Josh Millgate Interview: Australian Survivor

0:00 Welcome back to the nullified take but we've got the tnt takes for you on australian survivor blood versus water i'm joined here today by someone who i've rated extremely high here on this podcast josh from australian survivor who came fourth in this season josh how are you i'm good thanks mate thanks for having me on yeah really excited and thank you so much for your time and sitting down with us this morning to talk a bit about your experience there on the show firstly you know how's things been since the show what was the fan reception like after playing the game for you personally since the show it's been a wild ride man we've had you know just a lot going on in life for me like as soon as i got out of the show i was back flying internationally so just getting you know that all fired up in the brain again and you know after such an experience like survivor you just you come out you scattered it's it was definitely a weird vibe and then my partner sage obviously found out she was pregnant out there so i missed the first 12 weeks of the whole pregnancy so it's been just a lot on and it was actually quite nice for the show to sort of wrap up because now i can focus on you know becoming a dad and sages literally it could be four to six weeks away so it's all happening right yeah it's it was you know i'm not like i don't get emotionally easy when i watch tv shows at all it's just not my thing you know but

1:21 Australian survivor always finds a way to bring in these moments where you just really feel like you know the characters and you do feel like some sort of way when something happens to them on the show and your moment of finding out that you were going to be a dad out on the show i think was one of the most pure genuine moments that we had this season and probably any survivor season what was it like you know finding out this type of information when you're in playing a cutthroat game such as my it was like you saw the reaction it was just surreal it wasn't you know we were trying to have kids for the last three years and then you know going into the show i was expecting stage to have to go through operation instead of you know being actually pregnant and it was just the furthest thing from my mind and then to get that letter i was just hoping for a photo mate like you're out of there you know you're so detached from the world and you just want some contact with home and like i was just happy to have a photo of sage and my dog and to get that news mate like it is it was mind-blowing and we're so lucky to have that footage forever now so yeah it's just that's so awesome one day you can sit down is it going to be a boy or a girl yeah we're having a boy oh really exciting so you could sit down with your boy one day and show the footage of when you found out you were gonna be a dad which i think is so special you know

2:41 You mentioned that you're back flying now and obviously we've had a very interesting couple of years i guess as you know a society and flights being limited and all those kind of things are you commercially flying or are you more like a private pilot yeah no i apply for an airline so and i do international flying so i was really affected by covert i essentially was out of out of work for two years you know in my chosen career it was a nice break for the first sort of six months to a year i got into personal training which is you know i've always been passionate about health and fitness and my brother you know his part owner in a gym down in melbourne here so you know to be able to slot in with him and change careers you know for a year is a nice little sort of mid-career break but then that second year it started to like i really started to miss you know the career that i've been building for so long and you know i'm passionate about flying and so yeah that second year started to get a little bit tough and i was meant to go back to work and then we had a big delta wave hit in melbourne and australia and mate all my flights got cancelled and then that was when i got the call to go on survivor so sort of like it was like it all opened up perfectly and you know everything happens for a reason i suppose but no it's good to be back working and flying again by hitting some international destinations i go to hawaii on sunday and just got back from

4:01 Phuket the other day so yeah it's good to be back oh that's awesome and you know i'm used to flying personally a lot as well i live in auckland but my company that i work for their head offices in perth so i used to fly auckland a perth all the time like every four weeks i would be on a plane you know and my life has changed so much as well like i'm so used to like it's actually been weird being stuck in one place if you're so used to traveling and yeah and suddenly you're like you know you're stuck in one place and it's i think people who don't travel a lot maybe weren't as affected as much as people that are used to being globetrotters yeah and like i enjoyed the routine it was nice to be able to you know you go to bed at the same time every night i was getting up early like you probably eat a little healthier but you feel good but then like yeah you realize like man it's it is cool to be able to jet set around and you know you land at a destination like in bali or something like that and then you know you start in melbourne in the morning you're in bali by the afternoon having a couple of bin tanks on the beach with your captain and yeah it's not a bad lifestyle that's for sure so quite interested you know as a pilot someone that's traveled a lot you obviously would get used to different cultures and different ways of life and things like that how did that sort of translate into the game of survivor for you were there certain skills that you picked up throughout your

5:21 Career that you could use while you were out there yeah definitely i and it was one of those things that i didn't really notice what skills were transferable from being a pilot to sort of everyday life until covert hit and then i realized when i was doing my personal training i was you know i was quite organized and had this sort of you know like systems processes that i would set up and then going into survivor i on my mind couldn't switch off you know i had we'd have the plan but then i would always be thinking like okay what are the next sort of votes going to look like how will this person be affected by this vote will they still be willing to work with me and so the whole time we would have down time where we're you know sort of going between sets and all that sort of stuff and waiting for the crew to be ready to set up and we're meant to be sort of trying to catch a nap or something like that i couldn't sleep man my mind was just constantly running and yeah and you know it helped me a lot throughout the game like you know to push as far as i did but sometimes it was quite tiring you know like i was just like just shut it off and like i just want to have a rest but i couldn't man yeah sort of tracking back i guess to the start because we've sort of jumped right into the middle of it how did you sort of find out about survivor was this something where you were approached first or was jordan your cousin approached first and were you a fan of the show yeah i'm sorry

6:41 I was a fan of the show i mean my partner my partner sage has actually applied a few seasons ago and she got quite far i think but it wasn't to be and then so we'd watched every season of the australian one i haven't watched too much of the american one and then what happened was as i said like i was ready to go back to flying sort of domestically and then the delta wave hit australia and this is a random story and you know again it just all lined up for me one of my mates another pilot worked for a different company he messaged me one night when you know we'd all been we're in like lockdown 10 in melbourne again and so i'm just you start to get a bit down and you're like what the hell is going on i go to bed one night it's like a thursday night and i had this long as text from him and he's like mate this is not a stitch up he's like i know you know someone i don't know if he knew one of the producers but he worked on survivor america in vanuatu when he was like an 18 year old like just helping her out around sets and stuff like that so somehow he had a connection to someone on the show and they got made that last minute looking for you know a couple of blokes to sort of fit your profile and i've got not only jordan but i've got jordan's younger brother my cousin luke and i've got two younger brothers myself and so he goes mate i know that you can pick one of the boys to you know jump on he's like can i put your name forward to this chick and i'm going oh do i really want to do this you know and i

