Blood, sweat and deception
AUSTRALIAN SURVIVOR HOST JONATHAN LAPAGLIA REVEALS FAMILY TIES ADD COMPLEXITY TO THIS SEASON’S CHALLENGES
Shooting two seasons of the cult reality-TV show in the searing heat of the Australian Outback took its toll on Australian Survivor host Jonathan LaPaglia.
“I came home in the foetal position,” he shares as he chats down the line from his LA home. “And then I just slowly licked my wounds to get back to normal. It always takes me a good month to feel human again – this time it might have been even longer.
“I think I came in with a deficit to Blood V Water – we’d shot (Brains V Brawn) from April to June and then I was pretty much straight back to do the next one.”
Production moved to Charters Towers in northern Queensland for the ninth season of the Australian version of the global juggernaut, and the temperatures were even more extreme. Covid delays compressed the already-tight filming schedule so demands on the crew and LaPaglia were increased further. Adding another layer of complexity were the hours of travel each day to the locations for the challenges and tribal council.
LaPaglia, 52, laughs at the suggestion he must truly love hosting the reality show to put himself through that time and time again. “It’s weird, and look certainly before I signed on I was like ‘that doesn’t look that hard’ but it is so much harder to make than it actually looks,” he explains.
“It’s hard for everyone – obviously the players, but it’s really punishing on the entire crew. But you know what? It’s just so rewarding to see it all come together.”
Australian Survivor has been an individual game with 24 strangers coming together to outwit, outplay and outlast each other, but this season it’s about to change.
Castaways will be playing with a member of their family – siblings, couples, in-laws, parents and children will all go head-to-head in the highly anticipated new season of Australian Survivor: Blood V Water. LaPaglia hints it adds a fabulous layer of complexity.
“Normally it’s a bunch of strangers and now they’re starting with a loved one – a mother, brother, sister, daughter – and that makes a complicated game even more complicated,” he says. “I mean, while you are starting with someone you can completely trust – a huge advantage in a game of deception – this is a person who knows and understands your weaknesses and shortcomings and can use them against you. And in a game where there is only one winner, there is going to come a point when your loved one is going to try and vote you out.
“Also your loved one could end up being a target for whatever reason and then you are also guilty by association.
“The other side of your loved one being voted out is invariably you want retribution and you’ll go after the person who voted them out. All very biblical – eye-foran-eye kind of stuff.”
Some of the Castaways battling it out for the title of Sole Survivor include Season 2 contenders Mark Wales and Sam Gash – who hooked up on that series, subsequently fell in love and have since married and have a son, Harry.
“(Hooking up) always ends up being a curse on Survivor,” LaPaglia laughs. “And they were eliminated because of it. It’s great to have them back. But while they have this advantage of knowing the game, it’s also a disadvantage because they are seen as a threat from the get-go.”
A massive threat is Sandra Diaz – or Queen of Survivor as she’s dubbed. The only twotime winner of US Survivor is bringing her daughter Nina Twine, who is set on dethroning her legend mother. LaPaglia says its a huge coup to have her in Australia.
NRL legend Michael Crocker and his sister in-law Chrissy Zaremba are another fascinating pair. Zaremba had never watched an episode and thought it was going to be more of a vacation.
LaPaglia laughs when I tell him a Google search reveals a site with US fans comparing him to his US counterpart, Jeff Probst who’s helmed his show for 41 seasons. One article says ‘don’t worry it’s not Jeff … he does a pretty good job’.
“Is that right?,” LaPaglia says, still laughing. “Don’t hate on him … it’s reluctant praise isn’t it. I’ve heard anecdotally that after changes were made in Season 41, there were a bunch of fans who didn’t like it and they started watching our one. So, at least I’m not bad …”
His Survivor commitments make it hard for the actor who’s had roles in US shows The District, NCIS, The Sopranos and starred in Love Child and Underbelly locally – to pursue work in his first passion.
“Yeah, I totally miss it,” LaPaglia shares. “But Covid has really curbed things from an acting point of view here so I was very grateful to have Survivor … and I’m hoping to get back into acting gigs and looking forward to what 2022 will bring.”