After annoying his tribemates for 16 days and beating the odds at numerous Tribal Councils, Nico Hinis's torch struggled to snuff out when he eventually got unanimously eliminated in Sunday's seventh episode of Survivor SA.
I caught up with him on Monday to see if he had anything else to say besides madly muttering Brigitte's name in loathing:
Tashi: Hey Nico - how are you after watching the episode?
Nico: It’s strange, watching was like going to my own funeral actually. Knowing the expected.
Tashi: The Immunity Challenge – surely you out of everyone should have clung on for dear life. Why were you so useless?
Nico: You know, for the whole duration of the forty minutes we were firm and strong whereas the Rana tribe were hanging for their lives. Then, within 30 seconds, I don’t even know what happened but the bottom floorboard just disappeared - boom. I don’t even an answer.
Tashi: From how it looked it was you who was directly responsible.
Nico: Well, yes, but obviously, the first person will fall when they let go ‘cos your feet give way. I can’t explain it. After forty five minutes, thinking we had it wrapped within the first fifteen minutes, it just fell away. We were like puppets on a string, they just snipped us, boom - well me.
Tashi: Your fave person Brigitte said you kept shifting arms.
Nico: It was impossible just to hold on and at times everybody had to do it. You obviously had to change your style of hands and that’s what I was doing.
Tashi: If Brigitte had been voted out and you’d stayed, what would your strategy for the rest of the game have been?
Nico: For me it would have been the start of Survivor because it would have been the first time I’d have been in control of my own destiny. Individual immunity would be everything and for the very first time I probably could have won one of those challenges and got people on my side as opposed to me fighting throughout the whole game.
It was a ding-dong battle for me with lots of curveballs - Jude leaving and bringing new people onto the island like Danielle. With one foot in the pot and another in the grave it was a challenge for me from Day 1.
The merger would have changed things around. I would have played a much harder game. Obviously I would have wanted to go into the merger four strong to have the edge but unfortunately Aguila are now three strong and I can clearly see that they’ll be picked off one by one.
Tashi: Yup, they seem very doomed. If you’d gone in three strong like this, with Mzi and Vanessa - what would your plan have been to try to avoid this happening?
Nico: Knowing that alliances are crucial - I was quite the Lone Ranger, I never had my alliances lined up - I would have formed alliances immediately, obviously with Mzi to start off with and tried to pick up two more from the other tribe as a back-up.
Tashi: Would you have stayed loyal to Mzi right until the end?
Nico: Until I didn’t need him, yes. Eventually, if it got the final two and the Jury had to vote - that’s where I would have changed the game plan. Taken Mzi all the way through with me to the end or vice versa.
Tashi: Did you guys have an odd unspoken alliance that you never discussed?If so, why didn’t make it something that was concrete? You obviously irritated him as well but there was the sense that there was something more that you never followed through on.
Nico: You’re right and I probably could have gone through to the merger if I’d just reserved myself a little bit.
By the time we got to the Tribal Council I was just lashing out at them and even in that one part where I said I was ready to leave the game, he put his hands on his head as if to say: “Nico, don’t say that.” and then my name came up three times.
Tashi: But why you didn’t try to get him alone and talk to him properly before?
Nico: He was so wrapped up in the girls, you know men, he was never threatened. They were there for him, they were always asking, “What can we do?” etc etc, they were in too deep.
Whether I’d lost the challenge or not, I was definitely going, they’d made up their minds already. Obviously Mzi also saw taking the girs through as being better than taking me because he knew I was a definite threat in the individual challenges.
Tashi: Has he made a mistake keeping Brigitte?
Nico: Those girls will definitely snake him somewhere along the line, without a doubt and that’s how it is. In my heart I want Mzi to win as the true Sole Survivor which I think he is but unfortunately I definitely see a woman winning.
In fact, I see two women in the final and they’ll use him to fish along and they’ll chew him up and spit him out. He has no alliances with guys. I also see all the guys going first.
Tashi: What about his comments when he said he’d be seen as a chauvinist if he didn’t keep the women?
Nico: That wasn’t him talking. I think he was looking further to after the Tribal Council to the Jury and thought they’d say: “It’s Mzi calling the odds, he’s the so-called ring leader.”
I can assure you’d he’d have a better chance having a guy with him because the women tend to lay low. They’re there but they’re quite invincible. If you look at the history of Survivor, the women who’ve won it, you barely even saw them. If Sanele had still been in the tribe and it was the three of us, the girls would have gone.
Tashi: I’d like to read you a quote from an interview I did with Jude about why everyone unanimously blindsided you in episode two.
“We would sit by the fire and we would speak about Rana and he would speak negatively about them. He would pick on people and say negative things and when we had a challenge he would question the judges saying things like: “Are you checking Rana because everyone’s just checking Aguila,” and stuff like that.”
Nico: It was the skeleton head challenge. I’m still puzzled about it because if you recall in the final round when it was one-all, Rana had dropped their skulls three times and the next second Mark says: “Rana wins immunity.” I was puzzled and I was just questioning the actual challenge. Negative? That’s not negative. I was trying to find out why we actually lost it.