8:01 Went and told sage and i said babe i just got a message from my mate you know and he said do you want to go on survivor and then she's like you got to do it you got to do it and i'm going ah all right because i know what it opens up you know like in terms of you're opening your whole life up to randoms and you know you're putting yourself out there and if you know the edit and all that sort of so yeah at all and obviously in the end i said all right do it and so this was like this is a thursday night i didn't hear anything friday and i was like oh maybe they're not keen sort of thing and then saturday i was walking the dog and like hey josh you know so-and-so from survivor can you jump on a zoom today sure enough like satellite we had a zoom sunday we had a zoom with me and jordan then on monday they're like boys you're on you've got like a week to prep and it was just go and yeah we're into quarantine and then out into the bush mate that's such a crazy story and what was what was what was jordan's like you know first reaction how did you celebrate yeah well he well he was keen as we're not messaging him he's like he's just a stitch up as well he's like you're kidding me he did he was so keen and like i said in our intro videos you know he's just yeah he super excited he just wants to try and get shredded as soon as possible for it and you know yeah jordan the class clown man but i think i needed jordan he his edit didn't really show what he's really

9:22 Like you know he got a nice guy at it at the start especially like and he is a very gentle you know gentle giant but he's hilarious too you know and he's a real loud character and you know i've got younger brothers who are very much like me but like i thought the perfect person to sort of bring on would be jordan because we'd sort of bounce off each other and he makes me a bit more you know with this laugh when we're together whereas like when i was in blue tribe even nina said she's like oh i like red tribe josh so much better because like i'm always happier and laughing more yes so i was gonna i was gonna ask you obviously you guys both find out okay we're gonna be on the show like did you have like a strategy in mind like talking to each other hey this is how we want to approach the game and how did that change when you were actually out there because obviously it's one thing in your mind thinking oh this is how i'm going to play and then the situations around you is dictated by the people you play with we're really actually like pretty laid back like we like to take things as they come and you know there are certain things you can plan for and i would you know watch when we're in quarantine i rewatched all the major you know seasons that i thought would sort of be relative to what we're doing i liked watching you know dave grenade luke toki you know this aussie survivor legends and stuff like that so i would watch their game and how they adapted and i just i literally took

10:42 You know maybe a half a page of notes of just some general rules that i would like to you know apply and then just let this the scenario play out in front because you can come in with all these strategies and all these plans and then if you don't get the right crew then you can't you can't work with it one thing we did knows that i would be probably more strategic thinker than jordan and then and jordan will be you know he would help me with the social reads and jordan will break people's barriers down a little bit more and yeah because i mean one of the things that definitely stood out for me was that you had a very solid social game in the sense that i found that people came to you all the time to make moves they didn't make a move unless josh was on board and how do you think you sort of i'm glad you noticed it and real fans did notice that but again the edit was like it was it was frustrating for me because you know i had great social relationships from day one me and chrissy literally made a pact on like day one there was like whenever you know we're not going for each other this is it like we'll look out for each other the whole time and then like nina i was tired with nina from like day four i was talking with mark from the start and shay and you know and like i had that all the way through and i was completely comfortable all the way through the whole game because i didn't even have to talk strategy a

12:02 Lot you know it was literally like i just did what i thought i'll do talk to them about life you know because there's a lot of time here just sitting by the campfire hanging out and you've got to switch off and so i'll just get to know nina and shay and we'd just talk and be normal and then when it came time to play the game and i was like well i trust this person you know i can work with them and that was sort of my strategy was just again be relaxed don't try and hustle too hard because i can't you can sense it straight away and but yeah the edit didn't show it too much but i was i literally had great relationships from the start there was snippets offered where you could pick it up through other people communicating with you on the show and also talking to the camera like nina for instance you brought it up she mentioned early on that you were running the show and she wanted to be your co-pilot and run the game with you so how got it were you when nina got evacuated out of the game the way that she did and how much did she form a part of your thinking long term in the game how are you gonna navigate her yeah so nina was she is super clever and i just picked that early like her reads on people were very interesting like she would just look at small mannerisms and she's like oh she did this when that happened or he did that and i was like well she's very smart obviously and she's a student of the game as well and but we also

13:22 Clicked so that was like it was just it just sort of happened our connection and then it was like just a benefit that she was very strategic thinking as well and then factoring that in when she got injured it changed a lot because i think we were just starting to have a bit more serious strategic chats as well like i may have made a move on mark early if i knew i had another you know another ally in nina because she would have brought shane as well it would have also depended on how nina and chrissy wanted to work together if either one saw that each other as a threat so me and nina and chris have all spoken about this like it's an interesting one to see how that would have played out but yeah it was it changed my game that's for sure it probably set me down at that the you know the path with mark completely i was probably leaning towards that path anyway because i needed a shield and if i went for mark then and mark we got him then the next target would have been me anyway me and mark played a game where we were both sort of shielding each other funnily enough but it worked you know got two bigger guys to the end of the game and yeah so nina would have thrown a spanner in that for sure and i'm not saying that i wouldn't have worked with her but yeah i just don't know yeah i find it hard to believe she would have wanted two physical alpha guys that deep into the game and it's like whispered to me

