Survivor: Cook Islands Finale - Red Carpet Interviews
(Transcripts by James Barber - 12.18.06)


OZZY AFTER THE FINALE

Watch as Ozzy recounts his Cook Islands memories while walking the red carpet.

"A million dollars is just money. Of course it's a lot of money, and I'm bummed I didn't win it, but I'm more bummed I didn't win Survivor based on that. Not on getting the million dollars, but just on getting first. I feel like Yul does deserve it, and he's a great guy. I hope we stay friends the rest of our lives. Amazing guy."

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"I don't really have any regrets. Maybe I could have done a few things different, but I felt like I went out there and provided for everybody basically the whole time, caught hundreds of fish, and just really learned a new aspect of my life, learned about myself in a way I could have never done if I hadn't had this experience."

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"One moment that was not onscreen that was my favorite thing I did was I actually crossed over the reef and went into the ocean. The cameraman couldn't follow me cause it was too crazy. I timed it in-between the waves, I jumped across the reef, and it was absolutely incredibly beautiful and frightening and scary. I was wearing shoes and there were sharks swimming around, huge fish swimming around. No one was there besides myself. It was quite amazing. It was almost like being in space or something."

BECKY AFTER THE FINALE

On the Red Carpet after the finale, Becky reacts to the results of the final vote.

"I am so glad, just the way the game all came to the end, I'm so glad the Aitu 4 made it all to the end together. I'm so glad the challenge that happened the way that I rejected the idol and made Sundra and I do the fire challenge. I'm glad it went that way. I'm glad we had to do it in a diplomatic way. I'm also glad tonight, even though people were asking if I was embarrassed to not get any votes, I already knew having talked to people from the jury, I don't want anyone to vote for me and detract from those guys. We all know it's a game between those two. When we found out about the final three, it obviously changed strategies about who they wanted to take to the final two, and we knew that. Sitting there I was pulling because I didn't want a tiebreaker, you know that would be the worst, having a tiebreaker on live television."

(MEMORABLE MOMENTS)

"I have two. First being the day of the mutiny. When your close ally, Candice - we met the very first day when we had gone to the new island, we made an alliance of four, really strong. I knew she was a strong competitor. That day when she steps off on number two, Jonathan follows, and Jonathan makes us 8-4. Really scary. You almost say, 'Time out,' but the game rolls on. Then for us to win that challenge, for the first time contact with our family, then to be able to win food. That bonded us for the rest of the game. Then when my sister came to visit. They showed me for all the challenges as a very stone-faced person. When I'm playing the game, in that part, my game face is on, but at the same time, I wasn't talking much with the editing this season, and I never shut up. But I realize we all play roles. But when my sister came, definitely just to be able to forget about the game for a second, and hug her, and realize like wow this is home. That was a really great feeling."

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"2 episodes ago, when Jonathan asked me a question, and I look up in the air and birds are chirping, like blatantly, makes me look like I ignore him, so like people are saying, 'God, you're such a bitch! You're so rude!' Then they show the camera angle when we're going into the forest, and it looks like we're running away from him. Things like that we can laugh at, but I called Jonathan and he said, 'I know you didn't ignore me, I know the scene was cut.' First the whole season I'm silent and now I'm the bitch. Something like that you can laugh at because you have no control over it. Just an amazing experience to meet these people you probably wouldn't meet in any other situation. I'm an attorney in DC so this is very far from me, the whole Hollywood, acting. This is a very once in a lifetime thing, why not."

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"A big reason I wanted to do this thing, this competition, was just the publicity, sense of showing Asian stereotypes. There's usually a token Asian, and it's the nerdy...when Yul and I first met we were like, 'Oh my God, me too!' We were both like we're going to go back and fight hard for our communities. We've both sort of gotten rejuvenated from each other. Holding each other accountable, like what are you doing? What are you doing? So that's really great to have."

YUL AFTER THE FINALE

Yul revels in his victory while walking the red carpet after the reunion show.

"One thing that surprised me about the show was how authentic it was. They didn't manipulate us. They didn't tell us what to do. It's interesting how they edit though, and that's partly because I see things through my own eyes when I went through the experience but then seeing it through other people's eyes. I think I've been fortunate because I've been portrayed in a very positive light on the show, but it is interesting because sometimes you kind of see them edit things in a certain way to try to portray people in a certain light, but overall you're trying to tell a story. It was interesting from a narrative standpoint how they edited the whole season."

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"I think the most memorable moment was when we were trying to convince Jonathan. At one point he finally told us he was going to come over to our side. Before that I had a lot of concerns. Even going into the show I had concerns, a lot of fears that this could be a very socially irresponsible experiment. What if it plays up racial caricatures, there's a lot of ethnic pride? What if at the end everyone is of one tribe? That would send such a horrible message into this country. It looked for a while like that was going to happen, all the Caucasian people were going to wipe out all the minorities. I don't believe anyone on the show was racist at all, but I think there are a lot of people in this country who might have taken the wrong lessons or implications from that. So when Jonathan flipped over to our side, it was partially because he's a very rational person, it's in his own self-interest, but it's also because he liked us. He really valued the same values we have. Fortunately the way things worked out hopefully will show people that it's not your skin color that determines who your friends are, who you are, but really, your values, yourself as an individual. I'm glad we got to the end with a multicultural alliance and I think that speaks volumes about what we can achieve in this country on a larger scale."

