“It was just very clear that strategy went out the window and paranoia set in.”
It’s even tougher when you are on a tribe that can’t win a challenge.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I’ll ask you the same first question I asked Eric Abraham last week.
David Voce on ‘Survivor 41’.Robert Voets/CBS
Why go by your last name of Voce instead of David?
As someone with the middle name of David, I am slightly offended.
It was easier for my mom to scream.
The Yase tribe on ‘Survivor 41’.Robert Voets/CBS
It was easier for friends to scream when I was in trouble.
So that’s my identity.
That’s who I was.
Tiffany Seely, Evvie Jagoda, and Liana Wallace on ‘Survivor 41’.Robert Voets/CBS
And that’s just what I go by.
That’s who I am.
That’s how I’m known.
The three tribes get ready to compete on ‘Survivor 41.'.Robert Voets/CBS
That is not what I’m known as, so I said, “Screw it.
I’m going with it.
It’s what I do.
It’s who I am.”
And there you go.
So let’s get into that Tribal Council.
Any hint or clue that you might be in trouble walking into that Tribal Council, or complete blindside?
Complete and utter blindside, and complete and utter does not make sense, no strategy.What are you doing?
What is wrong with you?
Get your heads in the game!And at the end of the day, everyone can vote emotionally.
What about getting Xander out?"
So I kind of knew that that was in the works.
So I was like, ride this out.
Xander’s going to be the one that goes, if there’s a blindside, keep it cool.
If you’re the all-women’s alliance, youhaveto get Xander out.
He has an idol that’s not active.
So everyone’s heads were spinning and it became a game of Russian roulette.
So when I went into this, I was like, I am not aligning with Xander.
There’s no way because you know, young guys or whatever.
But Xander and I are actually completely different.
And I had this flash to HHH with Ali and Patrick who knew each other from before.
I was like, “Don’t screw this up.
You have this bond.
You think the same.”
And I was like, latch on to this.
How has it been for you over the past five months?
You know, it sucks.
Cause I was originally cast before COVID and I was supposed to go out there.
I had arranged my crazy schedule to let that happen, then COVID happened.
I obviously got sucked back into the hospitals.
And so to have that cut short was devastating.
And you hear about everyone talk about the mental health and everything afterwards, dealing with it.
And I kind of thought, “Oh yeah, sure, that’s fine.”
And so that’s something that you’ve got to work through.
But I am so grateful for the experience.
And as cliche as it sounds, Jeff is right: It strips you down to your core.
It teaches you about yourself and teaches you what’s important in life.
Tiffany was very confused, love Tiffany, we had so much fun out there together.
She’s a larger than life personality.
And we would poop together, we slept together next to each other.
I think people thought I was going to go and play really hard and screw up.
I looked angry word to the wise, don’t get LASIK surgery before you go out there.
I had a raging tropical eye infection like Jessica Lewis.
I wasn’t this arrogant bossy person that was out there playing."
And I think they were able to see that from just the two episodes.
I thought that I was in an ideal situation, but that’sSurvivor.
It can flip on a dime for some willy nilly reason.
What’s your perspective on that?
I bet she made a final two with you."
And she made a final two with Tiffany.
The thing that superseded this season was the all-women’s alliance there was going into this.
because there are only two people by definition that are going to make it.
That’s not a strategy when there’s five people left.
So there was paranoia on all counts.
I think Evvie, you know, you see saw her on the screen.
She’s so magnetic.
People say that after your first vote, that’s when you have lines drawn.
There were no lines drawn in the sand after the first vote.
So it was really hard because we got along so well.
So we realized Xander and I one of us has to be on the puzzle.
But last minute we said, “No one can do puzzles.
Either Voce or Xander has to do the puzzle because we are so bad.”
And Tiffany said, “I can do the balance beam.”
It was not close at all.
In terms of it was a complete blow-out challenge.
It was almost like she gave up on the beam.
How bad was it hauling that water back and forth with Xander on day 1?
The only thing I am upset from the edit is how undersold that was.
That was the most excruciating challenge you’re free to imagine.
We almost didn’t make it.
I literally had blood pouring down from my thighs from the chafing, from going back and forth.
It wasn’t just go to the beach right down there.
You had to go around an obstacle.
I actually passed out at one point in the ocean because I was just seeing stars.
That night, when I was laying down, my hands were cramping.
My toes were cramping because it just destroyed me.
I was trying to convince them beforehand and say, “This is a challenge that will destroy us.
And it will separate us.”
I’m like, “You don’t need to prove anything here!
Put your pride aside!
It is a bad decision.”
And that’s what I was screaming.
And people caught on to this.
This is so bad that we are not back there at camp."
And I stick to that.
That was a horrible decision.
Only a fraction of what happens out there actually makes it to the episode.
What’s something that you wish we had seen on air?
A couple of things.
He just didn’t mesh well.
And so the five of us were a unified five.
Even if there were sub alliances there, we really were that close.
And just in general, you know, the chaoticness that happened after that challenge loss was unfortunate.
That was how late in the day she came back.
So she could not convince Tiffany with logic.
All hell broke loose and pandemonium set in.
And literally that didn’t happen in this game.
Normally the third person goes out on day 9.
This was day 5.
And so that’s what I think is unfortunate is that that was kind of missed.
