Courtesy of: TV GUIDE, INTERVIEWWS & FEATURES
Survivor: Micronesia's Fans Vote Off Another Strong Player by Nina Hämmerling Smith
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Michael Bortone, Survivor: Micronesia — Fans vs. Favorites
Boston native Michael Bortone — better known as Mikey B. — was the latest person voted off Survivor: Micronesia — Fans vs. Favorites (Thursdays at 8 pm/ET, CBS), thanks to yet another power play by Airai tribe mate Joel. Now living in L.A., aspiring actor and writer Mikey B. told us how he really feels about his fellow fans, what we can expect from a merge and why the favorites are starting to dominate.
TVGuide.com: So, Mikey B., what happened?
Michael Bortone: Joel was jealous of me and conspired to get me off.
TVGuide.com: How did you find out you were on the chopping block?
Mikey B.: I tried to speak to Alexis during the day to ask her some questions, and I really didn't get a straight answer from her. I asked her for one favor: to ask Natalie who she was voting for. One minute before tribal council, she told me that it was Jason. So going in, I was thinking it was going to be Jason, and not Chet; I didn't think it was going to be me. Though I wasn't going to be surprised if it was me.
TVGuide.com: How is it possible that Chet is still around? He's clearly struggling physically.
Mikey B.: That is the million-dollar question, isn't it? I have no idea. Even if Joel had it out for me, I do not understand how Natalie, Alexis and Erik could actually vote to keep Chet on the island. There is nothing that he brought to the table. He was absolutely, 100 percent useless. I'm sure he is a good guy, I've got nothing against anybody personally — not even Joel. There's no hard feelings between me and Chet. I don't have anything negative to say against him as a person; it was all game play.
TVGuide.com: What's your take on the divide in the Airai tribe?
Mikey B.: From the beginning, the older folks alienated themselves from us, and at the same time, we alienated ourselves from them. It just seemed to happen naturally. You're not going to have Kathy chopping down wood with a machete when you've got Joel and big boys to do it. So Kathy and Chet got stuck to laundry and water duty, and they kind of took offense to it. That pissed off some of our team, and it kind of spread. And then three days later, after we'd made 17 failed shelters, Tracy decided to tell us that she builds houses. She did not tell anyone what she did for a living, except Alexis, and she actually blamed Alexis for not telling us. And Alexis was like, "It's not my duty to tell them." The fact that she kept that from us was absolutely absurd and she deserves to go because of it.
TVGuide.com: Let's get back to Joel. The guy is out for blood!
Mikey B.: It's paranoia on the island — you're looking over your shoulder and you panic. He never was able to relax. Maybe he should've had some Zoloft or whatever, some anxiety medicine, to calm him down a little bit.
TVGuide.com: Why did he pick you as his main adversary?
Mikey B.: Instead of using me to his benefit, he went against me. But at the same time, [if you're Joel] you're showing your cards by saying that nobody can trust you. If you can do this to me this early, then you're not trustworthy. I'm sure it'll get him in the long run.
TVGuide.com: Why are people going along with him?
Mikey B.: He convinced the girls of the tribe that he is a dedicated family man — which he is, I don't doubt that. But the family stories day and night and morning and day and night and morning... it just put the girls in a trance. They're like, "Aw, you're so sweet, you're so cute." They didn't see that he was a Neanderthal and he had hair growing out of every part of his body. They were smitten by his dedication to his family, and therefore they thought that his loyalty to them would be true to the end.
TVGuide.com: How is that going to play out?
Mikey B.: I think it would have worked well if the tribes had stayed separate, but now that the tribes are going to mix [as we saw in the preview for next episode], I think he's in trouble. The information is going to leak to the favorites that he was the one behind all of this, and they're experienced. They're going to be like, "Well, screw you, you're not trustworthy. We're not keeping you around."
TVGuide.com: Why are the fans struggling so much at the challenges?
Mikey B.: It's a combination of lack of cohesiveness between us and lack of strategy; we're not on the same page. Nobody's volunteering suggestions. We have some weak players on our tribe who are hurting us. We could not agree on anything. Our tribe was cancerous. And the favorites have so much experience. They won [last week's] reward challenge before it even started, just by having Ozzy, who's half-man, half-fish, move all the coconuts to the front. Game over.
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Posted 05 January 2008 - 09:54 PM