14:42 One night she goes look she goes hey who do you want to go for next this is like red tribe and this is literally the night before she done her ankle she's like do you want to get mel next or mark and you know like all right we'll get mel first and then we'll chat about mark some of the interviews i did i said all right i've got to keep nina on side i was going to i was going to maybe blindside shay and then sort of offer up mark as the next target if that was all going to happen but then amy sort of put her hand up and volunteered herself by going for me and jordan but yeah there was a lot of intricacies going on around that point of the game and i would have had to navigate it you know it was tricky even with nina they didn't show it either like the main concern was going to sandra me jordy and mark all made that call but i was super tight with nina and so was jordy our concern was like yeah we can get sandra but nina had always told me she goes hey you know just tell me if you're going for my mom i get it i want to play my own game but just let me know and then i was so torn i'm like and martial don't tell her don't tell her but i'm like well but if i if i don't tell it's going to ruin my relationship with her or potentially and then create a powerful enemy when's the best time to do it and essentially we sort of come to the conclusion like we want to do it just but not give her much time to be able to scramble and then before we sort of had to go to tribal i was looking for nina but she was i couldn't get

16:02 Get to her to tell her in time and then sandra was just smart enough that to be able to pick it up pick it up and she knew in trouble and she got the sense and then she just started teeing off and but yeah it was nina was awesome and we had a great dynamic and it would have just completely changed the game i think if she was still around so sort of talking about sandra and mark you know that comes up quite a lot so far what was it like having some of these returning players come into the game now obviously sandra you weren't a big fan of the us you may or may not have known who she was but obviously jonathan really hyped her up from the start the queen of survivor two time winners so you know she's capable how are you feeling about i guess having these returning players early in the game and specifically you know why was andy i guess in your tribe more of a target than mark from the start yeah i actually didn't know who sandra was funnily enough because i watched while we were in quarantine before we went into the game i watched season i think it's 40 that she was on winners at war yeah and i saw her and i'd seen that she'd won a couple and so when she did fly in i'm like oh i think that's sandra and jordan's going who's that and oh my gosh he's won twice but i knew andy straight away i had a lava and i didn't realize how big andy was man she's he's tall that's like that i knew i mean

17:22 I thought you know andy had a bit of a hard run in champions contenders like he actually was a challenge beast and so yeah working that day the andy boat's actually quite funny as well because that first vote i'm like you know i'm just hanging on you roll in it's like you're in survivor you're like and they don't tell you much either it's like here's your camp off you go and they don't say all right guys you're gonna go into camp and do this that it's like figure it out and then so andy sort of took this leading role and he's quite a funny guy like you know me mark and andy actually stayed up all night that first night was chatting doing movie quotes and stuff and then the next night we lose the challenge and then we're going around camp and this is where mark was good he said like when it's tribal like scramble time you don't go off and get wood and you know you hang around the central spot and so me being a rookie i you know we're all sitting in the water like alex had done his back too and i was making alex what the hell am i gonna do here like it makes sense like his back's gone what are we gonna do with this i sort of resigned to the fact like i might be going for alex here and then it was but i'm like okay and then i go off and go and get wood or water or something and then i come back and mark's like hey mate the votes change and i go who is it and he's like it's andy and i'm like

18:42 What i'm like ethereal that's massive bro like who's in on this and that and then right when that was all happening they sort of put us into a lockdown where you're not allowed to talk anymore and so then all of a sudden i didn't have time to confirm this huge move on andy and i'm just a lot of left on the ending what is going on and then at tribal they're asking me all these questions that sort of didn't get shown and in the end i'm just like do i want to try and make an enemy out of andy and like if i don't know that everyone's actually on board with this or do i just take the safe option and go alex and you know just in case i'll be able to front up to alex and say yeah mate it was me you know did that vote and sure enough i was the only one that voted alex that was one of the only votes i didn't know what like had no control over everything else after that i knew where the numbers were all of that but me and mark laughed about that vote to this day in terms of reason why like mark went for andy and nina went for andy i think andy took charge in their leadership role of like you know going hey you know do this for the shelter and he's quite a big character and i think people knew that andy was you know he's going to be a big player and he would have been happy to sort of do a bit of the backstabbing style and you know be a bit of a threat so everyone just said yeah let's go andy and put a big move from the start so yeah he would have if again there's

20:02 So many pivot points in the game if he stayed around who knows what the hell would happen like he would have gone for us big boys straight away i reckon as well so again i think it was a in hindsight one you know a really strong move to start the game yeah i think you took out the biggest player right from the start one with a massive reputation i really like andy i've had the pleasure of having him on my podcast before and we recapped a season off the previous australian survivor season together he's a he's a really nice guy and i was gutted as a as someone who knows them to see him going for him too man yeah like he's he was a really nice guy and any and he didn't even overstep in that leadership role either like we're all going around going oh all right what do we do and he just stepped up and he was telling us stuff about his season like it wasn't too overbearing but i think you know with nina i think he i think he may have made a little mistake like he was just talking about sandra a lot and he's like does he want to get to know me and just little things like that and once that ball got rolling everyone jumped on it and yeah unfortunately he's the biggest fan so i can see like him just wanting to get to know sandra because like prior to playing the game like he used to go over to the us to all these like you know conferences and like survivor get-togethers and stuff like that so he's a massive fan you know so yeah but i do feel for him moving forward to another vote that i found very

21:22 Interesting prior to the merge was the amy vote because obviously amy had relationships with jordan and they seem to try to have some sort of a working thing going on and she kind of i guess overstepped a little bit and that made you pivot towards her can you talk a bit a little bit about amy as a player and how you found her in the game and also maybe how that dynamic between yourself and jordan was with amy obviously knowing that jordan had some sort of allegiance to her coming into that i honestly we were ready and willing to work with amy that day and you know i saw her and khan as players though like i think amy found an idol early on khan found an idol as well they when we'd get together after you know we had a cheese platter reward where we did it at the red camp like khan and amy bang like they shot off then and like i could see they were ready to play and like big players so they were always high on my threat radar but jordan i thought had amy you know they were tight and like we wanted to prove that it wasn't all about blue coming in and just taking over the red tribe and i wanted to show dave and amy that hey we're willing to sort of take out some of our own and that day we got back to camp and i think

