Survivor: Cook Islands held its finale and reunion show on Sunday night. Sundra failed to make it to the final three when she failed to make a fire, even with matches. It was one of the more embarrassing moments of the season for both Becky and Sundra. Even so, she did make the final four and that deserves accolades.

We talked to Sundra about what she thought of the racially segregated tribes, her strategy for playing the game and everything else Survivor. She also talked about the hilarious fire challenge.

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

Sundra: I was approached in the airport at the gate getting ready to board my flight back to LA. I was approached by a friend of an Assistant Casting Director.

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

Sundra: Yes and no. You never, I don't think, especially if you've never done anything like that before, you never really know what to expect. You just can't wrap your brain around it. So you never really know exactly until you get it. It was very hard. I just think we as human beings, it's hard for us to wrap our brains around pain of any sort. Whether it's physical, whether it comes in the form of hunger, whether it's part of being dirty for so long, not having accessible water just at your beck and call, just being uncomfortable, being bitten by bugs and having cuts. I just don't think we wrap our brains around how it really feels.

IGN TV: Did you get left with a lot of scars then?

Sundra: I have skin that scars very easily unfortunately, so that was probably not the smartest move for me to go on Survivor. I have a pretty healthy scar on my knee from that barrel challenge on the day of the mutiny. I have some scars from infected bug bites. Actually, for the first time in my life, I have scars and I'm happy to show them off. I worked hard for all those. I was pretty much a soldier out there.

IGN TV: Did they provide you with any kind of anti-bacterial ointment?

Sundra: Oh god no. We were lucky to just have the doctor look us over and tell us 'ok, you look healthy.' We always joked that we basically would have to have our head in our hands walking around before the doctor would consider giving us anything, any kind of aid. They didn't want to coddle you. If it got really bad, we got antibiotics. I developed a fever actually from that cut on my knee because it was so deep and so big. I developed a huge fever, swollen lymph node that extended from my knee up to the groin area, and that's when they gave me antibiotics.

IGN TV: Had you seen the show before?

Sundra: I had never seen the show. I knew that there was Survivor and I knew that you were on an island and I knew that you did these challenges and I knew that you get voted off. But anything more than that, I couldn't tell you. I had to do a little crash course. I watched All-Sars, I watched the current [season] where Aras won and I think I watched some of Borneo. That had me a little nervous because I was going to meet people like Candice, who had watched every episode, who could basically tell you every life history and every move they had made on the show and you had me who was like 'ok, huh, what happened?'

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

Sundra: I felt pretty much like Becky and Yul. I felt, oh my God, what have I just become a part of. I was a little nervous, a lot nervous, because it's a very dynamic, sensationalist thing to do. So I get it from that perspective. And because it's such a pointed picture that they made by doing that, you tend to kind of watch a little bit of what you say. You want to make sure that you aren't falling into any stereotypes that you think that they may try to magnify. But I was really shocked when I saw how people were offended, maybe moreso because I lived it, so I knew what was going to happen. But I think, especially in this country, race is like the pink elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about. It is still so much a part of the fabric of this country, people don't want to talk about. Granted, we have made a lot of strides, but there's so much more to be made and I think, if anything, the division showed that they, just because we are alike, meaning ethnic wise, doesn't mean we are going to get along better, it doesn't mean that I can't hate your guts. And just because we are separate doesn't mean that we are not going to have common ground. Just because you're Asian and I'm black or white or Latino doesn't mean that we can't find common ground. I actually had a lot of fun going with people who weren't in my race. So I think it was healthy. I hope it got people to talk. Why does it bother you? Why does it bother you that they did this? What did you see? So I think it was a good thing. I was nervous at first but seeing everything play out, it could be something beneficial. And if it brought more ethnicity to a very vanilla show like Survivor, then all the better. I don't think there was any negatives.

IGN TV: Were you worried about being stereotyped?