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"I didn't want to get ahead of myself, because I knew it was a close vote, but I've definitely been thinking about it. One thing I want to do, my family didn't have a lot of money growing up, I'd like to be able to treat my parents to the things they never had because they were trying to provide for me and my brother and trying to give us the opportunities they never had. Beyond that, I want to invest in myself and my family's financial future, and there are a lot of causes and organizations that I feel very passionate about. One thing I feel passionate about, that is close to my heart, is the Asian-American Donor Program. My best friend died in college from leukemia and he needed to find a bone marrow transplant, and unfortunately not enough minorities in this country have been tapped for bone marrow. So I'd like to help out organizations like that and others that I feel very close to."

SUNDRA AFTER THE FINALE

On the red carpet, Sundra describes her feelings as she looks back on her time on Survivor.

"It's a game. I kind of laugh when people come up there and get offended and throw all this fire at people. I understand because the game can induce a lot of paranoia and hurt feelings, and even if that happened to me I would say, 'Sundra, check yourself, suppress the feelings, it's just a game.' I kind of laugh when I see people come across with all this (laughs) fire."

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"Oh, I learned a lot on the island. I don't know if this is a stock answer, but I didn't give myself a lot of credit that there were things I could do. I really didn't. At the time I went on the game it was a very rough year for me, emotionally, a bit of a depression, gained weight, didn't feel like myself, and then I'm gonna go on national TV in a bikini? Great, Sundra. (laughs) And I didn't know the game. Didn't know the game. But I have a lot of respect for the game. You can't do what you have to do to get here and not have respect for it. It didn't matter if you didn't know season 1-12, because I'm gonna be here. I made it this far as a woman, as a single mother, I can handle this. I realize now, just go after what you want. Screw what might be conventional. Honestly. And I also learned, shake up my daily routine. Even something like, I'm going to drive a different way home than I usually do. Take this route. Listening to my gut, saying turn right. Do it. That really rang true to me on the island, listening to my gut. That's always been something I've struggled with, something my teachers in my acting class have said, 'Sundra, you always second guess yourself.' Because I listened to my gut it got me to where I got on the island, because I would have made my stupid decisions if I didn't listen to my gut and listened to other people."

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"My most memorable moment on the show was the mutiny, when the Aitu 4 was born. We became the Aitu 4. That was an occasion I have yet to find a way to describe. I hate to be really cliché, but I wish you could be in my body to feel the emotions of how great that felt. I know it's just a game, but it was so much more than that. So much more than that. If it wasn't these three people, I don't know if the experience would have been as great. We probably wouldn't have won again and again and again and again. So that was the most memorable thing to me. I also had a lot of times with Yul, private times they never showed. We would sleep on the raft together, and look up at the stars; I saw shooting stars at the first time with him. We spent a lot of time just sitting and talking, and that's great. He's a lifelong friend now. He's been over at my house, we hang out. It's great. It's great.

ADAM AFTER THE FINALE

After the reunion show, Adam talks about his experiences on Cook Islands.

ADAM: "I thought while I was out there Yul had more of an impact on the decisions they were making on the other tribe, but watching it at home I actually saw other people were more involved in the decision-making process than I thought."

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"Everyone's different, and you just gotta kinda adjust to the way they are, and realize everyone's different. I just want to apply that to the real world. Also, I don't take things for granted as much anymore."

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"I don't know what I want to do. Right now I'm living in San Diego. I guess we'll see."

JEFF PROBST AFTER THE FINALE

After the reunion show, Jeff Probst discusses the most memorable moments of Cook Islands.

"We're always looking to keep the show fresh and keep the survivors off-balance. When we've been on for this many years, they can study things and anticipate things, so we're always looking for new things. [Mark] Burnett said, 'Let's do the bigger jury and the final three,' and once he said that, the wheels started happening. The great thing about the final three that we didn't anticipate is it gives you another opportunity for a likable person in the final, which seems obvious, but you look at this season and you might have ended up with one person no one thought was deserving and another person, it's a runaway. Having three people gives you a chance of a real close vote, and it was a great one."

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"There are a couple of memorable moments, and a lot of them involve Jonathan. He really made a lot of things happen. The mutiny is one of the things that stick out for me. You think about saying you've got 10 seconds to mutiny, you could be shooting yourself in the foot to leave what you have, to see two people do it, then to see Jonathan go back and betray the people he betrayed in the first place, was really crazy. So that was the big moment. The other big moment was any time Ozzy was in a challenge. It's the first time producers would literally stand there and go, 'Wow, that is amazing.' Even those of us familiar with the challenge were going, 'We never thought anyone would be this fast, this physical.' Half the time I'm just sitting out there going it's Ozzy's to lose. He's gotta fall down or have a hemorrhage somewhere.