‘Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen X’ exclusive: Hannah Shapiro on battling perception, strategic moves, and her social game

Hannah Shapiro is the sort of “Survivor” story that you really love following, and we feel like were there not another similar story with, it may have stood out even more. She started the game out being so anxious that she had a panic-attack on the sidelines during a challenge, but at the end of the game she was strong enough to go toe-to-toe with both Adam and Ken to state her case as to why she should win.

However, neither she nor Ken received a single vote, which was a surprising development even when you consider Adam’s emotional story at the end of the game. We do think that Hannah was responsible for some big moves, and whether you agree with them or not, they ended up working well enough that she wasn’t at the end with either Jay or David — two people considered to be the bigger threats. She didn’t know that Adam was going through such a journey with his mother, so can you really blame her? In our interview this morning, we went through much of Hannah’s game, and tried to figure out why things didn’t work out for her in the end.

CarterMatt – I feel like in the finale you made some pretty impressive moves and you worked hard to get yourself to the end. Why didn’t we see the jury respond to that?

Hannah Shapiro – My biggest error, I would say, is that I underestimated perception. I am quirky and I am goofy, so I led with that over being strategic so that I would have maneuverability in the game. I got a lot of information during the game, and I did that because I was leading with a different part of myself. The problem is that ‘Survivor’ is such a tricky game; it’s a balance between showing your cards and hiding your cards, articulating what you’re doing, but not so much that people fully understand it.

So I think a lot of jury members went into that final Tribal not understanding the game I was playing. It was a bit of an uphill battle and I could feel that, but I also wasn’t the same person I was on day one, and I wasn’t going to go down without articulating my case because I thought I had an argument.

Isn’t it such an interesting double-edged sword? Let’s say you were out there and you were Badass Hannah making these huge moves left and right. Wouldn’t that have made you so much a threat that you wouldn’t make it to the end?

I think so. I will say that the thing I think I did well was that I wanted to have a relationship with every person. I wanted to be what they wanted me to be to them, and I think that I couldn’t be more of a badass and have that. I just wasn’t that person coming into the game. I think I needed to learn some lessons and grow.

I think that the early doubting of myself [created] a perception early on. I went out there and I fought. I realized pretty early on that if I was going to make it to the end, I wanted to do it on my own terms and I wanted to have an argument. And I believe that I did.

So when you look at players who have the sort of quirks, like a Cochran or an Aubry, these are people who really grew in a similar way over the course of their first time on the show, and in the case of Cochran at least it set him up really well for a second time. Do you think going back, you would have access to those skills from the start?

It’s so fun to do these interviews and hear you say the names of these players that I love. I’ve loved the show since I was 14 … I’m a big fan of Cochran’s, and Aubry reached out to me during the season and has been nothing but wonderful.

My head is in getting back to my life and going after the things that I’m passionate about. I talked about this with some of the cast afterwards, but I feel like had I went in with this mentality and the boldness that I developed over the course of the season, I feel like I would have had a much better chance of being the player that you saw Cochran be the second time.

It’s hard. I didn’t necessarily go out there thinking ‘I can win this,’ and you have to believe in yourself as a winner so that people can perceive you as a winner.

One of the things that I think you did really well was that you had this ability to make people really trusting of you. You were hit on the show with this ‘flipper’ label, but I feel like in watching the show you actually didn’t stray that far from David and Ken. Was that reality? Was there a point where you actually considered yourself in another alliance first?

There are two things I want to say to it. The first thing is that I think gender does play a role in this. There are guys who’ve been called flippers and guys who’ve been called goats — I don’t want to take that away — but in a season with a primarily male post-merge, when a guy makes a move, it’s a move. When a girl makes a move, it’s a flip. When a guy stays loyal, he’s loyal, and when a girl stays loyal, she’s a goat. So much of what a flipper is inherently is perception.

It is what you said — I was able to make a move against people, it hurt them. You hear it in this exit press. People felt hurt by me. Adam had less of a social connection with people other than Jay, so when he flipped people didn’t feel as hurt. There were people in that game — Will, Jay, Michelle — who felt like I was with them, so when I made a move against them, it felt like I was flipping on them. In reality, I was just doing a good job building a relationship with them so that they didn’t see where I was.

