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Corinne Kaplan

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marigold:
An interview with Corinne:

Exclusive Interview: Corinne Kaplan of 'Survivor: Gabon'

If there's one thing you have to admire about The Onion Alliance this season on Survivor: Gabon, it's that they have been loyal to one another and honest in their interviews.  They were slightly bitter after being voted out, as they should be.  Marcus, Charlie, Randy, and Corinne were a strong group of players who were outwitted and eliminated by much weaker players Crystal, Kenny, and Sugar.  On last night's episode, Corinne was sent home, which means that Bob is the only remaining member of her alliance left in the game and the odds are seriously against him.  Today, Corinne spoke to BuddyTV in an exclusive interview and explained why some people may have seen her as fake in the game but makes sure that nobody perceives her as a phony in real life!

So I was catching a little flack from the BuddyTV readers because I was defending you yesterday and I was saying that I didn’t think you were very fake this season, after Sugar called you out last night. Did you think that you were being fake in the game?

Well, I mean, it’s Survivor. What I was explaining to Sugar was that, if I was rude to everyone’s face… you know, you see in some tribals where Crystal goes at it with people. That’s just not good gameplay. The point is to have enough self-control to save that for the confessionals and make everyone think that you like them. So I mean, if that’s phony, sure. Then yeah. I totally was. I mean, that’s the whole point. That’s playing the game. In real life, I would’ve strangled Sugar. You don’t do that in game, you know?

Well, what was your strategy, originally, going into the game?

I wanted to be a very strong female player because I thought, in the beginning at least, you keep the athletic people around so you can win and not go to tribal. I initially thought I wanted a tight alliance of three and I wanted somebody I needed and somebody who needed me. I picked Marcus to be the person I needed, because he’s a powerhouse and I picked Bob as the person who would need me. But then, I ended up with Jacquie and Charlie and then surprisingly, Randy, who was amazing, but going in, that’s what I had intended on doing.

Speaking of Randy, did it make you mad what Sugar and the others did to him with the fake idol?

Actually, it was the first time that everyone could see Sugar’s true colors so it was really unfortunate but if that’s what helps America see what kind of person she really is, then you know what? It was all worth it.

When Marcus and Charlie were eliminated, by the time that happened, were you pretty screwed as far as alliances went and saving yourself?

Yes, but I’m a fighter. No matter what, I was still going to come up with something. I was still strategizing. When Marcus got voted out, that was the beginning of the crumble but I still fought. I still felt like I had a shot at it. I thought, “We’ll figure this out.” It’s… it didn’t happen but I certainly made a good run for it.

Randy said that if Crystal, Kenny and Sugar were in the final three, he would literally walk off the set. Do players like them upset you and do you want to see them win this game?

Well, the only person left in the game that I wanna see win is Bob. What I will tell you is this: there are two power things in this game. There’s the person that gets the million and then, there’s the people that vote for the million. Right now, you’ve got this… it’s a seven member jury. The first four people are: me, Marcus, Charlie, and Randy and we’re connected at the hip. We’re gonna decide who gets the million and we won’t give it to who we don’t like. I don’t know who will win but I can tell you for sure who isn’t going to win it.

I know it stinks to be voted out of the game but do you like having that power in the jury? You guys basically will decide who wins.

Oh yeah, it’s amazing because now, you see as we go into tribal council, they’re scrambling. They know… honestly, how stupid can you be? There are four people. The smart thing to do… there’s five in our alliance. They can’t all be in the finals, right? It’ll either be final two or final three. The move is to jump ship and go with the other group. We’ll take you to the end. Then, you wouldn’t have me or Bob getting on a jury with our fellow peers and our alliance friends. It’s so stupid! You stick me up there, especially for someone like Sugar, who knew I hated her. You stick me up there… you have absolutely assured… I will make sure you don’t win a million dollars. Stupid move.

Do you still have bitterness to this day towards these people or have you let it go?

It’s really not a matter of… there are people I don’t like and there are people I like. That’s the thing about me. If I was fake then, after the show, I would say, “Let’s bury the hatchet. Let’s be friends. We shared an amazing experience together.” I promise you that won’t happen. If I didn’t talk to you on the show, I will not talk to you in real life.

