‘Survivor: San Juan del Sur’ interview: Jeremy Collins on strategy, targets, Jon’s move, playing again
We’re not going to lie: We’re really bummed about the last two eliminations on “Survivor: San Juan del Sur.” Within the span of these two episodes, we lost two of the most interesting players in Josh Canfield and Jeremy Collins.
The interesting thing about Jeremy is that most of the moves that he made should have worked. Had he gone about questioning Jon a little differently in terms of his idol, maybe he would still be there. Regardless, he was a huge presence, great entertainment, and a guy we’d love to see go back out there at some point in the future.
Jeremy spoke with us today in a conference call with reporters, and explained some of his strategic moves, his take on Reed and Josh, and also whether or not he’d like to be right back out there playing the game.
CarterMatt – Even before the merge, it was clear that you and Josh were targeting each other. Was there any thought to working together at any point, or was the baggage with Reed from earlier in the game too much?
Jeremy Collins – Reed thinks I was targeting him, but I was never targeting Reed. He came into the game a little crazy … I think it was Missy who was going around and saying that Reed was targeting everyone, so I took Reed to the side and said ‘I don’t trust you, what’s going on,’ I wanted to put out some feelers to see if [he was] legit and see if [he was] with us.
… Josh, I don’t know why he had it out for me. His pitch is ‘they’re not going to give a million dollars to two Broadway stars; they are going to give it to the firefighter with two kids.’ So you’re going to say that because you want Jon to jump ship, and go with you to an alliance that has two firefighters, and one has two kids. I don’t know why [they were after me], but I don’t think me and Josh would ever play together. We don’t click like that. We respect each other’s game, but we’re not going to vibe.
One thing I don’t completely understand still from last night is why Jon didn’t just tell you that he had an idol. I thought you approached that about as well as you could.
I tried to be as gentle as I could, and not accuse him of anything or say ‘you sent me over there for no reason,’ and even try to pull it off like ‘don’t worry about it, it doesn’t matter’ … You know, I think Jon was just afraid to play with me. He didn’t want to take me to the end because I’m a firefighter and everything, but even before that he didn’t want to go against me in the challenges, which is kind of dumb because I’m not good in the challenges! I was having success in the reward challenges, but in the individual immunity [ones] I was terrible, other than the memory thing.
Was there anything else you could have done looking back? Tried out a little more ‘surround and drown’?
The ‘surround and drown’ was working! The ‘surround and drown’ worked on Jaclyn! We didn’t ‘surround and drown’ on Reed the day I was voted out. I think Reed is the one who is more needy, and he’ll tell you that he’s needy, and I tried to make everyone in my alliance feel like they were on the same level. Back in the Hunahpu days I would [spend time] with Reed, but I guess the one day I didn’t spend time with Reed and I didn’t talk to him about strategy, it was the one day that I was [made into the target] and that was it.
You tried for so long to get on the show. Did that make it more rewarding when you were finally put on?
That’s why I’m kind of bummed about not winning. I trained for this! Some kids just got out of bed and said ‘oh, we got called for Survivor. Let’s go do it.’ They’re not built for it. I’m good out there and I’m feeling good, and for me to come off so soon, it hurts a little bit more than it should, because I’ve been trying to get on for so long.
But you were very memorable out there, and I think you have a good shot of coming back. I’m assuming you’d do it right away if asked.
The first day I got out I said I was never doing this again, that I can’t leave my kids like this. Then 12 hours later, I said that if they wanted me to come back right now, I’d go and give my kids a hug and I’d be right back tomorrow.
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