I wasn’t gonna be like the Rana tribe, losing-losing-losing and never questioning. Losing’s not an option for me. I wasn’t pointing fingers, I just couldn’t understand it because we couldn’t see what was going on but I definitely heard him say: “Rana drops another skull, Rana drops another skull,Rana drops another skull” and then in three seconds Rana wins. I was very confused.
Tashi: If you knew that all your constant comments and speaking to fish etc were rubbing everyone up the wrong way, why didn’t you stop?
Nico: I was just being me. I could barely say three words to Brigitte so there was no conversation there, Vanessa never said much - she’s the silent type - and when Mzi and I were alone he used to fish and I used to get bait oysters and snails - there wasn’t really anyone to talk to. The fish was just a moment with the fish. It was a moment.
Tashi: Why didn’t you try to get Brigitte on your side, even if it was an act?
Nico: I don’t know. I don’t think I was desperate enough. It’s like when you want to achieve something you need that burning desire. I wasn’t there for the money, I was there for the experience.
Money you can make on any given day but experiences are priceless and I felt that I’d done enough. I certainly wasn’t going to beat my head in to start alliances to get to the merger. I wanted a sweet sailing trip to the merger and to bring Brigitte onto my side - we’d gone through too much already and it was just progressively getting worse.
I couldn’t tolerate another word coming out of her mouth. One day she said to me: “Where’s my thing?” and I said, “What thing?” and she said: “That thing man, that
thing you put on your head,” and I said to her: “Why don’t you refer to it as a buff or a bandana?” I couldn’t understand her.
You’ve got to give the producers credit, they mixed their personalities up. Nobody knows that when we arrived at the airport, she was showing everybody a photograph of herself in the FHM magazine and I said to myself: “Is this what we’re going to deal with?”
When I was missing my children, she was missing her cellphone. For me, girls like this, I used to date them 25 years ago.
Tashi: Did she really show her picture to everyone?
Nico: Absolutely - why don’t you ask the other contestants? I looked at the picture and I said,” But where are you?” and she said, “No, no, here I am.” And I said, “I just can’t recognize you.”
Tashi: You’ve had this mutual loathing throughout but there’s never been anything concrete about why you don’t like each other.
Nico: She had it in for me from the time I voted for her in Plan B. When they all turned and voted for me, she obviously had it in for me voting for me. She’s going to face another Nico rest assured. There’s no ways she’s getting off lightly.
Tashi: Unless of course she wins and is a millionaire.
Nico: Never. Never say never but she won’t get through all the way. She’ll meet another Nico, maybe in Jacinda or in Zayn. I’m intrigued to watch to see but the little I know about Rana and also the few words she’d say about Jacinda. I said to her: “But why do you dislike Jacinda?” and she said, “No, no I just dislike her.” Girl talk.
I can assure you that there’s another Nico waiting for her, the only difference is – will everyone be as forward as I was? Everybody seemed to be so diplomatic and well-mannered and polite. What does it all mean?
They’re afraid of what people might think. We’re just all porn stars in a reality game. No, wait, let me re-phrase that, we’re all pawns in a game being picked off one by one.
Tashi: Your cigarettes - talk about those for a bit.
Nico: A very sensitive subject. I had them and it was a good move on Brigitte's part to remove them. She obviously knew I’d get my back up somewhere along the line but I also left them with a nice gift to remind them of me which you’re about to see next week.
Tashi: Can you tell us right this moment?
Nico: When I left I made sure that I took all their flints. Remember these words from me: The ghost of Nico will return.
My only mistake was not dangling them in my last interview because I would have said “Now spark on this. You can have all the cigarette’s in the world but without this, you light nothing.”
Tashi: So you never found your cigarettes?
Nico: At one stage I thought it was the producers who took them to put the cat amongst the pigeons but they stayed very far away and then I realized it was Brigitte. Everyone smoked them as well.
Tashi: Who? All of them?
Nico: Yes, Jude, Brigitte, Vanessa and by the time Danielle came over, I think they were finito. She was also a smoker. There I was crying Killing Me Softly without my cigarettes and they all had these smirks on their faces. They should apply for the Smurf show.
Tashi: Before they got stolen, did they smoke them too?
Nico: Yes because I shared them - although there were only a certain amount for the days in the month.
Tashi: Did you cope without them in the end?
Nico: Initially it was hard but towards the end it got easier. Also, they’d been company for me and my companion. I’d pass time and go up to the hills. After the fish cigarettes would go down beautifully.
Tashi: How much have you smoked since you left?
Nico: Everybody’s called me Puff Daddy and Nicotine and Daniel Day Lewis and Ringer of the Porn Stars but in fact I’m quite a disciplined smoker.
I must brush my teeth and have my coffee before I have one and I won’t die if I don’t have for an X amount of hours but I enjoy my cigarettes. I’ve always said that you can drop me off anywhere in the world - just give me a packet of Camels and a couple of coffee beans and I’ll build you an empire.
EndsPS: Daniel Day Lewis? What does he have to do with smoking??