Link: http://www.buddytv.com/articles/survivor/exclusive-interview-corinne-ka-25067.aspx

marigold:
An interview with Corinne:

Survivor Exit Interview: Corinne Kaplan Knows Who ISN'T Going To Win!

Last time on Survivor: Gabon - Earth's Last Eden, with a brilliant new strategy that is revitalizing the venerable game, Bob worked his magic once again by fashioning a fake Immunity Idol that became a very real threat. Making one is crafty enough. Giving it a believable back story that blinded even the shrewdest players with lust for it was the master stroke.

Unfortunately the deception worked too well for his sole remaining Kota tribe mate, Corinne Kaplan. The frenzy over the trinket caused a power struggle between the true believers that caught Corinne in its pincers. When she became the unwitting pawn used to flush it out into the open, she was voted out of the game.

We caught up with Corinne the day after and learned another fascinating fact: Survivor is so well controlled from behind the scenes, sometimes the players themselves are surprised by what comes out over the air. Apparently, just living through the experience is not reality enough.

Hi Corinne! How are you?
Doing good. I'd rather still be in the game and not talking to you but, fine.

I can understand. Like I always say, for you it's been a while since you were voted out, but for us it was only last night. How are you dealing with it?
I was fine with it when it happened. It sucks not to win the million and not to have a shot at that, but I made it through 33 out of 39 days, and I got to be in Ponderosa for 6 days with my best friends so, I did the best I could, you know?

That's right. 33 days on Survivor is quite an achievement.
Yeah. And I spent 33 days being me. I let America see me balls out, so I was very pleased with that.

As we followed along you had a pretty good edit...
Do you think so? It was pretty accurate I thought.

And you were quite prominent, but you were always able to stay out of the crosshairs...
I tried.

And as it went along you got squeezed, especially last night. But you kind of got double-crossed there...
Yeah. But the other thing was that, up until I watched it myself last night, I thought I was voted out because Crystal didn't want to flip on her alliance. I didn't realize they totally thought the Idol was real and were voting based on the fact that they wanted to flush it out. These were the same people that let Sugar walk around for 25 days with her Idol. Surely, I didn't think that was why I was voted out, but that was really interesting to watch. At least I made a serious strategic move.
 
You played a smart game. It was really the only option open to you.
Yep. And the fact that people consistently say they think I'm mean, I ended up with Bob, who is probably the nicest guy to ever play the game, fiercely being loyal to me. It's all going down in a blaze of glory and all Bob wants to do is help me. It's a testament to my character I think.

You mean, you didn't know until you watched last night, of the strategizing going on behind the scenes?
I did not know. Because, I'm the kind of person who, if I didn't like you on the show, I for damn sure don't like you in real life. So I haven't had a reason to speak to anybody since the show wrapped, and I didn't ask anybody, ever, what happened.

That's very interesting. The player becomes the spectator. Those are the kinds of things going on behind the scenes that none of us know unless you probe into it. That raises another aspect of the show I'm interested in. This was Family Week, but you didn't have a shot at the reward because you were left out by the draw. Don't they have to have all the family members there? How do they know who will win the reward?

Well, here's the thing, when they told us that a video from home was the reward I thought, "Who cares? I'm being voted out tomorrow anyway." When I get home I can ask my parents for another video, it doesn't matter. And I believed that our family wasn't there. Because I've never seen that happen before. But when I saw Peg, Bob's wife, I knew they'd all been flown out, because they didn't know who was gonna win. So I started crying because I thought my brother had flown all the way to Africa and wouldn't get a chance to see me. But when they all came over the savanna it was like a feeling I've never experienced before. It was unbelievable.

Wow.

I'm very lucky to be on this show where they let everybody spend time with their family. I spent 5 hours with my brother in camp, showing him where I slept, where I ate, and that's really cool. He lives in Grenada and I only get a chance to see him once a year. So the only chance I had this year was for him to come to Africa. It was amazing.

