Read on for my interview with Tori, and make sure to check in with Parade.com every day for interviews with this season’s contestants and other tidbits. Survivor 42 premieres on March 9 with a special two-hour premiere on CBS.
Interview with Tori from Survivor 42
Why are you here on Survivor?Survivor is not even just my dream. I’m literally living my family’s dream. I come from a very big family. I’m the middle child of five. And in our family, faith is really important to all of us. So, of course, Jesus is number one. But Survivor and Jeff Probst are a very close second. Even my mom auditioned probably 16 years ago. So they are so pumped for me. We even have a tradition where every single Christmas, of course, we do the usual breakfast and opening presents. But the main thing I look forward to on Christmas is we will binge-watch an entire season of Survivor that same day. That’s just a little bit of a taste of what this means to me. I’ll even give just one more story because I love thinking of this one and my younger self. On Thursday nights when Survivor used to air, my four siblings and I wouldn’t even sit on the couch to watch. We would sit as close to the TV as we could, crisscross applesauce. And we would have our Survivor dinner, which was a bowl of rice and some mandarin oranges. The rice because that’s what they eat on the show, obviously. But the mandarin oranges symbolized the grubs that you’d have to eat. So this goes back a long, long way. So for me to be here is very surreal. And I’m so freaking ready! Give me one Survivor winner and one non-winner who you identify with the most. I would say a winner I identify is Queen Kim Spradlin. I’m hopping on the Queen Kim train. I have always been such a fan of hers. For starters, she was a beast in the challenges. She is one of the women in that elite group that has won four or more individual Immunity Challenges. And it is my personal goal this season to be the first woman ever to win five individual Immunity Challenges. It’s a huge goal, very lofty, might be unrealistic. But men have done it, and one day, a woman is going to. So I’m like, “Why can’t that be me?” So I’d love to follow in her footsteps in that regard. I’ve also done part of my strategy with what she did. She brought two women to the end. And I feel like it’s easier for a woman to outshine other women when there’s not a strong male involved. So I want to do that. And I’d say a non-winner would be Andrea Boehlke. I think she and I have quite a few similarities. She was really good in the challenges too. What I really like about her, though, is her strategy and her mind. She always comes to play hard. Yes, she’s a beautiful girl. But she never played that role of the boring pretty girl. And I sure as heck did not come all the way here to play that pretty nice, boring girl who does nothing. I’m here to strategize. I’m here to win. I’m here to cut throats, crush dreams, and be the Sole Survivor. We’ll see! What’s one life experience you feel has prepared you most for the game? As a therapist, I’m literally trained in the art of trust. So it really is a skill that I’ve been learning for over six years. I have a Bachelor’s in Counseling and Psychology, my Master’s in Professional Counseling, and I’m going to get my Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. When I have a client coming into my office for the first time, we are complete strangers. But I’m supposed to use my skills to be able to get them to trust me quickly and deeply enough to disclose their deepest darkest secrets with me, a stranger, things that they don’t even tell their family and friends about. I know how to be warm, empathetic, open, and genuine with people to create that safe space. That’s what I do as a therapist, creating a safe space for people to be themselves, be authentic, and talk about real things. So I’m totally going to bring that into the game. That’s my social strategy. Of course, I’m not telling people I’m a therapist, because the first response is always, “Oh, so now you’re going to psychoanalyze me. Oh, so that’s why you’re so good at listening. That’s why you asked those deep and thought-provoking questions.” So it almost takes away from my natural ability to connect and listen and be warm when people find out that this is what I do. So I will definitely be omitting that information. But it will still play a huge part and how I play the game. What do you think people will perceive you as? So I think that self-awareness is probably my strongest attribute. And with that, I’m very aware of people’s first impressions of me. Almost all the time, people will say, “Oh, when I first met you, I thought you were going to be stuck up or a mean girl. But then I got to know you, and you’re actually super weird. You’re nerdy. You’re not either of those things.” So I had to find a way to use my background in counseling and psychology, what I know about people, and the research I’ve done on first impressions to alter and shape how people view me. So what I’ve done like through this whole time is I’ve been wearing this disguise. So I have Harry Potter glasses because I’m a huge Harry Potter nerd. I’ve had my hair pulled back in a low bun the whole time. I don’t want people to see that I have long, flowing blonde hair. I’ve been wearing oversized clothes so that my body isn’t shown off. And I’ve also been wearing only shades