Exclusive Survivor: Cook Islands Interview: Ozzy

IGN.com - 12.18.06

Survivor: Cook Islands held its finale and reunion show on Sunday night. Ozzy lost out in the final vote 4-5 to Yul. Even though he dominated the show in challenges, the fact that he didn't play a strategic game is why he lost out to the man pegged the 'Godfather'. It would be interesting to see sometime a strategic person who can dominate in challenges. Why do they never come in pairs? Regardless, Ozzy was certainly one of the more capable contestants the show has ever seen.

We talked to Ozzy about coming in second, what he wishes he could do differently what' he's up to now. The second place finisher comes clean about romance in the game as well.


IGN TV: How did you come to be on the show?

Ozzy: Well, actually, I was just living my normal, everyday life, not really thinking of Survivor or anything. My roommate at the time got all interested in it and made a video and everything and the process of him making a video and going through the process, they really wanted him, and I saw how fun it could be and so I was like, yeah, I'm really into this stuff too. I wanted to make a video as well and wanted to see if it was okay with him. It turns out he couldn't do it or had some prior arrangement that came through that made him not be able to do it. So my video was actually selected and it kind of just fell in my lap.

IGN TV: When you got there, was it what you expected?

Ozzy: The beginning was really, really hard. Setting up the foundation was the hardest part about the game and the first couple days were just hell. It was just so hard. It's amazing how the human body and mind and psyche and soul can adapt to adversity. Within a week, I think on day 9 or so, it started becoming a routine and started feeling good. I'd gotten to know the reef and gone fishing a lot and really starting to love and enjoy it. But from the very beginning, I loved it. It was just so incredibly intense and insane and the experience really, truly changed my life in a dramatic way.

IGN TV: Had you seen the show before?

Ozzy: Oh yeah. I watched the first one when I was about 18 when it first came out. Of course, their requirements to do the show are you have to be 21. I was a little jealous of everyone who was able to do it and I thought I can do all this and I can do it better. I was 18 at the time and it was almost too much to deal with it, to watch it and not be able to do it. At that stage in my life I kind of shied away from television. I didn't watch much TV at all. Just go surfing and skateboarding and hang out in nature with my dog and read and go to school and stuff.

IGN TV: What was your initial reaction when you found out about the division along racial lines?

Ozzy: My initial reaction was I just thought it was going to make it a lot harder. Having the tribe just be five Latinos in the very beginning would be difficult just because we would have so much stress and strain put on us to just get along and to be a tight tribe just because we were all Latino and not because of the way our personalities meshed. Some of them didn't really mesh at all and I kind of got a little bit of flak from people for throwing a challenge and voting out Billy. But he's a die-hard player. He knew every single thing there was to know about Survivor. He'd been watching since the very first season and that means that he was a dangerous player. And when I found out that he was playing both sides against each other, that really showed me that he was going to be a huge threat later on. So I took upon myself to convince the tribe that it was the smart thing to do to get rid of him before a merge happened and before he's let loose to destroy our reputations or work against us later on in the game. He didn't really fit too well within our original alliance. I got rid of him because I feared that he was going to be a sneaky player. And I knew that he was going to be a sneaky player. He was going to try by any means necessary to get himself farther along in the game and that would mean going against and joining up another alliance. It was just a risk that I didn't think that we should take. I felt like if we stayed together, the four of us, and we really worked hard, that we could make it together to the end. Then Cristina turned on J.P. and they both got voted out and Cao Boi decided not to vote with our original alliance on Aitutaki and Cecilia got voted out.

IGN TV: Were you worried about being stereotyped?

Ozzy: Not really, personally, because I didn't feel like I fit into the stereotype of what is a Latino or what is Mexican. I felt like I'm not really stereotypically Mexican at all. One of the things I was hoping to accomplish was to show that there is an amazing amount of diversity. It's the year 2006 and it's not 1950 anymore. People need to realize that it's not about the way you look or anything like that.

IGN TV: How do you think the show represented you and your personality?

Ozzy: I think it represented me fairly one-sided. I think they did a good job showing me dominating challenges and fishing and stuff. But I don't think it gave me enough credit in the social aspect of the game. And of course I ended up losing to Yul based on the social aspect of the game, so maybe that's the reason why, but at the same time I do feel like I had a large number of fairly intelligent conversations with people where we connected and got along and everything, that was not shown. For me, I felt like I was kind of portrayed as being more of a one-sided player.

IGN TV: Is there anything you wish you could have done differently?

Ozzy: Very small, small things in the way that I tried to place emphasis on the value of the way that I played the game versus the way that Yul played it. To try and reach Adam, Sundra or Candice before jury time came. Again, I think I just was spending too much time fishing and not enough time politicking to be able to do that. It's very draining, going out there fishing, and you come back and it's hard to then jump into an intense politic session. Once it came down to individual immunities, I probably didn't have to provide as much as I did and I probably shouldn't have. I probably should have stopped fishing, because at that point, I only lost one immunity challenge and it was still within our tribes' best interest to get rid of Candice at that time. Because if any of the Raro members had made it that far in the jury to the very end, they would have had a much better chance of beating Yul or I because the jury was made up almost entirely of Raro members

IGN TV: You mentioned on the reunion show how you learned to swim and spearfish. What about climbing trees like you did?