So what's your life like now?
Right now I'm in New York, but I live in Los Angeles and unfortunately I gave up my job to be on this show and the company I was with has subsequently started a hiring freeze. So there's no way for them to rehire me at my dream job as a pharmaceutical rep in Beverly Hills. Right now I'm entertaining anything.

Can you give us a link to promote in case there's a job offer out there?
Sure! If you go to my Facebook page and reach out to me, I'll respond, especially if it's about job offers. I'll totally get back to you.

I always like to ask how has Survivor changed your life?
I've been asked that before, and the interesting thing is, I don't really understand people who are so lost that they go on Survivor to find themselves. To be honest with you, I didn't come to any revelation. Aside from the fact that I found most of these people really annoying, I knew going in there really isn't any major change. I just know now that I really don't like sleeping outside.

I guess there's no love lost there. Even your closing comments were you would never speak to Sugar ever again. Have you spoken with her since?
Absolutely not. I mean in the context of the show, obviously the show is still going and I'm on the jury, and there's a finale coming, but in real life, no way. I've said it before. If she was in a car accident on the side of the road, I would not help the coroner scrape her body off it.

Wow!

I want nothing to do with that girl, ever. She is the most irritating human being I've ever met.

It's only on this show that I hear comments like that. It proves to me that you get so interactive and personal with people you can actually come to hate them.
Yes. And it's not like I hate her, she has nothing to do with me being voted out, she didn't do anything in particular to me. She was just so irritating and high maintenance, she was the last person you'd want to be stranded in Africa with, honestly.

Well, there must have been some good memories. Tell us about some of your best experiences you had there.
One would be when Charlie and I would be bored, I would teach him how to tap dance. So literally we're in the middle of Africa and I'm going "Five, Six, Seven, Eight" and we would dance. We actually made a stage and Charlie and I had a really good time. And one of my other favorite moments was sitting there talking smack with Randy. He can make me laugh harder than anybody I know. That man is hilarious and just a great guy.

It was obvious that you two connected all throughout your edit.
And they didn't even show most of it. What's really interesting is, enough with the dark stuff, even though I love that. I mean, Marcus isn't gay and Charlie is, and that's the end of it. Why do they keep showing that when they could've shown that Randy is 20 years older than me, he's a recluse living in a cabin in Missouri, who's closer to his dog than he is to most human beings and he's my best friend. That stuff is more interesting to me.

I caught that though! But more because of Randy's edit. He seemed to really enjoy speaking with you.
He loved me. And I still love him to this day. But the whole mentality is If I can't win the million, let somebody in my alliance win, so now it's all about pulling for Bob.

You grew close to him too, didn't you?
Yeah, I adore Bob. You have to remember that part of playing the game strategically is putting people on the jury that you think will vote for you. You don't put 4 people who are best friends in an alliance on the jury. We determine who gets the million.

That is the down side...
Yeah. And we all know who I don't like. So there you have it.

I know you have to run off for more interviews but I have one last question. Is Charlie a better tap dancer now?
Oh yeah, we did a lot of practicing at Ponderosa. You'll have to see it in the webisodes. He got very good. He can do a time step now.

Do you have a prediction for the winner?
You know, this game is totally unpredictable. I will just tell you I know who can't win. That's all I will say.

That says it all. I can't wait for the final. Thanks Corinne, and good luck!
Thank you for talking with me!

Link: http://thebiz.fancast.com/2008/12/survivor_exit_interview_corinn.html

marigold:
An interview with Corinne:

Survivor’s Corinne Calls Show’s Final 6 ‘Nerds’

Corinne Kaplan, a 29–year-old unemployed pharmaceutical sales rep from Los Angeles and the newest member of the jury on Survivor: Gabon, is bitter about how her season went down. And she was not afraid to talk about it when she called from New York to rant about her nemesis Sugar and all the other undeserving “nerds,” her wild last-ditch effort to stay in the game, the Jerri Manthey comparisons and why she’d love to follow in the footsteps of Elisabeth Hasselbeck. – Carrie Bell

You knew you and Bob were doomed from the start of the merge, but you never gave up. Did you actually think a second fake idol would work?
I had a real slim chance. But I thought the flaw would be with the idol itself. How is anyone going to buy, coming off a fake idol made by Bob the week before, that there’s another idol from Bob? I thought there was no way that Kenny and Crystal were going to buy that it was real. If they did buy it, I was golden. I didn’t think they would try to flush it because it is useless after day 36. That was only one more round. They let Sugar walk around with an idol for like 25 days. They clearly bought it hook line and sinker that it was real.

