Jeff Probst Reveals ‘The Biggest Part’ of the ‘Survivor’ Casting Process
Survivor is one of the most famous TV shows around. Given its huge popularity, numerous people have applied to be a part of its cast. Jeff Probst recently revealed some details about its casting process and shared what “the biggest part” of it is.
The casting process is now done over FaceTime
Probst recently released a podcast called On Fire with Jeff Probst, where he gives fans behind-the-scenes access to Survivor. During the March 15 episode, called “Choosing the Castaways,” Probst talked about how the contestants are cast. One fact he shared is that the process now takes place over FaceTime, which is a change from how it used to be done.
“We used to … fly everyone to L.A., and we would meet them for the first time in L.A.,” he said. “That was exciting, but there’d be people where you’re like, ‘Oh, that’ll never work.’ Well, now we’ve figured out we can change that part of the process and figure that part out over FaceTime so that the people we’re flying to L.A. are only people that we wanna meet.”
Probst also specified that his FaceTime calls with the prospective contestants are one-on-one and that they are more like casual conversations as opposed to job interviews. “I just get a cup of coffee, turn on FaceTime, dial the number, and see who’s on the other end,” he shared. “And we just talk for 10 minutes. That’s it.”
What Jeff Probst says is ‘the biggest part’ of the casting process
According to Probst, “the biggest part” of the casting process is trying to figure out “authenticity” among the interviewees.
“Authenticity is what connects to a player,” he explained. “Every player you’ve ever loved has one thing in common—they’re authentically true to who they are … You just gotta trust that who you are is who you should be.”
He added, “We don’t care who you are. We just want to know ‘who are you?’”
Contestants also go through psychological evaluations
Related: ‘Survivor’: Jeff Probst Only Casts Contestants He Can Imagine Winning
To get to the depth of who someone is, prospective contestants also go through psychological evaluations conducted by qualified professionals. “These tests are designed to learn about your behavior,” Probst said. “A lot of people might have heard of the Myers-Briggs test—it’s a very well-known test. It’s not one that we use, but we use tests like that.”
However, it is not a one-step process where a person takes a test and gets a result. Probst explained that they would also have discussions with the psych team about their results, and these talks are also used to learn more about each person.
“[The psychologists] will sit with you and discuss your life,” he said. “It’s a very deep dive into who you are, and it’s extremely personal and very revealing, I think, to the player when they go through this.” Essentially, the Survivor team wants to “paint a distinctive picture” of each contestant.
Probst gave example questions that the psychological evaluations aim to answer: “Who are you? How do you operate? What makes you tick? Are you flexible and resilient? Are you a problem solver? How are you with interpersonal skills? How are you gonna be in new relationships with groups and strangers? How will you fare out in the jungle living in the wild on Survivor?”
Once someone is chosen to be on the show, Probst and other members of the Survivor team have a good idea of their personality and what can be expected from them.
