“I Wasn’t Going to Drive Myself Crazy” – An Interview with Survivor: Fiji’s Lisi

I wasn’t sure quite what to expect when I talked to Lisi, in part because I just couldn’t figure out where she was coming from, especially in her final episode. As you’ll see, below, it’s a bit clearer now. Read on to find out what she was thinking – although it’s certainly possible by the end of it, you’ll disagree with it and perhaps be a bit doubtful.

RealityNewsOnline: What was your strategy going into the game?

Lisi: I did not have a strategy. Have fun, maybe – that’s the closest thing I could get to a strategy. I didn’t want to overthink anything, I just wanted to take it as it came with a fresh mindset.

RNO: Do you feel you were portrayed accurately – was that the real you we saw?

Lisi: Oh yeah. Yeah, for sure.

RNO: What did you do to prepare for being on Survivor?

Lisi: I really didn’t have much time to prepare. I think I was the last one being cast and it all happened very quickly for me. That was great because I was like, let’s just do this.

RNO: So how much did you know about the show ahead of time?

Lisi: Very little, to be frank. I had seen a couple episodes, I think it was the Australian season. And that was pretty much it. I actually didn’t even know Survivor was still on. When we first started the game and people said Jeff was supposed to show up and start the game, I didn’t know what was going on. I was so fresh, I had no preconceived notions. I had to just take it day by day. If you know too much then you just know too much.

RNO: As you’ve been watching yourself on TV over the past couple months, have you had any second thoughts about anything you did or said?

Lisi: Oh my god, no. I have had a great exp. I can’t say anything bad about it except for the whole Exile Island experience. Nothing but fun stuff.

RNO: What about how we saw you treat Dreamz and Cassandra at the original Moto?

Lisi: I don’t even know what that was all about. For real, I didn’t treat them any differently than anybody else. But it’s kind of like once you say something about someone and it’s like a prophecy that’s being fulfilled, any little thing I did, it was like, okay, you people are tripping.

RNO: I have to tell you, watching at home, it was very difficult to figure out what was going through your head near the end. First you wanted to go, then you didn’t. Can you explain what was going on?

Lisi: I wanted to go. Straight-up. But I was very aware that this is a game show. It is a show. So I just kind of wanted to, for dramatic purposes, play along with the idea that maybe I don’t want to go – just for fun. I wasn’t going to leave without some sort of fireworks.

RNO: Did you expect Alex and Edgardo to join you in voting off Dreamz instead of you when you made your last-minute decision that you wanted to stay in the game?

Lisi: Oh no no no no. We agreed that I was going to go. It’s funny because I wanted to when I came back from Exile Island the first time. Ed was like, “You’re not leaving yet, we’re voting off Rocky.” I stayed in the game one more round because the boys wanted to get rid of him so bad. And I had to go to Exile Island again, we were so bad. When we came back from that challenge, the boys were like, “Who you do you want off?” I said, “ME!” That’s why I told them where the immunity idol was. I wanted to go, so I traded. Even trade, lose a vote, get an idol.

RNO: I also didn’t understand what you said about challenges. Did you really not care about winning them?

Lisi: No. I mean, you were watching the show. How many challenges did you see me in? Whenever somebody could sit out, I was like, that’s me. You think I’m going to stress myself? You can push the chariot, you can cut that rope, you can make that puzzle.

RNO: In your final episode, you talked about how you got further than you expected. How far did you expect to go?

Lisi: Let me tell you something. I was talking to my friends before this madness started. I was like I wouldn’t care if I was the first one voted off. I just wanted to have as much fun as I could. If things were going my way I would stroll through it as long as I could. If things were going to get too hectic, no. It was all about the alliance, they scooped me up and snowballed me.

RNO: Why did you only think you’d make it that far?

Lisi: Because I didn’t strategize, I wasn’t interested in it. There are people who do this with full intentions of winning. I wasn’t going to drive myself crazy.

RNO: What was your initial reaction upon seeing the new tribe you’d be joining?

Lisi: I was like great, great, great (with extreme sarcasm in her voice). I thought Exile Island was bad. Here I am now on Ravu, the dump. This was really getting ugly. If there was one time when there was strategizing, I had to strategize myself out of the game. That’s when it started getting really buggy. Okay, this is not cute. Sleeping on palm fronds – try that and get back to me.

RNO: If you thought the immunity idol was where Mookie eventually found it, why didn’t you dig there before him?

Lisi: I told them where it was, the vicinity. I really wasn’t interested in digging up anything. And I started digging up afterwards for dramatic effect.

RNO: Before you left, did you have any idea the others had found the idol without you?

Lisi: No, I didn’t actually! I discovered that when I watched it yesterday! Which is so funny because I told Alex where to find it and he was like, “Don’t tell Lisi.” I was like, “Don’t tell Lisi?” Obviously I didn’t care enough for it or else I wouldn’t have told them the clues.

RNO: What did you think of Edgardo saying you were unstable?

Lisi: I love it. I wanted them to think that. And truly, I was at that point. I had had it with the hardship. It was great that I was in this alliance and I probably could have gone a lot further in the game because of it. But like I said, I was done like a Thanksgiving day turkey.

RNO: You talked about abandoning a sinking ship, but is that really an appropriate metaphor here? Basically, your only other option was the game equivalent of drowning.

Lisi: Drowning sounded like a better option than going down with the ship – it was me doing this to me, not me in the hands of these kids. If I had stayed with them, god knows how many times I’d be on Exile Island. Even the simplest challenge, they couldn’t win. Come on guys, throw that arrow. Yau-Man aced that challenge. If I were [one of the guys on my tribe], I would have run into the ocean and been lik, “I’ve got to go.” It just goes to show you, when you have a loser mentality, it doesn’t matter what you’ve got – you need the brains and the brawn.

RNO: You referred to your tribemates as losers – where did you place yourself in comparison?

Lisi: In comparison to them, they were heavy into the game. So I really felt like an outsider because I just wanted to have as much fun as I could. By then, being so focused on “oh we have to win” was just like, then do it, win. It was very juvenile – when you’re a kid and you’re losing and you blame the other person. That’s why the old Ravu never won, and that seemed to have spilled over. You don’t make a winning team by harping on people and such. It’s childish. That’s why Boo is such a special man. Moto starts to win because Boo is such a special man, confident. Cute too.

RNO: Is there anything else you’d like to tell us about your time on Survivor?

Lisi: Not really. I had a great, great experience. One for the books.

RNO: OK. Thanks, Lisi!

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out these other recent Survivor: Fiji articles here on RealityNewsOnline:

David Bloomberg is the Editor of RealityNewsOnline and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com.

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