Hello and welcome to part six of my eight part interview with Australian Sole Survivor Pia Miranda. In the closing stages of her game, Pia made an observation about the different versions of the global franchise that is Survivor. It was an observation that I wanted to follow up on…
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SH: In your final appeal to the jury, when discussing your strategy, you said, “Australian Survivor is very different from American Survivor”. What did you mean by that?
PM: I think Australians in general are different to Americans. Americans like bombastic behaviour and they like big moves; they’re very much willing to follow someone who shows themself to be a leader. Whereas in Australia, anyone who we think is getting too big for their boots – or seems like they’re on top of the pack – we’ll cut them down. So you’ve got to play a really different game. America rewards a brash game; you need to find an idol. It’s really hard for a woman to win American Survivor at the moment. I don’t think one’s won for 14 seasons or something.
SH: Really?
PM: Mm. So you have to make moves – because you want to have something to tell the jury – but you cannot let people think you’re on the top of the pack. Even when I was on top of the pack in the Contenders Tribe, I made sure everyone thought I was at the bottom of the three girls. Which was not true; it definitely was Janine and I running the show and then Abbey was following what we were doing. But I would tell the contenders that I didn’t know what was happening and they would tell me right before tribal “I’m just here to make friends,” that kind of thing.
SH: So that was on your mind all the way through? That was your whole game plan.
PM: They didn’t show this much, but I was really friendly. One of my biggest game plans, I learned from Cochran who is a super fan who played once played terribly, played second time played amazingly. Cochran and Sandra are my two people that I learned from. Sandra’s big thing was “don’t talk strategy unless you need to”. Don’t be running around camp all-day talking strategy, because it will come back to bite you in the arse. Cochran was really like “make real relationships with people, but then be willing to vote anyone out”. My social game was to really actually become friends with everyone and they were truthful relationships. I didn’t fake any of those relationships. When I got to jury in front of them, I could honestly say that I was really friends with every single person in that jury. And pretty good friends. I made an effort with them.
SH: And voting them out is the game – it’s not personal, it’s just strategic.
PM: Yes. Even Janine. I didn’t want Janine to go, but I kind of knew she had to go for me to win. I’m just glad I didn’t have to do it because I wouldn’t have put her name down.
SH: Yes. It’s been a while now, since it all happened. Would you go back again for an Allstars version?
PM: No, (LAUGHS) I wouldn’t do it again. Winners get voted out pretty early. I’ve only got somewhere to fall now. And people know my game now.
SH: So you can’t surprise them.
PM: If America had an “All winners” season, I might do that. That’d be fun. And also, the American challenges aren’t as hard as the Australian challenges. Honestly, those challenges…. I would turn up for those challenges with a knot in my stomach thinking “What the hell?!” I was fine once I got to the merge and they were individual challenges. Those team challenges I found traumatizing. I felt my game was always to be likeable but strategic and then come out at tribal council and obliterate my competition and just be really aggressive. I’d have to think of a new game plan… I mean, there are tribals that go for 2 hours.
SH: Really?
PM: Yes, even people yelling at me “YOU ARE S**T!”
SH: What?
PM: That’s the job of the jury! To tell you how bad your game is, and why you don’t deserve it; your job is to fight. People are like “why were you getting so angry?” (in tribals). Well, they get angry at you for two hours, and it’s really intense. They only show a smidgen what really happens. But yeah, I definitely wouldn’t play Australian Survivor again – they would vote me out. Because I won it the previous time.
SH: Back to what you were saying before – you’d have a target on your back, just by walking in the door.
PM: Yes. Also, I won the half a million! I don’t know if I could fight as hard to take that away from someone else who hasn’t had the chance to win it.
SH: Someone else’s turn.
PM: It’s someone else’s turn. If I won it twice, I’d feel a bit guilty about that. I don’t know if I’d have the passion inside me – there’s 23 people going in, and someone else deserves a shot at this.
SH: Absolutely. The only way is down. I felt a bit like that after Temptation. They had these Quizmasters (Champion of Champions) series. I did go on one, but I shouldn’t have… because I lost and it was embarrassing (LAUGHS). But after my big win I was flushed with success – I was riding high and my ego was doing strange things. Based on that, I also decided to go on Australia’s Brainiest Quizmaster. As it turned out, I did just scrape through, although I probably didn’t really didn’t deserve to win.
PM: The passion goes because you won or something.
SH: It does feel a bit unfair – it’s someone else’s turn. It really is.
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Next week, Pia and I discuss how winning this life-changing amount of money has…
erm…
changed her life.
See you then!
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