I think I did a good job of being loyal to the people I stayed loyal with — the one exception to that rule is when I made a move against Zeke. We were extremely close on the island; we’d spend hours talking about game. There were two different directions we could go; in one, Zeke was in a lot more control, and in the other, I was. We realized we had come to this crossroads, so when I decided to make a move against Zeke, he had to convince a bunch of people who he’d voted against to want to vote with him to protect himself. He was also extremely hurt. In order to convince people to put their hands in a bag of rocks, especially someone like Bret who played very emotionally, I think he needed to fuel the narrative of flipping. He smeared a lot of the perception of me as a game player for a lot of the rest of the game, and Zeke is someone who I absolutely love now and I loved out there. There’s just so much that goes into that.

I think basically your social game very really good, but in some ways that may have caused people to become — I don’t want to use the ‘bitter’ word — but they felt more hurt by you than they did other people.

I’ve tried to avoid the internet commentary and podcasts, but a lot of the titles that were out there were ‘Michelle: Personally hurt by Hannah,’ and [the same with] Zeke. It was a different thing when I turned on people.

I want to go back all the way to the second Tribal Council and the Mari vote. Watching that back, and being in that moment, can you try to explain everything that was going on in your head?

First of all, I loved Mari — I was getting all this internet hate for what I did, but Mari and I were watching the episode together being like ‘this is so funny.’

It was an insane Tribal. First of all, I had been dreaming of playing ‘Survivor’ since I was fourteen, so I was nervous going into Tribal Council, but I was also like ‘I’m going to give good answers, I’m going to talk to Jeff Probst,’ and then immediately after I sit down Michelle whispers to me that the vote’s changed. I start running numbers in my head.

What you don’t see was that I had built a relationship with Michelle beyond just a few awkward conversations like ‘I’m a Jew.’ We talked, and we told each other that if we were on the wrong side of the numbers, we would let each other know. There was a division in the tribe between the cool kids and the weirdos, and she was the eyes and ears for the cool kids, and I had built a relationship with her. I knew that Will was with the cool kids, so I added him to [that group]. What I was trying to figure out was why Michaela wanted to vote with Figgy and these people. It’s funny — people give me a hard time for this, and I love Mari — It’s not a move I regret. I’m not a challenge beast; voting in the majority early on was very important to me. I was also not the most confident game-player, trusting of my own gut. It was so funny watching Jeff peek his head in [to the voting booth]. It was a long vote, I was in there about ten minutes. I was counting on my fingers, trying to figure out if they had the majority, and if I was actually voting out my ally.

Let’s talk about the Michaela vote, the one time you were on the wrong side of the numbers. How did you come back after that and make sure that nobody was upset?

The Michaela vote was a turning point in my game. I think the Michaela vote really woke me up to how I needed to be strategic in the game. I love Michaela — she’s really cool and she’s badass — and we really understood each other. Michaela saw how hard I was playing, and that I was more intelligent than I was letting on, more than anyone else. That whole day, I felt like something was off. I could feel it in my gut, but I didn’t trust my gut. So going into that Tribal Council and being blindsided, I should have trusted my gut. I knew something was up! What you don’t see was that I questioned Jay and I questioned Will.

Coming out of that Tribal, I couldn’t rely on the fact that there would be a merge the next day. For me, it was really about playing into this role of ‘thank you for protecting me,’ and letting people believe that I was fine. I had been on the other side of people blowing up after the vote. I got a lot of flack for not being socially aware after the Mari vote, but what you don’t see is that Adam and Zeke yell at Will, I tried to sit down and Zeke was like ‘you’re the worst.’

I really took the time that night to let Jay go on about what his plans were in the game, and I reestablished my bond with Will and made sure that this relationship wasn’t broken. Will’s flip was really important down the line in the game. It was a really condescending return to camp — I remember people being like ‘sweetie, we wanted to protect you.’ I had to put on a game face.