The 'Survivor 45' Cast on What Makes Them Unique
The 'Survivor 45' contestants chat with EW about what traits will set them apart from the rest of the cast.
Transcript
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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