22:43 Yeah and i actually pitched to dave and jordan i said hey let's do a big blindside on shay today and shay was talking to amy right behind us and so we said hey and like the boy's like yeah that's a good move let's go for that and amy walks off i turn around and walk straight to shay and shay just goes to me straight up she's like hey amy's just said she's coming for you and jordan tonight and i'm like oh really and then i went and confirmed that and then my target completely changed from shay to amy and so that like changed shay's game like her honestly in our relationship there like so that was all that happened there and it was just funny like amy again i respected she was going she was trying to play but i there were we were actually wanting to work with her moving forward you know on that boat so it's interesting you mentioned shady and how her honesty changed for you in the game and sort of build a little bit of credibility there with you she seemed to be someone that was always on the outs though even at the merch she never found a way and was it just due to the fact that you saw such a physical beast out there or was there more to it in regards to why she just didn't seem to click with the rest of the group look survivor is a social gay man you know and people can say oh they're targeting someone because of this or that it's not it's you spend

24:03 95 of the time hanging out with people and people do certain things that you know i won't get into what it is but there's a reason why people sit on the bottom if someone's a legend like look at chrissy just rolled in and it was like effortless for her you know and everyone loved her and it's because she's amazing socially it's it you've got to be able to live with people for a long period of time and if you're doing stuff that sort of rubs people the wrong way you end up on the bottom and then they look for an excuse i survivor wise like yeah no that's why we're going to go for her but if you're on the bottom throughout the whole thing then there's something there that's sort of you know pissing people off a little bit and so that was the issue i was all right with shay you know we had a good you know relationship and but it was just some others in even in my like alliance they're like we're gonna get shay we're gonna get shane i was trying to hold on hold her on a little bit because i knew she'd be part of my move to get mark and sam you know and i needed those numbers and so it was sort of like old say hey you got to win this one today you know you've got to do this you've got to do that and we were she's a lovely girl but there are just some things that would sort of people and that's why yeah it's personalities i mean like even if you go to a workplace not everybody gets along like it's just the way it is yeah so i'm also quite interested you know another person that i think similar to shade

25:23 Just socially didn't seem to fit in or there was no credibility about them they were a big player this season someone that i think is number one probably for a lot of casual fans to come back and play this game again and that's jordy right so tell us a little bit about jordy the relationship then you know jordy comes to you he lets you know your mate mark has been pulling the wool over your eyes he's got an idol this is the first idol and you choose to not really act on that information and go back to mark and let him know listen geordi's throwing your name out can you talk a little bit through why you went back to mark so quickly on that chose to stay with mark and sam i guess opposed to jordy and jesse this one was a funny one then like again the days before leading up to that you know finding out that geordi was sort of coming for me i was literally saying my interviews like hey i could see a top four here with all the brothers you know it was like jordy and jesse and me and jordan similar ages we're like the only guys that weren't influencers or return players or celebrities or something like that you know we're like the average doze alliance sort of thing and we're both really we're all good in challenges like we could be the core sort of the roll through here we had that nice bit of information on mark and we were there was a the day that we went to tribal where we both teams went pre-merge and mel and ben went to fire and because of watching

26:43 Past seasons i said whenever there's like two tribes that go close to merge there's gonna be either fire or there's gonna be a twist you know there's to be something where only one person will go home and so jordy came to me that afternoon he's like mate you know should we go for mark like he's got he's got the clue i'm like leafy if mark's got a clue mark's got the idol we'll take that as an assumption and all right i wanted to give mark a little bit of time to tell me about it but then we're like man this is a big point i thought we could do this and then i was thinking i'm like there's something going on tonight there's going to be a twist so i talked jordy out of that one and i'm like let's just sit on this info and we'll see what happens and then we get to merge and we do all that and then again this is where chris's game is sort of understated i you know we're just going about our business and i was getting ready to sort of do the move on mark and then geordi i found out from christie that geordi had been going to mark and telling mark and sam that i me and jordan were targeting them and i'm like what like the only reason i'd spoken about that was because geordi had told me that you had the idol and like i was doing the good thing and saying hey mate like i'll give you a chance to come and tell your alliance like we're close and so jordy just tried to do this just sort of double act and it and then chrissy was good enough to say hey like let's have a sit down just sit down with mark and sam and tell them the truth of what's going on and so i went down and said mate i've known you've had the idol since pretty

28:03 Much day one because of loose lips is that he done it for you and he's tried to put the double play on us and then so once i came clean and told mark what was actually happening that i knew about the idol for a while but let him you know i was waiting for him to talk to me about it he was happy to work with me but all that aside jordy's an absolute legend like we're close as outside of the game like he's a top character but i had one of my rules that i wrote down going into the game was like someone tries to come for you then that's it you know like i'll trust people right up until they burn it and then i won't i won't you know be trusting as much again you know and so that was that was the reason i mean jordan i said madam you know i'm coming for you're too much of a threat you know but it is what it is you're still a great guy you know you guys had a great dynamic as the joker and the two-face out there you know and sort of making it happen and working a little bit together but i fully appreciate why you had to turn on him now when i interviewed mark he mentioned that one of the reasons that you and him just clicked from the start and jordan as well is because your rugby boys i never actually asked them what is rugby union rugby league what were you guys really into i'm a league mainly me and jordan grew up you know playing league and we were in like the melbourne store junior development program so for us to have michael crocker out there like when me and jordan were trying to make it in at melbourne storm we'd go into

29:24 The you know facility up in princess park and you know we're in the under 18s and stuff like that and then like we see michael crocker walking around and like all the all the superstars like the best melbourne storm players and then when we roll up out on the mats we knew mark was going on we sort of heard rumors that mark was going on so like one of us is going to have to go against the big fella and then all of a sudden we look to our right and he's you know cropped with the beard and jordan tells me he's like that is that michael crocker and i'm like yep and we're like he's like oh and so it's like we're a little fanboys of croc from our league background but jordan now plays union as well and i played a bit of union too like we go to thailand and play this tens tournament and yeah love it man we're full die hard league fans and unions just love it all yeah so i'm from south africa originally i've lived there right yeah yes lucky for us obviously a massive springbok fan you know current world champions i'll just throw it out there but you know love rugby love rugby union and i can understand how something as simple as that becomes such a big thing out there on the in the game i almost set the island i know you weren't on an island this time because you had something to actually connect on you know it's and look it wasn't so much the fact that we are you like rugby i like rugby cool it's the attitude that sport and especially trying to play it at a higher level and

