By John Powell – GlobalTV.com

John Powell: So great to be talking to you, Steven. How are you doing today?

Steven Ramm: I’m doing great. I mean, I wish it was under different circumstances, but I’m so honored and excited to talk to you, John. It’s always great when I get to talk about the game I love so much and that I just got done playing. So, it’s always a great day when that happens.

John Powell: I have to ask about the elephant in the room right away. Steven, do you have a space fact for us?

Steven Ramm: I do, man, but how much time do you have? (laughs) I don’t know if I want to eat up all the time giving it to you but I’ll just say this: There’s a really cool moon. It’s the biggest moon around Saturn. It’s called Titan and it rains methane. It has methane lakes and oceans there. It has weather patterns.

It’s the only object in our solar system that I know of that has weather and four seasons the way the Earth does but I always just picture methane as smelling like cow farts, you know? I just imagine this world that smells like cow farts. I wonder, if there were intelligent life that evolved there, if they’d visit Earth and maybe they expel as a bodily function oxygen as part of their waste and they’d be like, “This place smells like farts.” So, it’s all a matter of perspective. (laughs)

John Powell: We saw you drop space facts at the challenge. Where did that all come from? Was it a running gag throughout the whole season?

Steven Ramm: Yeah, a little bit. So before I went on Survivor, I was convinced I wasn’t going to tell people what my career was because I was worried that people would think, “Rocket science, this guy’s smart, gotta get him out.” You’re out there and you’re talking to people, like, there’s so much downtime outside of gameplay and it’s such a big part of my life and who I am and what I’m passionate about. I just light up when people give me a platform to talk about stupid space facts. (laughs) So, I made a decision, literally in the moment, that I was going to read the members of my Hina tribe and see if it was something they’d hold against me. They just seemed so genuine and authentic, we were all bonding together so I’m so happy that I said that.

Being on Hina, we’re sleeping on the beach and in Fiji there’s no light pollution, so you can see the Milky Way in her beautiful splendor. It was beautiful! So we’re sitting out there, and people were like, “Hey Steven, tell us some stuff about space.” It became a nightly thing. It would put them to sleep (laughs) and that’s kind of what the running gag was. Even at the merge people would ask me for space facts so when the time came and they were like, “Dude, we need to take our mind off this excruciating pain in our lower torsos right now during this endurance challenge,” I was like, “Talk about space? Say no more.”

John Powell: That’s amazing! On the way to Tribal Council, leading up to Tribal Council last night, did you have any clue that you were going to be on the outside?

Steven Ramm: I mean, there were signs, you know? But, there were signs in the previous votes I had been in too. So, I’m not going to lie. I was completely blindsided, completely shocked. There are always doubts, especially when you know your name is being thrown out there. You second-guess every single conversation.

But I’ll say this: we got back from the immunity challenge, and I remember Kristina and Sage having a really long conversation on the beach. Afterwards, Kristina came and filled me in on what was talked about and she had kind of let it slip that I was in the conversation as someone that might be voted out.

I was like, “Why was I even being considered? I thought the three of us were locked in. What’s going on?” And Kristina was like, “Oh no, sorry, sometimes I slip, sometimes I say things I don’t mean. That was just one of those moments.”

But then immediately after that conversation, Kristina went back and talked to Sage again one-on-one, which was unusual as you usually you make the rounds. The fact that she doubled back to me, I was like, “Are they getting their story straight? What’s up?” So that’s why I was like, I need to talk to Sage later.

I went and chatted with Rizo. Rizo and I had started making some headway, getting to know each other more, talking more game. Mostly, I think he was just trying to figure out if he was right about what my advantage was but I was also trying to maybe build a bridge in case he’d be willing to flip or take me to the final three.

I remember saying, “Hey, Kristina said the strangest thing to me,” and he was like, “Oh, you know Kristina, that’s just how she is. Don’t even worry about it. Don’t even worry about it.” And I’m like, “Why are you defending Kristina to me? Wouldn’t this be an opportunity for you to drive a wedge between us?” So the fact that he was coming to her defence was another red flag.