Did you know at the time that Sugar had an idol?


I knew that she got the idol. She spent like an eternity on exile. But I was told, and I believed, by Sugar and Matty when they were on Fang, that Kellie went home because Sugar played the idol. That made sense to me because Kellie was more athletic and no one liked Sugar. She was very annoying to have around camp so I figured she played it and saved herself.

The final six are not the group people would have imagined — with the exception of Matty and maybe Bob. Are you bitter about all the twists that for all intents and purposes ruined your shot at a million?
Had there not been those twists, I think the final six would look very different. Every time a twist happened, it was to my downfall. It’s a shame because you want to see the person at the end be the one who is the most deserving, smart, strategic, good player. I don’t know what part of America roots for people like this. I get the underdog thing but these are not underdogs. These are just unintelligent, unsuccessful people that got lucky breaks. This is revenge of the nerds edition.

If you couldn’t pick yourself, who do you think played the best game and was most deserving of the win?
Charlie. The biggest difficulty in Survivor — forget about the starvation, the not sleeping and the mosquito bites, is getting along with the other players. Charlie had an unbelievable knack for making people like him. He is an all around nice guy.

Speaking of the physical part, what was that like for you?
I lost 12 pounds in total and nine of those I lost in the first few days I was there. After the fourth day, my stupid short suit had to be cuffed over once. The weight loss isn’t as magnificent as you might think for not eating for that long. Physically, I trained really hard for it. I trained different starvation techniques and without water. I was very equipped to handle that element of the game.

You wished your competitors all miserable lives except Bob and Kenny. With a few months perspective, do you still hate them that much?
I can’t stand Sugar. She is so annoying that we kept sending her to exile to get her away from us. She’s the only girl who ever gained weight on Survivor. I stand by my statements. The bottom line is that Kenny still treated me like a human being. We were outcasts, lepers. If we walked in, everyone walked out. No one would canoe with us. Kenny was the only one that would still talk to me. When I was in the majority, I never treated anyone like that … But the only way this show would turn out good is if Bob won because everyone else there doesn’t deserve a penny of a million dollars.

Do you have a favorite moment that wasn’t shown on the show?
I spent hours a day teaching Charlie how to tap dance and we put on shows. We were organizing a talent show. Charlie and I had a Gay Pride Parade. We did lots of crazy fun things to make the time pass.

You live in L.A., have long curly hair and were the female villian. How often do you get compared to Jerri Manthey?
People compare me to her all the time … I didn’t see her show and I don’t know her. The only thing we have in common is curly hair and that we are both supposed to be the series villain. I said things to get on the show like “I’ll do anything for the million” or “I’ll cross lines.” But I am not really a self-proclaimed b—-. There are lots of kinds of b—— in the world. Sugar is an example of a dumb b—-. I would consider myself to be a fierce b—-. People call Madonna a b—- and we all know how fierce she is. So I am okay with that but I was not trying to be the new Jerri.

What’s next for you? Have you gone back to your job yet?
I had a great job with a great company and I couldn’t get a leave of absence to do the show so I quit my job. I had a company car that I had to give up. When I got back, the economy was terrible and it is the worst possible time to be trying to find a job. Pharmaceutical sales in particular took a major hit. Most of the companies are in a hiring freeze or laying people off like my former employer. I am having an enormous amount of trouble getting another job. So now I am looking to entertain any possibilities with the small amount of shine you get from being on Survivor. I went to college to be a news anchor so I would love to do hosting or anchoring.

Look out Elizabeth.
Oh man, what I wouldn’t give to be her but unfortunately I think that only happens once in a lifetime.

Link: http://tvwatch.people.com/2008/12/08/survivors-corinne-calls-shows-final-six-nerds/

RealityFreakWill:
You Ask and They Tell.....video

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