30:44 What it teaches you about teamwork and you know you grab a guy like from the sas like mark their whole motto is like mission first team themselves you know so you can leverage that because a lot of the top rugby league clubs and rugby union organizations the all blacks all that sort of stuff they grab a lot of stuff from sas and military and bring that into their pre-season training and it's all the same concept it is like mission first then your team and then you and so what was our mission was like get to the end you know everyone wants to make big moves and you know we'll cop in a little bit of flack in there jonathan will get into us and when he's going to make big moves when are you going to do that i'm like there's no point making big moves like geordi tried to do and everyone tried to do if you end up on the jury you need to get to the end the majority win winners apart from dave gennay and hayley really and there's no offense to them didn't play like huge games you know what i mean like you they put themselves in a position to get to the end and then have a pitch and that and that is the mission that's what you've got to do you win 500 grand none of this i'm here to play do this well i played as well you know we held a majority for the whole time we marched to the end we were throwing challenges like those endurance ones where we knew we weren't going to beat shay we just jumped off we're like yeah because we're safe as we didn't need to win those whereas jordy had to win after he tried to blindside me he knew he had to win

32:04 Everything from that point on and you know that is not as good a game play i feel as being in complete control the whole way and dominating and putting yourself in the best position to get to the end but yeah sorry like back to mark we just knew that we had a we could understand the mission we knew that we would all work in a team and not you know sort of be trustworthy and not talk to each other and then at the end we're ready to do what we had to do but yeah it's just yeah it's i definitely picked up that you and i think i said this on a couple of my recaps you valued stability and mark provided you stability and the whole alliance that you guys built was so tight that it got you all the way to top six and then they needed to throw a twist in there that i absolutely hate i've always hated redemption purgatory anything like that yeah to mix things up it's infuriating because you play a clean ass game you get voted out like why do why do four people get and get a second chance at 500 and you know others don't like what jordan got absolutely demolished by not only the three saves but then another advantage that like a massive one of that late in the game it's frustrating but it is survivor you know you got to deal with those twists and turns but what hap what that sort of stuff does as well and this is what's frustrating everyone's going to make big

33:25 Moves it's like well we can't make big moves because you keep locking us in with these twists if i made a big move on mark or sam and sent them to purgatory all of a sudden you've got big game players teaming up with jordy pissed off at me and jordan and then come out who's number one target me and so you can't make moves like the whole play was all right we know players gonna come back we'll get to that point and then we're ready to make a move you know and we're trying to get that across to dave that like hey just get through this purgatory thing and then the next time we're ready to go on mark and sam like we had it lined up and then you know sam put on the oscar performance with the you know the second idol and you know they went for jordan instead that night but yeah it was it's it promotes a style of gameplay you know if you want exciting moves you can't have saves because sam got done with it a couple of times sam and chrissy early game you know they blindsided benny of beauty and sophie and what they come back and it's like well it's not promoting that yeah expansive sort of place best observation i've had in any of these interviews that i've had so far because this is so relevant i know you would probably not watch this and i'm kind of off it now myself but i used to watch a lot of big brother in the us which is very similar in the sense that you vote people out and there's like a person who wins immunity and all this kind of stuff so it's very different to the big brother that you would get in australia and

34:45 What they've done in that show is they've kept throwing more and more twists into it to make things crazy which has actually been counterproductive where people are playing a more scared game and they're actually keeping i say scared but it's more smart because they give people close to them that they know there's going to be stability if one of these twists come in to save someone so i think it's a great observation yeah thanks mate it's yeah it's i think what this season for me like i would have loved to see a bit more of was instead of having you know shots of snakes and crocodiles jumping out of the water every 30 seconds i just have an even spread of characters and watching the way everyone interacts and let the public decide who they like instead of you know pumping a narrative for so long like we got the geordie and the idle steel narrative but that was like the whole middle part of the season was just it's like all right we understand the scenario let's move forward then towards the end it was the same thing you know like it was just spread it out more like the poor you know mel and michelle they got nothing like purple and jordan and jordan as well like you yeah i've heard a lot of mel yeah but jordan as well like you didn't see much of them there was a lot of frustration by fans even for juicy dave where they were like why are you not making a move juicy but it's like you're not hearing juicy's perspective on the game or how he's thinking about it which i'm really happy i will talk to dave next week at some

36:05 Point as well to get his views on the game you know we clicked well man juice because again he's sort of similar he was sensible in you know and i knew that by talking to him about life and stuff like that on my arc i can get his values and we had really great chats around the fire and then on top of that when we'd start talking strategy and just he just understood the greater cause you know he's like all right yeah we can get to these next phases and then towards the end he started to really you know get his confidence up and he saw his path to the end and that was why we sort of went for him instead of geordie at one point but yeah you know top guy and very smart man it's the name of the game right you ride your alliance to the point where you can make moves and go your own way i did want to ask you one of the things i observed and i think that some fans are critical of this specifically when you look at the purity of the game and i would sort of counteract to say what is the purity of the game now with something like redemption island and people coming back into the game but that specific move that you made on sam when jordan was sitting on the you know jury bench and making facial expressions saying hey go for her go for her how much did that influence you at the moment when you were out there no it hardly did and this is the funny thing people are blowing up at jordan saying oh you ruined the integrity of the game you told josh sam had the idols

