‘Survivor: Worlds Apart’ exclusive: Max Dawson on TV moments, stingrays, strategy, and more

We’ve always held the opinion that it’s always good to have some diehard “Survivor” fans on the show. It gives you someone to relate to in a way out there, and you want to see them hit most of those milestones along the way. You know that they are really going to appreciate just about every second of it.

With this in mind, we wanted to see Max Dawson make it pretty far, even if the edit during the past few episodes was not tilting in his favor. He was ultimately sent home in the second hour Wednesday night, with Carolyn being the real swing vote who screwed him over. There was so much that we could have talked with Max about, given that he has such an enormous knowledge about this game. Still, we crammed a great deal into our short exit-interview time with him Thursday morning.

CarterMatt – Since you know this game so well, it’s easy to start with this: Do you now consider yourself among that group of Silas and Aaron as people screwed over by a tribe swap?

Max Dawson – I think I’m more of a Kelly Wentworth, I’m not only a superfan, but I think I’m just a beautiful person, inside and outside.

How has the past 12+ hours been for you? After watching so many other people go home, what was the experience like of watching yourself?

It was actually not as bad as I anticipated it. And I’m saying that even after part of the reason for my [downfall] was a podiatry issue. Clearly, I did not go into ‘Survivor’ thinking that my fate would be decided by something so trivial, and as a result, watching the edit there were moments that were difficult and unpleasant. Ultimately, as a fan of ‘Survivor,’ what’s more fun to watch than an arrogant guy who thinks he has it all figured out be taken out by an alliance of underdogs who have their fingers to the true pulse of the game? Unfortunately in this instance, it was me who thought he had it all figured out. But that doesn’t diminish that as a ‘Survivor’ fan, I loved to see an episode like that.

Since you bring up the feet, let’s get into that for a minute here. When all of it was going down, did you get a sense at camp that there was a problem?

I did not get a sense in camp. When I was stung by the stingray medical was summoned, and the medics and doctors and producers came and gathered around. With Jenn, who was a lifeguard, I was prescribed the only thing that you can really do for a stingray attack: Put your feet in boiling water for a long period of time. Medical did not provide me with a hygienic [alternative]. Dr. Ben just said ‘take that pot off the fire and put your feet in it.’

So, the fact that I had a wart that I had removed the spring before that left a mark on my foot that probably would gross most people out if they saw it didn’t really factor into my thinking at the time. What factored into my thinking was ‘I don’t want to leave the game or be impacted because I have a stingray bard in both of my insteps.’ So whether or not that actually played a big role in the reason to vote me out, my inclination is to say no. My inclination is to say that it was more an issue of Carolyn having a vendetta against me that she had been harboring since day three, and having personal issues against Shirin that made her feel like the right move for her at the point in the game was to turn on the alliance that had formed around her in the first couple of hours of the game.

Let’s hope into a time machine and go back a little ways, because the show really presented it as thought it was naked-gate, the naked incident, or whatever else you want to call it as the culprit for some of the tension [at camp]. Did you get a sense of any of that?

I got a much different reaction than Shirin did. Carolyn, Joaquin, and Tyler, as you saw on the show, were very uncomfortable with Shirin, whereas for me I got more of ‘oh that Max, he sure is wacky.’ From [the] confessionals … I got the sense that Carolyn might have been displeased with it. But I never got the sense it was putting my social game at risk in the slightest.

What put my social game at risk was a strategic risk. Before the first tribal council Shirin and I told So and Joaquin that we would vote with them and eliminate Carolyn. Of course we had no intention of doing that, because Shirin, Carolyn, and I had a day-one alliance that we hoped would be a 39-day alliance. However, after tribal council was over and she came back to camp Carolyn was visibly irritated about the fact that her name had been written down twice, not understanding that she was merely a decoy that Shirin and I used just to lure So and Joaquin into such a sense of security that we could blindside So. Carolyn had confronted Joaquin and asked ‘why did you vote for me,’ and he said ‘because Max told me to.’ From that moment on, Carolyn was under the impression that I was not only gunning for her, but that I was a Jim Jones-like master of manipulation who had gotten people to ‘drink the Kool-Aid’ and was controlling the actions of people in our tribe. That built in the days that went on as Carolyn started to perceive Shirin as the Squeaky Fromme to my Charles Manson. I get naked, Shirin gets naked. I go over there, Shirin goes over there.

