If you watched Survivor: Gabon, you may have been put off by contestant Corinne Kaplan‘s take-no-prisoners attitude. She was determined to win — so much so, she wasn’t afraid to confront some of her other cast members. (Her final jury speech to top three finisher Sugar Kiper, anyone?) Well, now that Kaplan is getting a second chance at a million bucks on Survivor: Caramoan — Fans vs. Favorites, will this season’s viewers see the return of the same Kaplan?
“I have not matured at all,” Kaplan tells Hollywood.com exclusively. “[I’m] exactly the same. I’m irreverent and I say things. I’m very uninhibited. I’ve been the same person since I was in first grade.”
Like any other contestant seen on television by millions would be, Kaplan feared this season’s new cast members — the “fans” of the series — would judge her based on her actions in Gabon. “Going in, I’m well aware of what they think my personality is,” she says. “I always like to point out that in my season, when I got booted [before] the finale, I felt like, ‘Wow, all of America kind of hates me.'”
But Kaplan believes that people misjudged her. “If you were to poll the actual people on my tribe and on the show with me, I was very well-liked,” she says. “So I’m a big fan of, ‘Give me five minutes and I’ll win you over.'”
So this time around, Kaplan planned to use the preconception surrounding her attitude to her advantage. “My strategy is that if you go in thinking I was a bully and complete b***h the first time, then at the very least, you don’t think someone will give me a million dollars,” she says. “So if I’m not likeable, but I’m also not [biting], you might ride with me. You might decide, ‘She’s kind of the perfect person to bring to the end.'”
And though she might not have gotten along with everyone in Gabon, this season, Kaplan hoped to develop real relationships with her fellow competitors. “Something that’s really important to me is making real connections,” she says. “It’s a big sticking point for me. If I pick my alliances, I want to pick people that I really like.”
Of course, her first time playing the game, Kaplan learned the hard way the game of telephone that goes through the tribes when you rib another cast member outside of confessionals. “One of the major errors I made [my first season] was I talked smack about the other tribe, not realizing that they would shuffle the tribe around a lot,” she says. “You really can’t talk smack about someone on the other tribe, because eventually you might end up playing side-by-side with them.”
But would she treat those she didn’t care for — like Sugar in Gabon — any differently this season? “I’m a firm believer that no one is a fan of Sugar,” she says. “And if you met her and spent five seconds with her in an elevator, you would immediately want to stab your eyes out. [So] honestly, I would have done the exact same thing. I would have tried to torture her and get her thrown out.”
With the new season premiering Wednesday night, it’s only a matter of time before we learn whether or not Kaplan will clash with another cast member. But fans should not be worried about whether this season of Fans vs. Favorites will live up to the popular first season, Survivor: Micronesia — Fans vs. Favorites. “[While] they’re both called Fans vs. Favorites and the concept is similar, the personalities and the people involved are always different,” Kaplan says. “That’s why Survivor is a show that has been around for so long — it’s different every time.”
Follow Lindsey on Twitter @LDiMat.
[Photo Credit: Monty Brinton/CBS]
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