to be really annoying to everyone else.
07:06 But I think that sense of groundedness is going to set me apart when, when things are
07:10 crazy.
07:11 Fiji is the 28th country that I've been to.
07:13 I've been to 25 countries last five years.
07:15 I don't do so well in the Canadian winter up there.
07:17 So I was trying jet for a few months every year to get out, you know, and and then come
07:23 back for the summer, which is the best part.
07:25 And so, I have all this experience, I feel like connecting with all these different people.
07:28 I can connect with like the look at the festival who hasn't showered or washed, you know, or
07:33 like, like, oh, I slept in three days, you know.
07:35 I can connect with white collars, I can connect with blue collars from all my painting experience.
07:39 I connect with these travelers.
07:40 When I go to the travelers, do I tell them I'm in like a software salesperson?
07:43 No.
07:44 I want to be one of the people.
07:45 So, I come up with something.
07:46 I say like I'm a mall Santa or I say that I'm a professional hopscotcher, you know,
07:52 just to, you know, kind of keep myself here.
07:54 And and with all these people, I not only get along, I thrive.
07:59 And you know, that's where I think it's a little bit different than everybody else.
08:02 Like these people skills, this ability to understand like that, I think is, you know,
08:07 where I'm like supremely, supremely confident.
08:09 It feels like this might be a younger cast.
08:13 That's just my gauge on things.
08:15 And so something that makes me unique in this game is that I come in on the older side of
08:20 things.
08:21 However, when people first meet me, their general impression of me is that I am younger
08:25 than I actually am.
08:28 And so hopefully the younger crew will be able to read my youthful energy and will be
08:34 able to bond on that.
08:36 I'm always looking for growth.
08:37 I would say that even when something sucks, like I'll ask myself like, all right, what's
08:41 the good in this?
08:42 You know, that's how I live my life.
08:44 And that's how like the people that I want around me live their life.
08:47 And the people that I do have around me, I'm definitely an optimist.
08:50 Like no matter what happens, I'm always like, let's go.
08:53 Like it can always be worse.
08:55 So I definitely say that.
08:56 I think that's unique.
08:57 Like life can throw anything at me and I'll know how to overcome it.
09:02 Like yeah, it'll be hard and I'll just overcome it.
09:04 Like as far as like my family's alive and my loved ones and I'll overcome anything.
09:08 I'm a lesbian and everyone really should have known because I wore football jerseys until
09:12 like fourth grade.
09:13 You know, I love sports and like I am like kind of a jock.
09:15 Like I played a lot of sports in high school, but I'm also like a huge nerd.
09:19 I love video games.
09:21 I love board games.
09:22 I'm obsessed with this video game called Civilization, which is like all about like world domination.
09:28 So it might come in handy here.
09:29 I don't know, but it's a, I don't know.
09:30 It's a super nerdy.
09:31 So I think like I'm actually, I'm actually a little bit of a jock and a nerd for real.
09:35 The thing that makes me different from everybody else is just maybe my ability to listen.
09:38 You know, I coach football for, you know, and I coached kids like from the age of five
09:43 till high school.
09:46 And one of my biggest mantras with them was you have two ears, one mouth, who wins?
09:51 So the ears win.
09:53 So I have more of an ability to listen.
09:55 There's a lot of stuff that I'm going to be saying, but I'm going to listen more.
09:58 And when I do say things, it's going to be, it's going to be things that are going to
10:00 be said to benefit my game and heighten the response from someone else to think that yes,
10:09 I am truly on their side and listening, which 90% of the time I am.
10:14 But the other 10%, I'm, I'm thinking about what you're saying to me right now.
10:19 How's that going to benefit me?
10:20 How am I going to move forward with this game?
10:23 And how am I going to vote you off?
10:24 I think that I have a very particular sense of drive and perseverance.
10:28 You know, I like to get what I want.
10:30 You know, everything that I have in life is because I've tried to go for it.
10:33 You know, I majored in radio, television, film.
10:35 I found out very quickly that wasn't my niche.
10:38 And I had to find my niche on the fly, which was writing.
10:40 And since graduating, I've had, you know, quite a few contract jobs.
10:43 I was doing contract work right out of graduation, which is unheard of in my industry.
10:47 Most people have to, you know, build up a couple of years of resume to then do contract
10:51 work.
10:52 I just jumped right in on it so I can kind of get what I want and I can kind of use my
10:55 words to make sure that I'm getting those things.
10:57 You know, I have not had the resume that I need to had to land some of these jobs, you
11:00 know, and you get in the interview like we're doing now and you kind of massage and persuade
11:04 a little bit and kind of convey to this person that you're talking to that you can do this.
11:08 That's what I hope to do with my team.
11:09 I know how to adapt.
11:11 I've lived a life, which is actually what I thought when I was 40.
11:14 I was like, come on, these babies haven't lived life.
11:17 They don't know hard.
11:20 Like I've lived hard.
11:21 I know hard.
11:23 So I do bring experience to this.
11:27 I have a logical side.
11:28 I'm a hard worker.
11:29 I got that through doing law school.
11:30 I pushed myself and I was able to do it like with ADD.
11:32 I didn't take any drugs or anything for it.
11:35 And then I also have that creative side too.
11:37 So I think it's that hard work, but also that creative side of like doing theater.
11:41 I teach theater to young kids.
11:42 As an additional job, I'm directing The Lion King right now.
11:44 Fortunately, I'm going to be able to see the product when I get back, but I only got to
11:48 do like half of it, half of the prep time with the kids.
11:50 I think I bring that hard work, the logic and the creativity.
11:55 And I don't know if other people are going to have the same combination as that.
11:58 One thing that'll differentiate me is, well, I'll give you two.
12:02 And number one is the intelligence.
12:03 I'm going to be good with the numbers.
12:04 I'm going to be good with the puzzles.
12:05 And I do think that will kind of put me a cut above the rest in a lot of regards.
12:09 The second thing that I think would differentiate myself perhaps socially is that I'm super
12:14 authentic.
12:15 I think that this kind of honesty and earnestness, which is atypical in the nerd, the nerd archetype
12:19 will endear me to people socially.
12:21 I think that that will also be a differentiating factor.
12:23 [whoosh]
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