But honestly, even with all those things, the numbers made sense to me. I was like, “It’s in everyone’s best interest to go from three-on-three to now we can go into final five together, in the majority, and really have our choice of who to move forward with.” I think I just underestimated how much they wanted to move me forward. So that was my blind spot.

John Powell: You were stuck in a rock and a hard place. You had these people you were working against, everybody knew where everyone stood, and then you had allies you didn’t know if you could trust. So you’re stuck in this middle predicament. Given how Sage played back and forth, you must have been wary of her even though you wanted to work with her, because again, you’re stuck in the middle.

Steven Ramm: I probably, in hindsight, should have been a little more skeptical of Sage’s intentions and loyalty but to be honest, Sage and Kristina had been loyal to the soil for me this entire game. Kistina all the way back to OG Hina. I really want to apologize. When I was calling her a “sloppy player” I was just frustrated with the situation. She’s awesome and she played an incredible game and she should be incredibly proud. I’m sorry for throwing her under the bus like that.

They had proven to me through multiple votes that they were with me. Sage could have easily voted me out when it was a 3–1 split pre-merge. The easy thing would have been to get rid of the yellow member and go into the merge with more Uli numbers but they kept me. I was able to talk my way out of that.

At the merge, that first vote, I was on the chopping block again, and Sage again voted with me to keep me over Nate. She looped me in on every vote. She told me last-minute that things were switching to Alex that round, so I knew where the votes were going.

We agreed that it made sense for me to vote the incorrect way. That was going to do two things: not tip off how closely Sage, Jawan, and I were working together and rebuild trust that Sage and Jawan had broken with their former Uli members by voting with them two votes in a row. We were trying to lower their guard so we could blindside Savannah the next vote. We didn’t account for “Yellow Sophie” having the jump on us which was an incredible move on her part.

So I trusted them. I felt that they’d been loyal to me. We’d had each other’s backs and I thought that would carry forward even though I had these little alarm bells going off.

John Powell: I want your perspective on this, because I’ve heard from some other contestants that one reason people didn’t move against Rizo and Savannah was because they seemed like leaders, like they had a prominent place. What was the general consensus about them?

Steven Ramm: They were definitely powerful players. They were good strategic players. Just having a conversation with Savannah and she pulls on that journalism mindset. She’s so good at extracting information from you without giving anything away. I was always nervous talking to her because she was so good at that.

And Rizo? I think he was playing it up that he was this young goofy guy but you could tell he was extremely sharp. He would stroke his moustache and you could tell he was running through scenarios. He’s a huge superfan. I was intimidated by his knowledge of the game and how confident he was at his age. I wish I had an ounce of his confidence. He’s remarkable.

We definitely saw them as big players and big threats to win but at the end of the day, it matters what the jury thinks. I felt I had a lot of friends on the jury and I didn’t think the idol-flexing was landing with the jury the way Rizo thought it was. You’d look over and see them rolling their eyes or scoffing, like they showed last night.

To me, it was theatrics but it did influence how we moved through the game. We always had to consider the possibility that he’d play it and he knew that. There was a method to the madness.
They were definitely seen as threats. That’s why I wanted to move against them so badly so many times. When we got to final five or six, I was like, “We’ve got to get rid of one of them so we can have the numbers at final five and pick them off.” They were going to be really strong to beat in the final three. They had incredible resumes.

I saw them for the threat they were. I didn’t understand why the target kept moving but I was in self-preservation mode, trying to downplay my own threat level. I was happy to seem unaware, like I was just this golden retriever happy to be there but in reality, I felt I had a pretty good story if I made it to the end. Whether I would have won, I don’t know.

John Powell: You were already at your wits’ end physically and emotionally, and then you get a challenge where you have to run around an island. What was going on during that? It was amazing.

