It’s not survival of the fittest

When the producers of Australian Survivor came knocking, Jonathan LaPaglia was as surprised as anyone.

“It caught me off guard as much as it caught everyone else,” LaPaglia says of being asked to present his home country’s version of the hit American reality series.

“Initially I was like, ‘Really, me? Why? That’s ridiculous’. But they insisted and I was intrigued by the idea.

“I’ve always admired the show and I thought, ‘Well, if they want to take a chance on me, then maybe I should throw my hat in the ring’, and here I am.”

The 48-year-old Australian is, in many ways, a survivor himself.

A former emergency room doctor, he gave up medicine in the mid-90s to become an actor and then went against trend by heading straight to Hollywood where big brother Anthony was already starring in the long-running television drama Without A Trace.

He worked steadily, with regular roles in series such as The District and New York Undercover, until 2011 when he decided to give Australia a chance. A starring role in the acclaimed mini-series The Slap got him noticed, a turn as villain Anthony ‘Rooster’ Perish in Underbelly: Badness followed and, most recently, Kiwis have seen him playing Love Child’s Dr Patrick McNaughton.

Now, in his third year as Australian Survivor host, LaPaglia is back fronting this year’s Champions Vs Contenders bout – and it appears it’s not unusual to find him trying out some of the challenges ahead of the contestants.

“I test out bits and pieces of them. It’s a bit like being a kid in a candy shop,” he says, laughing.

“I don’t think I would last very long just because you really have to be a political beast in this show.” – Jonathan LaPaglia

“You just can’t wait to try out some of these crazy builds that they come up with but I don’t like to get too involved because someone in the crew will snap a picture and then they will post it up on social media and people will be like, ‘He’s bloody **** at it. He can’t do that for **** ’.”

LaPaglia admits he has occasionally considered having a crack at the Survivor game himself but doesn’t rate his chances.

“I’d like to think I’d be OK at the physical side of it but I don’t think I would last very long just because you really have to be a political beast in this show,” he says.

“You really have to make sure you don’t step on people’s toes along the way because, at some point, the people you are voting out become jury members and the jury decides if they are going to vote for you or not to win in the end.

“The problem is I just can’t hold my tongue. If someone says something I disagree with or I think is stupid, I’m going to say something and then that’s it, I’m done.”

Australian Survivor has undergone a transformation this year, its fifth season.

Not only has the setting changed from Samoa to the Fijian island of Savusavu but – at first glance – it looks like the playing field is less than fair with 12 of the 24 contestants drawn from the ranks of Olympic gold medallists, veteran Survivor contestants and others who are the elite in their various pursuits. Those contestants, The Champions, will compete against 12 normal contenders for $500,000.

LaPaglia says while it may look like the Champions have the advantage, looks can be deceiving.

“A number of them are athletes so they have an advantage in the sense that they have spent a good portion of their lives training for a particular discipline and they really have that mindset to win,” he says.

“But it doesn’t mean they’re good at everything and there’s so much more to the game as well.

“Yes, they have advantages on some levels but I think the contenders were better versed in the strategic side of the game. I don’t think a lot of the champions had spent much time watching TV. It all evens out in the end.”

And LaPaglia admits he has given up trying to pick a winner.

“It’s almost anyone’s game. It’s a fool’s errand to try to work out at the start who is going to be the winner at the end,” he says.

“What we do is try to work out who is going to win a particular challenge and there are lots of bets that go on with the crew trying to work that out. I can tell you that I have lost a lot of Fijian money.”