You're reading it here first.
I can bring you the VERY FIRST independent exit interview with Survivor SA Santa Carolina celebitant Darren Maule who had no immunity idol left to play in episode five, that just concluded. And so, Darren Maule got voted out.
Let me tell you that Darren Maule is one super funny, clever, clever guy. I laughed such a lot when I spoke with him, and I hope you enjoy this funny exit interview as much as I did asking him the questions. I wanted to know who he thinks is the secret Darth Vader and who's Luke Skywalker. I had to ask him about his black swimming thingie, if he can really cook and who he didn't like. I think you will just love all his funny and honest answers.
For my full interview with Darren Maule, click on READ MORE below!
First off I have to ask you, you came across as this kind of outsider or external narrator - with this slightly kooky, slightly paranoid behaviour. Was that deliberate or how did that come to be?
I think I'm certifiable. It certainly wasn't a performance. I think its what I turn into anytime I'm outside of my house for too long . . . without room service. So I certainly wasn't prepared for the island fever. The combination of the heat and the malnourishment and the forced social environment was just too much for my fragile psyche. I definitely lost my marbles a little bit.
When I spoke to Lady Lea last week, she said you were unhygenic.
Aargh, that was . . . I think everyone was unhygenic but I think she particularly didn't like it because I was doing all the cooking. Something that doesn't come across with Lady Lea is that she was very, very bossy. She comes from an environment where she is a producer, she's a director, she is the DJ and she's used to barking orders. She would tell me to go and wash before I do the cooking. So I went: ''Well, should everyone else go and wash before they eat? Where exactly is the fresh water and the soap where you want us to go and bath or shower or clean before we actually dine?''
It was one of her little pet peeves but there was nothing I could really do about it except maybe let someone else do the cooking and then they would be the target of her unhygenic fixation.
I actually do - when I'm not performing - cook at home. I do a lot of the cooking. And when I cook at home I'm very, very anal about clean utensils and clean work surfaces and not mixing the meats and the vegetables on the same surface. So it was quite a surprise that she would claim I was unhygenic. But even given that, we were all given – prior to the island – two weeks before we left, Hepatitis A and Hepatitis B and full-on tetanus shots, so I really think she was blowing things out of proportion.
I wanted to ask you about the cooking later, but I can just as well throw that in now. You played the role of the cook. Are you really a good cook, just moderately good behind the pots or useless and you just played it up on the island?
I don’t know if I am a good cook because I've never competed on any sort of level but I certainly enjoy cooking and I do a lot of experimental cooking. My family seems to be hapy with my cooking, so I would say I'm a pretty good cook.
Last week when you got the immunity idol – how did you feel in that moment at tribal council when you could go ''ta-da''!
You know, I wasn't convinced that I was going to use the immunity idol at that tribal council. It was only after Nico's questioning of the people that it made me start to become a bit insecure. What I had done is that it was my move to try and get an alliance to vote one of the trifecta out – the trifecta being Ashley, Louw and Izak.
They were to me, calling all the shots. The rest seemed quite apathetic about it. I was like, ''Do you really want them to call all your shots for you?'' So I tried to form an alliance with Proverb, Kas and Lea to vote out one of the others. Then, when I heard from Nico that they've actually made up their mind that they are going to make a vote tonight, I realized there's a whole bunch of stuff here that I don't know about - I better play it to be safe. And thank goodness I did, because I think they would have all voted for me.
And then getting to episode five that people saw tonight, did you think that you were on the chopping block?
Absolutely, yes. I was definitely on the chopping block. I also think that once I played my hand – if I'd been quiet more and sat in the background and waited for things to happen, perhaps I would have lasted a bit longer. But it's not my nature. I wanted to grab the bull by the horns and just break up that other alliance. By the time I made that move, then everyone knew that I was a player, so there was nothing I could do to convince them. I tried. I tried to get them to keep me a little bit longer but there was nothing I could do to convince them.
That was actually my next question. Do you think you made your tribemates nervous?
How so?
Because I think - when we look back right from the second episode - you went around to everyone to ask them if they're in alliances, and if they know of alliances. So it's not something in particular, but your general behaviour from the beginning - by stirring up things that they wouldn't have been thinking about.
Yes. I think once they saw me make an attempt at an alliance they – at that stage, unbeknownst to me, there was already an alliance. I wasn't sure that there was one. I thought that in order to further in this game you need to have an alliance. Because once you get to the merge, you need to know exactly who's on your side and who you can count on. Nobody was forthcoming to me about an alliance and I was just getting more and more anxious to make any form of an alliance. Unbeknownst to me, there was already a very strong alliance.
Originally when we landed on our island before the dune trekkers arrived, I had quite a nice relationship with Sade, Hanna and Gys. Then, when Craig and Kas made the calls for who should be in what tribes, those three were now all of a sudden in Chibudu and I was left in a tribe where I didn't like anyone in the tribe. I couldn't make a bond with them. I found out very quickly I had difficulty hiding my contempt for people I don't like. Other people can fake it and I thought I could fake it, you know. I'm an actor and a comedian, but I wasn't able to hide my contempt for the rest, which is a big lesson for me. I learned a lot about myself in this game.
Then Darren I wanted to ask you, you had almost the best funny oneliners directly to camera we've seen so far. Was that deliberate or did it just happen?
It was deliberate. Deliberate in two ways. Firstly the only reason I joined Survivor SA was because I realized it would give me access to a different audience. Everything that I've done before Survivor SA was SABC and a little bit of e.tv. But this was a new audience for me and I wanted to represent myself in a funny and a very unique way. Yes, I was very aware of the camera. To the extent that by the second week - when I was really, really exhausted and really, relly malnourished - I was trying to reserve just enough energy in case the camera was around and I had to deliver something.
