‘Survivor: San Juan del Sur’ interview: Drew Christy on throwing challenges, new insight

On Wednesday night’s “Survivor: San Juan del Sur” episode, Drew Christy had what may be one of the most spectacular flame-outs that we’ve ever seen on the show. The guy, a self-appointed mastermind, decided that he was going to throw the challenge just to ensure that he could get rid of some of some of his adversaries on the Hunahpu tribe.

Instead, they ended up getting rid of him. The whole episode was tremendously entertaining, albeit an exercise in horrendous gameplay from just about every single man on the show. It is fair to say that we were excited beyond words to speak to Drew in our weekly exit interview call Thursday. Drew also gave us some really great insight into somethings going on at camp that does inform some of his decisions more than we saw.

CarterMatt – There’s really no other way to start this. What happened?

Drew Christy – Well there’s a lot that happened in those first 11 days that the audience never really got to see. So it was a detrimental episode for myself. One, I decided to throw the challenge to make my alliance believe in me, and you can see that Jon [sat] out of the challenge. The viewers don’t know that they were in on throwing it with me. There’s a lot of things like that. I was definitely delusional and overconfident, and if my plan worked, I would’ve looked awesome, but because it didn’t I look like a dumbass. It’s just kind of how it is.

Let’s go into the throwing the challenge thing then. When did you have that conversation about throwing it, since it had to be before you went to Exile.

So before I went to Exile Island, the night before, Jon, Jeremy, Natalie, and I all spoke about throwing the challenge to vote either Julie or Reed off. That was kind of our gameplan. But when it came down to it, nobody wanted to vote Reed off anymore, because I guess he was cool, and Julie didn’t threaten me.

All of the guys changed their minds afterwards. I was adamant about Kelley, Jeremy was adamant about Keith, and Jon wanted to get rid of Keith. None of the guys wanting to make power-moves were agreeing, and it definitely backfired. It wasn’t just my plan; it was our plan.

I’m going to ask about Reed, because he’s barely been on the show. Why was he a target early on?

If he didn’t win any of the first three challenges, Reed would have been the first to go. The first day he started a lot of drama at the camp, and kind of told people different things, and tried to pit people against each other. Honestly it worked, because he picked me against Kelley from the beginning and I never got a long with her after that. She was one of the better, strategic-minded players out there.

We saw some interesting stuff on the show last night with Alec, where he was spending some time with Baylor and [saying some interesting stuff]. Do you think he’s struggling to get out of your shadow?

I think Alec may come into his own just fine. He’s a personality in himself. He and Baylor had a flirty thing going on for a while, and he’s just being low-key and going with the flow. I kind of pulled the power-move about eight weeks to early in the game. I wish that I had made that move way later.

I do have regrets. You can blame it on being delusional and not eating or sleeping for those 11 days. I lost [over] 20 pounds. It was a lot of physical and emotional stresses out there, with you against yourself, you against your teammates, you against Jeff (laughs), there’s a lot of variables.

What made you want to go against Jeff? It was tremendous television, but I don’t think there’s ever been anyone who wanted to negotiate so much with him.

I figured it was worth a shot! No one else was going to try. I figured I needed some food in my belly. Everyone else is eating crabs. I am allergic to shellfish. That’s another big thing the audience didn’t get to see. The rest of my tribe kind of got to eat, and I just didn’t. I was really struggling with that, and started to lose my mind and because a bit of a lunatic.

I guess you’re right; it probably did make some pretty decent TV.

Looking back, do you especially regret the decision to volunteer for Exile Island? In going, you obviously missed what could have been some important strategy talk.

I thought about that a lot, and it is definitely a disadvantage, because it separated me from my tribe, my alliance, and definitely what was going on in the game. Plus the game changes so fast, it was definitely a disadvantage. But if I had gone on, it would have been good because Jaclyn and I got to strategize a lot, and we would have been a force to be reckoned with if Jaclyn, Alec, Jon, and I made the merge together. It would have been a good strategy move.