In actuality Shirin and I were a partnership, there was no way I was telling her what to do or vice-versa, but to people like Carolyn it seemed very cut-and-dry that I was the head of the snake, and Shirin was the tail that followed after me. So over the course of the days that followed, the alliance that Shirin and I thought was rock-solid and was the ticket to what we thought was a long time in the game ended up becoming the very thing that caused our undoing, because we took it for granted. We did not invest enough time in maintaining Carolyn’s allegiance as we should have. We just thought that we laid down the line for her, and it would have been very easy to go with So and Joaquin to vote her out. We protected her, and we thought that this had gained us her loyalty, and created a bond that would last very deep in the game.

You did a lot of things this season that were big moments for ‘Survivor’ fans. You could say that the naked thing was a Richard Hatch tribute, or there was also the ‘hold up bro’ moment from last night’s episode. Were these things that you had planned out, or [came up with on the spot]?

They were not planned out at all. The getting naked was a hygiene issue. Not getting a bathing suit until day six, and you take your first poop in the ocean hopefully before that. In the interest of not having a Tarzan moment where you have a situation about ‘is or isn’t it poop,’ I thought it would be best to take my first aquadump without my [underwear]. I went out there by myself, had my private time, did my business, and came back in. At that point production came out to me and said ‘hey Max, that was great. Do you mind doing that again while a helicopter films you?’ It was at that moment that I realized ‘hey, here’s a great opportunity to take something that was a [random] moment out of necessity and turn it into something fun.’ It was the day after we had won a challenge, we’re feeling good at camp, we’re feeling secure about our alliance. Why not play? Why not have fun? … The homage was after the helicopter was called, and a big deal was made out of it.

The ‘hold up bro’ was totally spontaneous. I knew I was going home. You are able to tell how many letters someone is writing on the parchment if you are paying attention. As soon as Carolyn wrote down three letters rather than the four letters for Will. So while it was a blindside in that I didn’t mentally prepare myself for going home while walking into tribal council, I knew my game was over. At that point, why not kick off one last item on my ‘Survivor’ bucket list?

The truth is that if you and I went out for a bear or a turmeric tea or a deionized water at a raucous bar in Santa Monica, I’d be making those jokes anyway. Shirin and I went out to dinner the other day with Chad from Vanuatu, and reenacted the chicken vote scene from season 9. That’s just who we are! We’re geeks like that and we own it. We love ‘Survivor,’ and we have so much fun sharing in that love. And if that makes us outcasts or whatever, that’s terrible. The truth is, it would be hard for me to conceal how much I love the show and how much it entertains me. I’m so proud to have played it.

Do you think that it is harder in a post-John Cochran world to be able to go into ‘Survivor’ knowing as much about the game as you do?

Is it a post-John Cochran world, or is a post-“Survivor: Fiji” world where you have casts that are made up of almost entirely recruits who have almost minimal, if not any, exposure to the show? To be a superfan around people who don’t know ‘Survivor’ is certainly an asset and a liability. You saw Spencer during ‘Cagayan’ explain to Tony why it was going to be a final two rather than a final three. It is an enormous strategic advantage to know how the game unfolds. Did it help Spencer get into the final two? No, since ultimately stuff goes up against you and people who know less want to eliminate that knowledge gap by removing the person who knows more.

What I found more surprising, however, were people who identified as ‘Survivor’ fans were sort of disdainful for the level of passion Shirin and I had for the game. If you’ve told me you are a ‘Survivor’ fan and had seen every episode, we’re going to sit and talk about our favorite moments for the next two hours. That’s what I assume you’re all about. When I found out that this is considered annoying or grating by people, on one hand I question the level in which they love ‘Survivor,’ and on the other hand I wonder what it is about that person who makes the passion of another so off-putting. If I found out that you were the world’s biggest Celine Dion fan, it would be very easy to stop with that because I don’t really care for her music. But if I find out that you’re a big ‘Survivor’ fan and I’m a big ‘Survivor’ fan, you want to exhibit that passion and let that freak flag fly, I’m not going to hold that against you. I’m glad that you are sharing your passion. It was really surprising that people like Carolyn and Jenn who talked up and down about how much they loved this show, didn’t love other people who loved it, and had disdain for people who identified as fans of the show.

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Thanks for Max for his candor and discussion today! If you missed it, you can also read our “Survivor: Worlds Apart” interview with Lindsey Cascaddan here, or sign up to get some other TV updates courtesy of our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: CBS.)