Secondly when I realized there is an alliance here; I'm not a part of this team; I am being isolated, the camera was pretty much the only other thing that I could relate to. I mean, I've been in front of a camera for 15 years, sortof like another personality, so the camera was a nice little refuge to return to when I was feeling very lonely and isolated.
Who did you like the best of the contestants?
Uhm, I really liked Louw. I don't know if that came across. I liked Hanna just because she was so bubbly. I liked Sade because I've worked with Sade before and she's also . . . she's also a big surprise because she's got much bigger balls than what people can make out, you know. People see her and think: small children's TV actress. But she's really a ballsy, brave, strong woman. But then once they were gone and at Chibudu I didn't have access to them so I was alone in my tribe. I really liked Louw. He's a really funny and genuine. I think his sense of what's right and what's wrong might trip him up when they have to start backstabbing and lying.
And then, who did you like the least?
A toss up between Sandi and Kas. Sandi because we arrived at the island and every attempt that I made to start an alliance or any kind of a trust relationship was just . . . she wasn't interested in that. She was just constantly interested in making bowls out of reeds on the island or just doing a lot of stupid things. I think our personalities just clashed. It's not so much that I don't like her. I like to fly from hotel to hotel, and order room service where she can actually go and do the Burning Man Festival in Arizona and hang around with hippies and all that kind of stuff. That's not me – that's her.
And Kas because he knew completely – and I didn't know, I'm only seeing it know – that there was an alliance between Louw, Izak and Ashley.
And yet, after I approached him, he completely believed that he was in some kind of unspoken alliance with Ashley. And he's NOT going to make it. I'm telling you. I'll put money on it that he won't make it to the top three and he definitely won't win the million bucks.
I can't actually wait to meet him at the finale in April so that I can say to him ''So, how do you feel about your alliance choice? Are you still happy with the choice you made, above the one I offered you?'' So I definitely have a bit of bitterness towards his sheepishness and blind following of something that was definitely going to lead him to no success.
Darren, kind of a strange question. Who do you think is Dark Vader – meaning, who is using the force for evil, and who do you think is Luke Skywalker, meaning the force is strong with that one and will still take him or her far?
That is a really weird question. Sort of the Sith lord that no-one knows? Sjoe. Tricky one. I think Ashley. Ashley is your Sith lord: claims to be your ambassador for good but in actual fact, is using the force for evil means. And then the Luke Skywalker – I suppose that would be a character who will eventually kill Darth Vader and come out victorious – I'm hoping that will be either Hanna or Sade. I think Sade's days are numbered at Chibudu as well because she doesn't have the bond with the Afrikaans troop. They have a bunch of sortof shared things and I think from what I saw, Sade is on the way out. I would make Hanna the Luke Skywalker, but she can't be Luke Skywalker. I will make her Leia.
Too funny! You're too funny! Darren, then I have to ask about the little black swimsuit thingie. Isn't that embarassing? Why did you chose that as your cozzie and not boardshorts or something else?
Uhm, we were given a very, very limited list of things that we could take. I took my long pants instead of boardshorts and the cozzie was actually my underwear. We were allowed a item of underpants and I thought to myself: ''You're going to be on a desert island, you might as well use a speedo as your underpants.'' I had no intention of wearing a speedo. I didn't want to get chafing and get rashes, I didn't want to get infections in that area, so a speedo would be your best underwear for a desert island.
Then we got to the island. And you're constantly bombarded with the heat and the salt. You could never get rid of the salt water. It was always pervasive. No matter how much you washed in the salt water, the moisture would come off and you would be caked in salt. And then there was the sand. Everywhere. Eventually I was getting chafing from my pants and also once you're on the island for a while, all your sensibilities go out the window. When you're hungry and you're tired, you eventually start to – you don't give a sh*t anymore. I literally – I held out for as long as I could without wearing it - and then I thought, ''Ag, bugger. I don't care anymore. I'd rather be comfortable than satisfy the viewers.''
Any permanent damage physically or mentally from the experience?
Mmm. Mentally we'll have to wait and see. It's a bit early to tell. I'm sure my therapist will let me know in due course.
Physically. . . no. There's a plus side, because I've come off as a non-smoker. One of the reason why I actually decided to do this was that it was actually the first time that I could actually be forced into a situation where I had no access to sigarettes or people who had sigarettes. I've been smoking between 20 and 40 sigarettes daily for 23 years. I've tried to quit before, and I've tried patches, and I've tried chewing gum, and I've even tried hypnotherapy to stop smoking. Now I've gone to the island, came off; couple of cravings and now I am a successful ex smoker. I have no cravings, I have no desire and that alone is worth more than the million bucks – that I can come off a non-smoker.
That's cool. The last question. What did you enjoy the most about the whole thing?
There was not a single thing that I actually enjoyed.
Oh, this is too funny!
I would have to think long and hard to actually extract any kind of pleasure from the experience. I had a huge realization that I'm a couch survivor. I'm a huge Survivor fan and I have the utmost respect for anyone who does Survivor, I'll never ever point a finger again and say, ''You're a *****.'' I'll never ever do that again.
I suppose there were moments of elation when you won a challenge. But it was very, very short lived because then you have to trek back to your base. And also if it was an immunity challenge you would win, but you wouldn't get any food. So you've expended all that energy and now you've got to go back to your base at night, go to bed hungry, wake up early and hope you catch something for food.
When you did catch food – when Louw did catch fish – when you finally got food after a day and a half or two days, or when you cook crab and boil it and open up its claw and you'd get a mouthful of actual cooked flesh in your stomach – THAT was what I suppose were the most enjoyable moments. But it was all very, very fleeting.
Survivor SA Santa Carolina, Wednesdays, M-Net, 19:30