of blue. Now that’s because research in psychology has found there’s a study where people wore different shades of colors, and then they studied people’s first impressions of those people. And the results found that the people who were wearing the color blue and shades of blue were seen as much kinder, friendlier, and more inviting than the same people who were wearing shades of red. That’s why you get the stereotypical blue versus red, Heroes vs. Villains color. So I’ve been using that psychological knowledge to my advantage and only been wearing blue around people. Because I did not want people to peg me as just this pretty girl, or maybe a mean girl or someone who’s stuck up, because that’s not me at all. I have a servant’s heart. I love people. And so I needed to control how they see me because, in the game of Survivor, people are only going to know what I tell them and what I show them. So if I can control those factors, I have a greater hold of how they see me. I’ve also studied first impressions, and what psychology shows is that first impressions, especially negative judgments, are extremely hard to change. And so I had to present to them what I wanted them to think about me. What will the other players dislike about you? I’ve gotten feedback before that I’m intimidating. And so that’s something I’m working on. That’s why I have this social strategy of being Tori the therapist on the island. Because outside of the therapy session, I’m loud and super extroverted. I can be dominant; I can be annoying; I can be the center of attention. But when I’m in therapy, it’s a more professional role. And I’m also much more calm and collected. I’m more chill. I don’t talk as much; I do a lot of listening. I’m also much less dramatic with my facial features and or just my facial expressions. Because in my everyday life, what I’m thinking or feeling, you will see it on my face. I have a very theatrical, dramatic face. But you have to control that in counseling because the client is staring right at your face. So that’s why I’m really hoping that people are going to see me as that therapist archetype, someone who is warm and calm. So I’m hoping they’re going to love that side of me. And then, once the game is over, they can get to know the really crazy and loud Tori. But for the game purposes, if I’m here to win, I can’t let that out of the bag yet. What do you desire in an alliance partner? I want someone who is open with me. And I’m hoping to do that through the skills I know in therapy. So I have this whole strategy laid out. It’s called “T-GAME.” It’s this alliterative acronym. And the “E” in that stands for “extrapolate and exploit.” I want to extrapolate information from people in my alliance. What are their motivations, fears, strengths and weaknesses, childhood and upbringing, culture, religion, or lack thereof? I want to extrapolate this information so that I can use that to my benefit. I’m going to talk to a member of my alliance who is really motivated by winning that million dollars very differently than I talk to someone in my alliance who is there for personal discovery or someone there for the adventure or someone there because they really love the game and want to strategize. So I need someone willing to be open and answer those questions I asked. When you’re at your lowest moment in the game, what’s one happy memory you’ll pull from in your time of need? It’s actually a saying that I’ve told myself and repeated to myself. Even as I’m going through this process now, I’m telling myself, “This is what you dreamed of. This is what you prayed for.” I’m living an answered prayer. And so I have to remind myself of that. I think it’s all about perspective. And I just have to tell myself, “This is what I came here for.” It’s so sad to me how as humans, we can have this goal in mind; we can have this place we want to go to, something we want to accomplish. And then once we get there, we just focus on the negatives, or we say, “Okay, where am I going to go next?” And so, something I practice, even in therapy with clients, is this technique of mindfulness. It’s about being present and aware in the moment. Really taking a moment and not wishing it away. So even if I’m hungry, cold, and miss my family, I just want to shower. I want to be in the moment and remind myself, “No, this is my dream come true. I’m living my dream come true. I am living my answered prayer.” It would be so disappointing for me to wish that away in those low moments. What celebrity or fictional character would you want to come out for a Loved Ones visit? Well, I’m guessing Jeff Probst isn’t allowed. Normally, anytime someone’s like, If you could have dinner with one person dead or alive, who would it be?" I always say Jeff. But I would say probably Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games. Something people don’t know about me is that I’m super quirky. As I said, I love Harry Potter. I’ve literally played on a Muggle Quidditch team. I wrote a science fiction novella. I’ve been in marching band; I played the flute for 12 plus years. I’m nerdy. I’m quirky. And something I love is dystopian fiction. And so that’s what Hunger Games is. And I literally dressed as Katniss for three Halloweens in a row when I was in college! So that would be just a cherry on top of the dream. Next, check out our interview with Survivor 42 contestant Swati Goel.
