Hieu Turner of Bennington says that for as long as he can remember, he has been obsessed with “Survivor,” the long-running reality television show that pits contestants against one another in an outdoor survival challenge. In early September, Turner realized a version of his dream by competing in “Survive LRG,” an eight-day live reality game challenge in Illinois.
“It was pretty intense,” Turner said. “Some things were definitely harder than I thought. I didn’t shower or brush my teeth for six days, we only got three cups of rice the whole time, I lost weight for sure. It was just an incredible experience.”
Turner said his six days in the game pushed him to new physical limits.
“I did not get a lot of sleep, because I didn’t bring a sleeping bag—most people brought that as their one luxury item, but I brought a pack of cards,” he said. “I was eventually able to get a sleeping bag from a friend who got voted off after a few days. But operating with no sleep and very little food definitely affected my cognitive abilities.”
Turner says the drama that happens in the “Survivor” TV show “is not made up.”
“When you put people out there with not enough food or sleep, they are going to get snippy at some point,” he said. “That happened a few times in this game, and people were like ‘whoaaa!'”
After being selected as a cast member for “Survivor LRG,” Turner flew to McHenry, Illinois, to take part in the game with 20 other contestants. Turner said he was impressed with the racial and gender diversity of the “Survive LRG” cast, which included men, women and people of many races and orientations.
“Survive LRG,” Turner’s second LRG experience, is one of many fan-created live reality games that are not formally affiliated with the TV show but closely follow the format of “Survivor.”
Turner’s first LRG experience was at “Survivor Roysan” in Northfield.
“Survivor Roysan didn’t go great because I got voted off pretty quickly. That’s just the way it goes with ‘Survivor,” and there is some luck involved for sure, but as a ‘superfan,’ I had higher expectations for myself,” Turner said. “Then someone from that game told me about ‘Survive,’ and I decided to give it another try.”
Turner said after his experiences at “Survivor Roysan,” he had not intended to make friends at “Survive LRG,” but during the eight-day adventure, he ended up creating deep bonds with a small group of his castmates.
“I went in there thinking I would just be all strategy and that I wouldn’t care about people, but then I ended up really liking a lot of the people. Being out there with no phones and no distractions, you bond in a really different, much deeper way, ” Turner said.
According to Turner, because “Survivor” games are highly strategic, each cast member “is immediately sizing up everyone else.”
“I’m a Survivor Superfan, which can either work for me or against me. People may not want to compete against me, but they also know I can probably be an asset,” he said. “You just have to be yourself and be honest. If people like you, they’re not going to care that you’re a superfan.”
Turner said the most surprising thing about the “Survive” experience was learning how far he was able to push himself in both physical and emotional endurance, given the lack of sleep and calories.
“You don’t want to be that person who loses a challenge for your team; you’ll just work so much harder for a group, and you’ll just push way past what you think you’re capable of,” he said. “I couldn’t believe how far we went on some of the challenges.”
Turner is proud that he made it to day six before being voted off, at which point, the alliances between players were becoming intense.
“I’m glad I got voted out at that point, because I didn’t have to turn on anyone. I was really psyched I was chosen to be part of the jury, so I was involved until the very end,” he said.
Turner says he was impressed with the quality of “Survive LRG.”
“They actually had the host come in on a helicopter, and then the helicopter came back and dropped dodgeballs, which broke us into teams, so that was a pretty cool way to start,” he said. “Later, I won a challenge and got to ride in the helicopter, and that was really great.”
Turner said that at “Survivor Roysan,” he kept his personality under wraps, but at “Survive,” he decided to be himself.
“In Northfield, I didn’t want to stand out, so I was pretty quiet. But this time, I was just myself — I’m pretty outgoing and bubbly, and this time, I had five people come up to me right away and say they wanted to work with me,” he said.
Turner has been training for “Survivor” since he was 11 years old, when he asked his dad, Walter, if he could have a Survivor-themed birthday party at their home in Bennington.
“When we first did it, we didn’t really know what we were getting into — we definitely didn’t know we would keep going for 10 years,” Turner said. “As the years progressed, it got bigger and bigger, and by junior year in high school, I started filming the whole thing and editing it, and that was probably the start of me being interested in film school. It was cool to be able to have the tapes to re-live it.”
Turner, who attended The Well School and ConVal, is a film and television studies graduate of Drexel University. He currently works at Shivoo Studios in Jaffrey, and he hopes to one day work in television editing.
Hieu’s dad, Walter Turner, a carpenter, looks back fondly on the family’s 10 years of “Survivor” parties.
“Every parent has their special thing they do with each of their kids, and we just had kind of an unusual thing, which was the ‘Survivor’ parties,” Walter Turner said.
The elder Turner recalls that months of planning went into each party.
“We would literally start planning next year’s party the day after. I remember writing elaborate notes on paper restaurant menus; we would argue about challenges; sometimes Hieu wouldn’t agree with me. We would talk about successes and failures of challenges. Sometimes the contestants will ‘break’ a challenge or take it in a direction you don’t want it to go in, and you have to plan around that,” Walter Turner said.
Walter Turner says that as a professional carpenter, he loved figuring out how to build the challenges from the “Survivor” TV show, such as puzzle boxes and a table maze.
“I would look at something on the show, and I would say, ‘I can build that thing!’ But after a while, the rule was only one big build project a year because it was expensive and just the time and work involved. We also did smaller things like puzzles. That was the really fun part for me, building the challenges,” Walter Turner said.
Hieu Turner says his dad was “all in” with the parties.
“It was a huge bonding thing for me and my dad. We pretty much planned from June to June. We would talk about it until probably March, and then from March to June, my dad would just work on it full-time. He does kind of miss it now, but it was a lot of work,” Hieu Turner said.
Hieu said while he loved being the host, after the family stopped doing parties, he still had “the itch to play.”
“The only bad thing about the parties was that I never got to play. I always played the host role, and of course, I helped design all the challenges, so it would not have been fair for me to compete,” Turner said. “My friends used to say, ok, if you play, we’re going to vote you off first!”
Walter Turner says he was a little nervous watching Hieu compete in “Survive LRG,” because “you never know what’s going to happen, and things change fast.”
“I kept up with ‘Survive’ on YouTube as best I could, but Hieu came home before I could finish watching,” Walter Turner said. “When he got home, I told him, ‘No spoilers!’ I had to watch the end and catch up before we could talk about it.”
Walter Turner said the best part of “Survive LRG” was watching his son compete in the same six-part puzzle challenge that he had once built for one of Hieu’s parties.
“I was watching it on YouTube and thinking, ‘Hieu must be jumping out of his skin, he knows how to solve this one, we actually built that one!’ ” Turner said. “And I have to say, Hieu’s friends from ConVal solved it a lot quicker than the adults in ‘Survive.’ ”
Hieu says he is definitely up for another “Survive LRG” game, and he will continue trying out for “Survivor.”
“I try out every year. They have tens of thousands of people trying out for 36 spots a year,” he said. “But I’m not giving up.”