Sundra: Well, yes, not so much on the island. But the editing is out of my hands. But what is in my control is how I conduct myself because you can't lose the fact that there are cameras following your every single move. So it's up to you as an individual to, well for one, present yourself as honestly as you can. You get a little protective sometimes and you want to make sure that your 'family' looks the best. I wasn't so much worried. The only stereotype I figured people would immediately have of a black woman is 'oh she has cornrows, she's probably going to act real ghetto and wild out on somebody if they mess with her ' And I don't think you saw me do that once throughout the season. If somebody ticked me off, I would use humor. I definitely didn't let anybody walk over [me]. I wasn't subservient. And if somebody ticked me off, I was like 'ok, you go ahead and talk all your trash. My goal is I'm going to stay in the game. And I'll let my vote do the talking.' And I would wait for my confessionals to release the steam. Your emotions are so on high that sometimes you just want to yell at somebody. But you have to realize, why are you there?

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

Sundra: That was an aspect of Sundra. There were many times back at camp where, if you even ask Becky and Yul, I'm sure they would agree, where I would make jokes and very animated and make my little smart comments and joke around and do impersonations and stuff like that, which they didn't really show much of. They didn't really show that because you had people who were such dominant personalities, like a Jonathan, or the whole Candice and Adam thing, or Yul with the power he had just having the hidden immunity idol and of course, Ozzy, the freak of nature. So that was ok. It takes all kinds to make up this world. They showed an aspect of me. I'm proud. There was nothing that I regretted about how I came across. At least I can say I took a hell of a fall on a Survivor. [Laughs]

IGN TV: What was your strategy?

Sundra: My strategy going in was to say this: I'm not dumb. I know I'm not Ms. Olympia. But I'm a smart woman. And I'm going to go in there and assess the situation and see what it is that I have to do. Because I don't think you can really do well otherwise. I don't think you can go in and just have this one-track mind way of playing, because you may have an idea of what you want to do, but if the situation and the circumstances and the people you are involved with aren't conducive to that, it's like running into a brick wall. You got to learn when to change up, where to go, how to do. I'm a hard worker. I don't shy away from work. So you know what, nobody's ever going to say that Sundra is lazy. Nobody's ever going to say that I don't try to do anything or that I try to shy away from work. If I need to get up, even if I'm tired, I'm going to do that. Because there are many aspects that make up life at camp. I may not fish like Ozzy; I tried, I know that's not me. But he can fish, and he can come in, lay down and I will take care of whatever other aspect needs to be done. Gutting, cleaning, preparing the fire, getting the wood, getting the coconut husks, preparing it. It's a team effort. Everybody needs to have a task, instead of everybody doing the same task. And I was proud of that, to be honest with you. I could have made several wrong decisions. I could have aligned with the wrong people that would not have gotten me where I was. I could have stepped off the mat with Candice and that would have been the beginning of the end for me.

IGN TV: Speaking of that, Candice did mention that she thought you were going to mutiny with her. Why didn't you?

Sundra: I didn't have what I felt was an alliance on the other tribe. We had spoken to Nate about me going over. About me and Candice joining up with Adam, Nate and Parvati. But truth be told, even from our days at Hiki, I never felt a bond or that I could fully, 100% trust Nate, even from Hiki. So I, of course, spoke to Candice about it and we talked about it because I also felt that for me, being the lone Hiki member when we merged into the two tribes, I didn't know a lot about the game, but I know enough to know that you see the different possibilities. It would be stupid to not look at it. What matters is how you act on it. We didn't know if there was going to be a merge. We didn't know there was going to be a mutiny that day. And I had said to Candice, which I don't know if she said this to you, we spoke about it but I know that Candice had told me a couple of tall tales to solidify that and I said, "You know Candice, I'm thinking about it, but I'm not going to do anything that is not going to sit right with me," meaning that I'm not going to do anything that I'm going to feel bad about in the morning. If it means that I trust somebody and they end up screwing me, well at least I went with my gut and it if bit me in the ass, I followed my own gut. And I always felt from day one that Becky and Yul were true and honest people and I felt that perhaps Candice had told me a couple of lies here and there in order to make it seem more favorable for me to switch over. And I also felt that there was really no need to mutiny right now because at some time, perhaps, we will merge. And you put a huge target on yourself to do that.

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

Sundra: I wasn't surprised. Prior to the challenge, Candice had said that she'd spoken to Jonathan early in the morning and that Jonathan was planning on perhaps mutinying. I don't know how much of that was truth or a lie.

IGN TV: Did you have an indication that the mutiny was coming then?