37:25 Well he didn't tell me sorry mate my dogs that's all good well he i couldn't look at jordan because sam was right next to me she's like a terrier mate she was like looking at me looking at jordan so i couldn't get actually see jordan chrissy said hey jordan's looking at her like this but chrissy and dave actually came to me before tribal and they really pushed it and said hey because i wanted i still wanted geordie gone and then i said next we'll get sam next like dave you owe me for voting jordan out like let you need to get jordy now and then dave and chrissy they said no come on they got two idols potentially that and i said do you two really want this like this is going to throw us into a bad situation they said yeah i said look i'll put her name down and we'll deal with it and then so yeah that all went down like that but there was no i couldn't get a signal from jordan i'd already had my mind made up that i was putting sam's name down ideally what i was literally thinking because again my numbers i couldn't i didn't want to take the high risk of putting ourselves in a minority i was telling them to play the idol because there was the scenario of rocks that night too we were at 4 deadlock and so they were potentially going to send us to rocks where mark had the idol protected and everyone's going to vote for sam so they were both safe and so me and chrissy would have to draw rocks and again you know whether that would have happened or not who knows but that scenario came

38:45 Up and i just said to mark i might play your idol for sam you know i was trying to get him to play the idol if you trust me as you're an alliance member you know i was hoping that they would do it and i told him told him i go why and then jonathan goes back you know too late and yeah it played out that way but ideally sam would have played the idol geordie goes home we're still in a majority we got it back straight away and then we can you know deal with it later saying look i just wanted to flush the idle it turned out you know probably freed up my game a bit more going the other way but yeah while you're on the subject of sam how did she fit in when she initially came in on the tv show they really i guess played up her paranoia and walking around quite a lot i would have sort of imagined and i know you would probably be great friends with her and mark now outside of the game but in the game i would have imagined she's not the kind of player you would want to work with in general because she is so sporadic and that it may have caused some i guess conflict how did you navigate bringing her into the fold because she was so close to mark it was and we are great friends and sami i know there's nothing that i'll say on here that i haven't said to sammy face to face it was hard to navigate and get a read on those two as a couple because mark's doing stuff like not you know you're not telling her about the idle and then you know they're having you know little blow-ups and you're

40:05 Going what is happening here like are they on the same page what's going on but then every vote will work together and i was like oh she's you know she's playing along with the plan and like voting can't understand for her was a big thing and michelle too you know like they were tight allies for her and that was i was pushing those votes because i needed to make sure i had the numbers trying to keep shay longer and do all this sort of stuff so that was my agenda but yeah it was hard because what would happen with sammy you'd talk to her and then she would run off to the person you were talking about and try and talk to them and so she was buzzing around camp everywhere and it just wasn't mine and jordan's style like we played a real relaxed like hey is this who you vote for don't worry about it you know like and so is dave and mark too and so to bring like us four guys in there and then have just a different element to it was it was just tricky to deal with and yeah she was don't get me wrong though like she was super strategic her mind was on all the time she picked it that three people were going to come back i was like i mean you're just it's a bit over the top you know she would take she tailed jessie she put in the work and i'll give her that but i think in terms of you know the way it is people wanted to vote her out you know and it wasn't just the men either like this has been a bit of a contentious subject but throughout the whole season but if you look at when you know sam

41:25 Got voted out what kj said about her and what shay said like it was she was intense around cam put it that way and but bruins strategic mind that's for sure it was just hard to get a read on both of them now i did have a question for you since you just mentioned a few of the girls there richard who's a super fan from survivor from south africa watches all the shows he flicked me a message just before i said i'm gonna jump on with josh the question you want me to ask and he said can you ask josh why did he vote for kj over and over again while he was out there because he's a big kj fan i think that australian survivor means stitching up a beauty with this one so the first kj vote was i found out that they she was voting for me when jordy and jesse were trying to blindside me but i had the you know i had the numbers there and so but what happened we knew that jessie had an idol because chrissy saw jesse found a clue at kfc and so again my one of my rules going in was if someone's got a clue they've got no id'll take that as an assumption so me and mark were like yep jesse's got the idol and mark like when it was going down mark actually said to me and i said you're 100 legit he said mate if jesse plays his idol i'll play my idol for you and then so that would have nullified it would have been you know six votes for jesse four votes for me and then there was that one remaining vote and

42:45 So what you do is you need to control the split because if i left that up to someone else and they trigged on that hey i can actually control who goes home here they would have done i would have loved to write jesse's name down knowing you know like hey you came for me i wanted to i wanted that revenge you know but yeah i had to i had to play it smart and say i need to control who's gonna head home and so i made sure i put kj that one after that you know she come up to me she's like i'm sorry and i said you vote for me like it's game on you know i saw you voted for me too i'm like yeah but mine was more of a split thing like yeah and so it was like all right you're that was the first strike sort of thing as the game progressed this is a tricky one too and this is where purgatory stuff things up again we finally got jordy right so we got shay we get geordie well we get shay that night when we're going to tribal i said to kj i said look i need to keep mark and sam thinking that we're on site okay so if you cop the split tonight you know it'll be jordan the majority and then you the split i promise you next vote we will get mark and sam like whoever which one you want and she said dear and i 100 meant that and then we get to tribal all of a sudden shay doesn't rock up so like here's the here's the redemption twist and then we vote geordi out sweet those two can battle it out and then jonathan goes bang you're voting again

44:06 No talk no nothing and so i'm like oh my god and then kj looks at me she's like sam and i sort of panicked i'm like yep vote sam not thinking and then while i had time to sit there and think i heard mark and sam out like sort of like whisper to each other like kj and then i lean forward like whisper to jordan like to do kj and the reason for that was i was just unfortunate because again if i gave away my position on mark and sam and sent one of them to purgatory then the game is fully open it's just you know it was too high risk so i had to unfortunately vote kj that night sent her to purgatory and she was you know in my opinion a little bit less of a threat to deal with then mark and sam you know coming in full steam ahead so that was the reason for that one and then she voted jordan out and then so then it was game on like i wanted revenge for that so but to be honest if my plan went fully into action like once i voted sam out and sort of pushing towards the top of the game my ideal end game would have been top three with me chrissy and kj shae just threw a spanner in the works at that top five challenge with the balls and once that happened we knew that you know we lost control there really so yeah now i'm a big believer that this would have been one of the all-time great seasons of australian survivor if they gave you a bigger edit and they made us believe that you could win this season now as an

