‘Survivor: San Juan del Sur’ interview: Reed Kelly on playing hard, regaining trust, Green Goblins

Reed Kelly was a big player, especially after the merge on “Survivor: San Juan del Sur.” He also was one of the lucky individuals to wear the famous costume in “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.” Basically, he has gotten a chance to be a superhero and be on “Survivor.” A lucky man, indeed!

Following his elimination from the show last week, we had a chance to chat with him about his strategy, having to overcome some early roadblocks, and also a “Spider-Man” / “Survivor” hybrid question that was pure fan service on our part.

CarterMatt – You are obviously a really big fan of the show, and there were times when you were really going all out to save yourself. Was it hard for you to contain some of that at times?

Reed Kelly – It’s interesting because when you hit the beach, obviously I was thrilled to be out there and doing all of that stuff, being a superfan of the show. But then, you have so much other stuff to focus on, that kind of takes a back seat.

I think what ended up happening is that when we got to Hunahpu on day 1, it felt like everyone on my tribe was playing hard. Like, Missy was going through people’s bags, and she pulled me aside at one point and told me ‘Reed, I found a hidden immunity idol in a tree and I need your help.’ It was just a stick! (Editor’s note: Paging Eliza!)

It felt like everyone was playing really hard, so what happened was that I was like ‘these people are really in it. That’s awesome.’ I spoke with Jeremy, and I said ‘let’s just casually get some members together. There’s nine people, let’s get five of us together; I’m not saying we’re signing our lives away, but let’s get some numbers together so that if we have to go to a vote, we’re at least in the majority.’ He was like ‘cool.’ I said I [had spoke with Natalie and Missy], and he said he had spoken with this person and this person.

…Well, what Jeremy basically did was that he went back to those people and said ‘Reed wants to take you out.’ And so he poisoned the well right off the bat. That was really hard because Natalie and I really clicked on day one. The next day I felt a shift at camp, and I was like ‘something happened. Something tainted this well. People are not responding like they were.’ I really pulled back, and that became my new strategy was to blend in, go with the flow, don’t make waves. One thing I know from watching past seasons of Survivor is if you keep your mouth shut long enough, someone else will dig their own grave first. And so, unfortunately for Drew, that’s what he ended up doing. That became a part of my strategy.

I don’t really think I went in there being too crazy;  it was just Jeremy. He told me later ‘I recognized you as a threat, you were doing exactly the same thing that I was doing, and there can’t be two of us doing that.’ I applaud him for doing that.

You mention Jeremy ‘poisoning the well.’ Were you still having trouble recovering from that even in your final days in the game?

Absolutely. When you first get there, people have that mentality as ‘as long as it’s not me.’ If people think you are persona non grata at camp, they will stick with that. If it’s tainted at the start of the game, it’s tainted the rest of the way. While we all developed great personal relationships, working relationships were really hard. I had to play really hard in this game, and it was kind of like that old adage ‘be careful what you wish for,’ because I used to say ‘I want to really get out there and play.’ I really did. I had to play my butt off when I got out there because I wasn’t really nestled in to any majority alliance.

As a former Broadway Spider-Man, this question seems appropriate. Who was your Green Goblin? Was it Missy, or was it Jon?

(Laughs) The Green Goblin, I’m definitely going to go with Missy on that one.

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