Steven Ramm: I went on Survivor to challenge myself, to get outside my comfort zone, and really push beyond the edges of my comfort level. This felt to me, outside the game, like a very personal moment, something I’d look back on as a growth opportunity.

For me, I was like, “Dude, this is do or die. This is what people come on Survivor for. It’s just me against the elements and myself.” I had nothing left in the tank. You’re completely running on empty, that little indicator is below the E line, so what can you make happen?

I never stopped running. I never stopped moving. I came back and the tide looked like it was at the same level, and I was like, “I could have walked a little bit, I killed myself,” but I’d do it again in a heartbeat. It was a test of myself but I also wanted to win that advantage so badly. Would I have loved it to be a little more powerful than a block-a-vote? Sure. But, I was just happy to get any advantage. It gave me a new life.

That was the moment where, rather than minimizing my threat level, I finally could go on the offensive. I had been waiting to mess with people the way they were playing mind games. I was like, “This is my chance to flip the script.” It was fun while it lasted. I wish it lasted longer, but that journey was incredible.

John Powell: What has surprised you the most watching everything back?

Steven Ramm: I’ve been impressed by a lot of people. There are so many conversations I’m not privy to. People are good at managing their threat level.

I was really impressed by “Blue Sophie’s” pre-merge game. I knew she had to be doing something right for her and Alex to be the only two to survive the quote-unquote disaster tribe but I was blown away that she had Knowledge is Power and held it for so long. She was such a good social player.

I was blown away by “Yellow Sophie”. Both in the game, I had completely underestimated her, and then she orchestrated two crazy blindsides. She was a masterful liar. She lied to my face. There was a moment where she broke down crying and faked tears. I thought they were real tears. Oscar goes to Sophie Segretti, hats off!

Also, I thought Sage and Jawan were a little more with me than they were. I knew they were super tight. I knew out of the Bottoms Up Three, of course I was on the bottom because they were OG day-one Uli members but I was a little surprised to see Sage had told Jawan about the idol Kristina had. I thought we’d both tell him together. I did trust Jawan, but I was nervous, sometimes he didn’t have the best poker face, and I worried he might inadvertently let something slip. Sage had a great poker face.

In hindsight, I should have expected her to tell him as that’s her number one. That was a bad read on my part. Those are moments where I’m like, “Steven, you could have done better.” But overall, I’m impressed by people.

John Powell: Is there anything on the show, a moment, a bond, a strategic move, that you wish fans would have seen and as a Survivor a juror, what qualities are you looking for in a winner?

Steven Ramm: Let me answer the first question. Going back to old Hina, we were suffering a little bit from success. We didn’t get as much airtime because we were winning and never had to test our bonds at Tribal but we had a lot of really good alliances. MC played an incredible game, Jason played an incredible game. The three of us formed an alliance on day two that we called Sandy Cheeks because we were bonding over our love for SpongeBob and video games and we were in the sand. If we had all made it to the merge that would have been our tight three. I felt a little bad that didn’t get shown. Jason is a brilliant game player.

And Matt? Matt honestly has so many incredible layers I’ve gotten to know outside the game. He’s more than meets the eye in so many ways. He’s one of the coolest people I’ve ever met. He’s obviously one of the best survivalists. I wish more of Matt’s layers could have been shown. If he had made it farther, they would have for sure. But both of them, incredible people. I wish we had more of a chance to work together. We called it the Early Bird Alliance…I loved him. Those bonds were genuine.

In terms of what I look for in a winner: intent. There’s a big element of luck, and I want people to own when things just happen to go their way. Game awareness, understanding when things are luck, not taking credit for moves that weren’t yours. But intent, if your intention was to lay low, or to do something, explain that. Be able to explain your game, whether the move blew up in your face or not. Showing intent earns a vote from me.

I put some stock in physical competitions, but social game and strategy are the two pinnacles I value most. Winning immunity matters too. It’s a three-fold thing. I know that’s a cop-out, but if I had to summarize it in one word, it’d be intent.