Sundra: Well, no. Because we knew, we're in the Cook Islands, the whole history of Captain Cook, Mutiny on the Bounty, that theme. Trust me, we have so many hours to just sit and think, so you think about all the possibilities that could happen. There might be a mutiny. There might be this. We come up with all these different scenarios. So you pretty much think this could happen. Then you count the days. You know how many days you've been there. You know how many days are left. You try to think about, ok, they have to do this and you count backwards. I mean, we have way too much time on our hands out there. You know there's a possibility that that may happen.

IGN TV: In the Aitu four alliance, did you ever consider that you were playing for fourth with them or did you think you'd somehow make it further?

Sundra: Truth be told, Ozzy was kind of on that outs when we were at Aitu. He was going to be out. So what happened is that, because of that, Becky, Yul and myself, because if you'd remembered, Aitu had been me, Becky, Yul, Candice and Jonathan, we were the tight five. Jonathan was the lesser on the pole and Ozzy was on the outs. The mutiny happens. We have no choice but to be together. But Becky, Yul and myself, we had been tight that whole time. We're talking 13 days of just us together, always talking, always together, planning the next move. Even though we were a team, it was probably tighter with the three of us. But we definitely, once we were the Aitu four, it was like there was the tightness of the four, and still the tightness of the three within the four.

IGN TV: What happened in the fire challenge? You'd made fire before, hadn't you?

Sundra: [Laughs] Yes! That was the thing that was blowing our mind. They didn't show us, they showed such an abbreviated version, but Becky and I were looking at each other throughout the whole thing. We're cracking up, like what kind of cruel joke is this that the gods are playing on us, because Becky and I had sat down together and made fire at our camp. We sat there together and made fire. So we just couldn't believe this. Yes, we were nervous. I do remember that day, there was wind behind us. I'm sorry, but it's not like I made fire every day. There was just a number of elements that just added to that piece of comedy that you ended up seeing. It's like, what are you going to do, you can't cry so you might as well have a good laugh at it because we know that we could do it, we had done it, but there's just certain things in mother nature you cannot control.

IGN TV: When you ran out of matches, you stopped trying. Did you still have your flint?

Sundra: Oh no. The reason they gave us matches was because we had chalked up our flint to pieces. And it wasn't like I just gave up. It wasn't like I just said, ok I'm out. I tried everything. The thing is that by the time I was sitting there, you know when certain feelings just come over you -- Ozzy talked about going back to your primal nature -- well I was able to hear God talk to me. And to hear my inner voices, not in the civil, schizophrenic type of way, that we lose and living in big cities that we lose. In a society where we don't have our palm pilots, we're dying. I sat there, and this happened to me several times. I had a hell of an experience. I felt like a lucky girl. I didn't win a million dollars, but I got so much that I'm like hey, I feel like one of the winners of any Survivor. But, I sat there, and the voice to me after I tried everything, it was like 'Sundra, it's OK.' I just remember it saying that. 'Sundra, it's OK. You worked. You busted your ass and if you can't get fire right now, it's fine. You tried everything.' I didn't give up until my flint was in pieces and I had no more matches. And waterproof matches, by the way, suck.
       
IGN TV: What was the hardest thing for you?

Sundra: The hunger. The hunger was huge.

IGN TV: What are you up to now?

Sundra: I am going back to my acting. I'm definitely hoping for bigger and better opportunities for my acting. Some things have come through and they are very exciting that have nothing to do with Survivor actually, because a lot of people didn't even know I was on the show. But I am just looking for more opportunities in that sense. I've been at this for a very long time, as far as acting goes, and I've put a lot of my heart and soul and money into it. I'm also wanting to publish the two children's books that I wrote prior to going to the Cook Islands. And I also have a goal; I'd love to do a fitness spread for a fitness magazine, because that's been a big part of my life since I've been back as well. I am putting together my website, I have the name, SundraOakley.com, but I just have to put it up and get it organized, so I want to make sure I do it right. I didn't want to put anything half-ass up.

IGN TV: Any last words?

Sundra: I would tell anybody don't be scared of Survivor and the opportunity. Don't be scared to tackle it. I wish that so many people could experience what I did, because I think it would change lives. I'm trying to encourage all of my friends to apply. I'm just very thankful to Mark Burnett and CBS for giving me the opportunity to do it, because I feel very blessed to have gotten it. I feel so fortunate.