45:26 Avid fan of the show as someone that's watched it since season one over in the us i've watched over 70 seasons of survivor i can read and edit pretty well and i feel like australian survivor is very transparent on who's gonna win like i pick mark week one week two i'm like it's probably him maybe sam's got a chance but i feel like she's the loved one of the person who's gonna win and you went all the way to the final four it was between yourself and mark and i mean if you both had a massive edit it would have had us all on the edge of our seats at the end to say who's actually gonna win this thing you know and i could read between the lines you played a big game how did you feel about you know some of the edit and we've sort of skirted around a little bit yeah and i know if production ever listens to this they do the best that they can and they've got their own things that they're trying to put together but still you're going to feel a certain way about i guess what was shown well i don't get it like and i appreciate the kind words but you know a lot of people can read the edit and like i don't i don't understand why they don't listen to the real fans of the game you know because everyone has said that to me and people a lot of the messages past players they say your edit is one of the most baffling edits i've ever seen in australian survival history like i don't understand it i didn't get admit i was like literally cut out of the show until episode 13 and then all of a sudden on the anita wants to be my number one and all you know like i had all these relationships amy's saying josh and shea is so tight you know like

46:47 I just i didn't get it and then even through like i had a you know i had the material there like i had the dad letter i won three immunities i was part of the majority me and chrissy had an amazing relationship that was funny with me and jordan were laughing all the time like i got this like real serious guy edit like it didn't it was frustrating man and to be honest like every night before the show you'd be nervous because you're like what the are they to show sorry for swearing from the letter that's all right now go for it what are they going to show here and you know they played that woman man card and all that and it was unfortunate bro and yeah and quite frustrating to watch and yeah like my experience out there in the game was so fun and amazing and then watching it back was so frustrating to be honest so yeah i don't know why they do it because the material like you said the material there we had an amazing show man some of those physical challenges they cut out epic challenges too like just going at it like hard just awesome stuff and it was just like all just ghosted and yeah and not enough strategy from anyone like they just showed this one narrative or two narratives throughout the whole game and i was like it's just wasted like 90 of the stuff's getting cut out and it was better than this i'll always watch australian survival i'm a fan of survivor you know my biggest criticism has been like if you've got two people telling you their plan six times or 14

48:07 Times in an episode that's too many like you could have someone else have a confessional in there and throw a little bit of different things in there but i do have a question for you know you just didn't make it here you fall out in the final four and i believe there's a previous pilot very big player that used to play in the us that's a fan favorite won a lot of challenges and stuff like that as well he was a pilot i believe he was more of a like an air force pilot or something like that but he fell out just before the end as well so like it seems like pilots are cursed in this game yeah if you did make the final right if you did actually get there and it was you and mark going here to head here how do you think the vote would have shaped up because you know mark was only the second unanimous winner in the history of the show i believe that you probably could have taken him in a final vote like no disrespect to mark i think he played a really good game but i felt like you were the one player that could have rivaled him in that final tribal council yeah that i was i was willing to do that and that was my pitch you know and then the final move was to you know like again me and chris you've spoken about this and like i wish i fought harder to try and keep her on side but that if i kept chrissy on side that final tribal that would have meant i was going to fire against mark so i was like do i do one more play like i felt chrissy was drifting a little bit and i thought all right if i can just you know reduce the risk again you know the

49:27 Risk was either you put your game at chance and go to fire against mark who's a weapon you know all that sort of stuff or do you try and do the one last master play because chrissy went for mark last night you know leverage on that a bit and to see if we can do it but mark just played the you know he played the high percentage and played it better but if i got there if i got there our games were very similar right up until the point that i got sam and then i had a really nice pitch sort of you know the way that i navigated that and one immunities when i had to and set up these little deals that were what they weren't like promises of top three they were like i'll protect you for the next vote and then i'll get that protection and then the next one and i just had this perfect sort of run to the end i think mark would have outpitched me i think his pitch was better like mark again you didn't see it he got a real sort of hard man you know ruthless killer edit as well which was again because mark was actually quite not soft but he had a lot more of an emotional side that people didn't get to see and he was very like empathetic and he saw that at the end right like when he spoke about his experience with the river and that was a good difference it was very late it was like late in the year it was like he's been like that the whole time you know like and also but what he did at the pitch that sort of got cut out in the last episode he went through everyone and said hey

50:47 You know like you're an amazing player you did this and he told like a little story to everyone and like he just like he pitched it amazingly the jury were ruthless too they were full-on survivor die-hard fans and so they again like in hindsight in hindsight they didn't respect how good chrissy's social game was you know like because chrissy probably didn't do herself a favor in terms of like you know she downplayed how smart she actually was if she claimed a little bit more i think she would have been like really in a strong position but she just sort of acted like i don't know what's going on but she knew what was going on she just didn't let on so that but sorry the jury they were ruthless like they were really respected hard gameplay and all this sort of stuff and so when mark got there with the two girls at the ends you know they didn't respect chrissy social enough and then they didn't even though they were friends and loved chrissy they wanted to vote for the one that could outwit outlast outplay and that person that had all three aspects of the game mark had all three shea had the challenge chrissy had the social and so that's why mark got the white wash but i had all three as well i think and it would have been sam would have lobbied a few votes for mark but i you know i definitely would have been able to get a few votes as well but yeah it would have been tight mark

52:07 Mark played the jury better than me i was so focused on the goal and again this is the benefit of returning as a player i was just you know getting to get to the end whereas mark in tribals would be a bit more gentle with the jury sometimes you know like it was just he played a he was very smart so it would have been tight would have been time the only the only criticism i had of your game now that i think about it just when you bring this up and i was like very complimentary the whole time i was like you know josh is playing a killer game i can just tell he's a great player of this game the only thing that i picked up on was that you were very upfront and direct with people when they were going to go home was there a reason that you were that upfront and directly yeah a little bit of editing going on here you know like the mel and michelle one again like i'm just trying to i try to be honest with people and not insult them and mel and michelle you know they're leading up to that malacopter split a couple of times they knew they were on the bottom it was actually quite you know sad around camp and you know again they didn't show it at the end but mel and michelle just lost their father recently and it was just like an emotional time around camp and mark was there with them supporting them and we knew that you know they were on the bottom and gonna be the vote and so you know when michelle come up she goes josh what's going on you know what you know like i really respect michelle like i'm not what am i going to say here yeah i'm going for sam or like i didn't want to them and lie to their face and i said look you know i'm sorry