Ozzy: Just being a kid and running around. I don't know. I grew up in North Carolina and spent the large, formative years of my childhood running around in nature and in the wilderness. My parents just kind of let me climb and do my thing and I've just always been very agile and incredibly interested in all that kind of stuff. I had mentioned on the finale that one of the first books that I really remember having a profound affect on me was Robinson Crusoe and that kind of set the tone for the things that I'm interested in life and I really feel connected to nature in a way that is perhaps odd for Americans. I'd like to see that change. I'd like to see more people be able to connect with nature and not feel so disconnected and part of this crazy 21st century digital world kind of thing.

IGN TV: Were you surprised when Candice and Jonathan mutinied?

Ozzy: No, not really. I mean, in the beginning, I was. But it actually worked out for my benefit. I basically knew that, given the opportunity, Candice and Jonathan would try and switch back to the old Raro alliance because they had those numbers and I also kind of knew that Candice had a little thing for Adam. Didn't know the extent of it, but once she stepped off, I knew that was the reason why she did.

IGN TV: Did you realize how precarious your position within Aitu was before the mutiny and that you were up on the chopping block just about every time?

Ozzy: Oh yeah, I definitely knew. I definitely knew my position was incredibly precarious. At the same time, I did have a small buffer with Cao Boi and Flica and they were able to deflect the votes long enough and take the strain off of my position. They ended up going home instead of me because of that. And also the fact, that, as much as people talked about wanting to vote me off and me being a huge threat, they did need me for the challenges and they did need me for the food. There was a lot of talk but I think, all in all, it was just a lot of talk and they wouldn't have actually have voted me out before Cao Boi and Flica. After Cao Boi and Flica were gone, there was a possibility that I'd be going next.

IGN TV: You were the underdog nearly the entire show, first within the Aitu tribe and then Aitu itself became the underdog. What was that like for you?

Ozzy: It was awesome. It was really wonderful. It was great. I just wish that I would have been able to win, so that it would make that victory all the more sweeter. It was the other reason why I was hoping that people would sway their opinions and vote for me, because of the fact that I fought so hard and for so long for the entire duration of the game. I never had anything like the immunity idol to use as insurance. I had to win or go home. It's good, though. Being an underdog, I think, is more of an exciting position than being the favorite for the whole game.

IGN TV: The 'mastermind' usually beats the 'dominator', so when Yul came out ahead, it carried on that tradition. Were you surprised by how the vote came out in favor of Yul, just barely?

Ozzy: I was hoping I was going to win. But no, I wasn't surprised. I kind of felt like maybe there was a little bit of jealousy or animosity in the end of the game. Maybe they were upset that I had beat them in a lot of different aspects. The thing was, I think I didn't do a good job of placing the emphasis in the value of what I gave to my tribe and what I actually sacrificed, and that was spending probably a little too much time fishing and not enough time politicking. I think people saw that I was good at catching fish and they thought it was just something that was really easy for me to do and probably took it for granted and didn't think that was as hard as it really was. Somehow, just playing the social aspect, Yul was able to convince that one more person. He had a little more time than I did to spend with people because I was spending so much time out trying to provide.

IGN TV: You were the mastermind behind Billy's elimination, but after that, you did sort of fade into the background strategically. Was that intentional or accidental?

Ozzy: No, that was intentional. I didn't want to, at that point, be scrutinized too closely. Because of the fact that I didn't have the immunity idol and if something was to go awry, then I would probably be blamed somehow for it. And once we merged, Cao Boi, Jonathan and Yul, they were very, very outspoken, so I just let them do their thing and I kind of found my own little niche within Aitu and that was to just provide and to kind of keep quiet

IGN TV: Ozzy and romance in the real world seem to go together. Why wasn't there any romance in the Cook Islands for you?

Ozzy: Well, it was a combination of a few things. One of them being that I went into the game with a girlfriend. I have a girlfriend so I didn't want to do anything to compromise that. And also, I think that it's harder for people to have a romantic relationship in the game and go far. [Candice and Adam] didn't go very far because of that fact. The same is true of Nate and Parvati. They were a couple and people are scared of that. The only reason why Becky and Yul were not outed earlier is because of the mutiny and because I felt a little bit of obligation to try and get us four into the top four. And, of course, there is moments when I probably should have thought about swinging to the other side and maybe joining up with Nate and Parvati and Adam and Candice.

IGN TV: Or taking Adam up on his idea of getting rid of the immunity idol?

Ozzy: Exactly. I could have at least gotten closer to getting rid of Yul and it would have made it a lot harder for him to get into the top three. And the other thing was that we had a top three twist, which was kind of weird. We weren't expecting that. So that changed it incredibly. If I had had the choice, because I would have won the last immunity challenge, I would have taken Becky or Sundra. In that case, I think I would have been able to win.

IGN TV: What are you up to now?

Ozzy: I've been in love with acting since I was a little kid and I figured this was my opportunity to really prove myself to the rest of the world. So, I've been studying with a wonderful teacher. He's been teaching for 30 years. I've been doing that since we got back in August. That's what I want to do. I want to be in entertainment, I want to act. I really think that I've found something that I could do for the rest of my life.

I have my Myspace at myspace.com/ozzylust

IGN : Any last words?

Ozzy: I did pretty good. I can't complain. I got so much out of the experience and really, more than anything, it was filled with positive growth and I have grown in a way that is totally amazing. That's worth more to me than any of the money. Now I just hope I can get an opportunity to prove my acting chops.