53:28 It's you guys you know there was that one and then the other ones were like jordy like jordy knew i was coming for him because i was like you tried to blindside me i'm coming for you as simple as that and kj the same with jordan you know she pulled that thing on jordan you know i'm like why didn't you go for mark and sam that they're the couple that had two idols you know all this like and you want to come to jordan like we're sitting there dumb and happy you know so i was like i'm coming for kj so that was yeah that was it again a bit of editing there so yeah as we're wrapping it up here because i'm conscious of the time and i do want to respect your time i'm more good if yeah if you got more that's all good but yeah no because this has been great i mean you've given us so much behind the scenes and believe it or not i feel like this interview is going to be a hit because people love to hear these things they love to hear about the things that they didn't see on the show thinking back you know since you said it's okay i'll ask you two more questions you know thinking back about it what's the one memory out there that you had that could have been on the tv or not on the tv and i guess obviously finding out you're a dad that's number one but outside of that you know what's the one thing that you will look back on fondly one day when you sit down with your son to tell him about this crazy adventure that you had out there on survivor oh look there's a lot you know simple ones like every time you'd get back from tribal you know we'd look up

54:48 At the start like i'd just be looking up at the stars what is going on man look where we are and the weather was beautiful the whole time and you know you just made it through another one and every time in my top you know top five top four and you're just like is this happening so you've always got that and then like other ones where like competing with jordan finally like not you know not against him like we love competing against each other but then finally being able to you know like stand there and when he's going up against you know one of our idols in like michael crocker and we're both standing on that pad and they're doing that pole one and you know just little things like that and just suspended with jordan was just amazing other little things like every time we go to tribal we call ourselves the regulators mark come up with that name and so the all of the boys club like we called ourselves the regulators and we'd go in and you know that song from warren g and nate dog and we'd whistle that tune we'd be walking past the tents like it's where we're sort of waiting to go into tribal and we knew the plan was on if like one of us would like start the tune we'd whistle it and then the next guy would like follow on and finish it off and say just little things like that was unreal and yeah all in all like you take the edit aside amazing experience you know what i mean and you know dealing with the stuff afterwards it gets tainted and you forget how good it actually was out there and i think one thing

56:08 You can definitely take from it is i don't think anybody's going to look at this game and say josh was an absolute a-hole out there like i think people will look at you and say maybe you didn't get enough of an edit but in my opinion you had a bit of a hero edit that's why two phases of nickname doesn't suit you i even said if i actually had a video on my channel i said the five people i want to return you were definitely one of the five i said that you know the theme that would suit you is heroes versus villains in australia and i would see you in a hero's tribe not a villains tribe because you played a straightforward and honest game and you wanted to lift people up with you that team approach that you had throughout the season now the big question here is would you answer the call if they wanted you to come back and play the game again and how difficult is that now with you know i guess being back at work and being a busy person yeah look i think i really appreciate that and like i've spoken to mark and sammy about this and like what would i get would i be a hero or a villain like i don't know i thought it because like i felt like yeah i'd sort of get maybe a hero you know after when i played but then on the edit they make me look like an angry prick so i just wasn't sure but i appreciate it man would i come back i just need like i probably wouldn't come back like if they said hey we're ready to go in three months time i don't think i've just because i've got the baby on the way and you know i want to focus on that and it survivor takes a lot man

57:28 Like it actually i was surprised like out there i was fine and then when you come back the you know it's such an amazing experience and then you just come back to life and you know you're doing groceries and you know like everything's just sort of like back to this routine you're like man i was doing some amazing stuff and now you sort of just so getting back to that and trying to you know take joy and just everyday living again is like another experience in itself but yeah if i if give me like a year and a bit you know if heroes villains is like next one after this one i'd probably answer the call mate i'd be able to get some manual leave again that's right i do hope you pick it up and you just gave me a little golden nugget i said two questions i apologize do you know australian survivor and we've heard a lot of people of other survivor shows say the same thing coming back to normal life is very difficult i mean you know is your family member lying to you when they tell you something you just don't know like you've you're you've got those heightened senses when you come back and like you said just everyday life is as mundane compared to what you had out there do you guys get like any kind of support from like the show afterwards do you like so they look after you guys in regards to being able to talk to someone and to climatize that we can just call any time and that and that's for whenever that and then the whole production team were very supportive and they you know they reach out and text make sure everything's all good and they threw it they actually threw a lunch for us for the top four

58:48 Up in sydney you know the weekend that was the last episode was airing so it definitely hasn't been like see you later it's been yeah it's been really good and the support is there if you if you need it's just it's just one of those cma it's just a journey like and it was a learning experience and like the mental capacity that it takes up because again like i said you know the show's about to come out so you're sitting around anxious waiting for the show to come on and then and then it comes out a certain way and so you're trying to like answer questions to people like on your phone going oh no that didn't happen like that and everyone's going what are you what's going on here and then you get like the casuals that are just teeing off in your instagram messages and so and that just takes all this brain power and yeah it's yeah it's nice to sort of wrap that up for now and stuff like this is really good because you get to have that deep dive with people and explain yourself a bit better and it provides closure too which is and it does like i mean i had priyana on just before you yesterday or the day before and i had such a great chat with brianna as well and i had people come on to my comment section and my community is a pretty good community like you get the one or two that will say something out there it's just always gonna happen but people came on and said you know oh man i wish i saw more of this brianna like clearly there's a lot more to it than what the edit showed and you know again it's closure like you said and it gives you the opportunity to paint your

1:00:08 Own narrative of who you are as a person and people can make up their own mind you know so josh it's been great talking to you