Meet the 'Survivor 48' Cast! Stephanie Berger Says All Advantages Are Disadvantages

Stephanie Berger admits she's never been fully qualified for anything she's ever done. But the 38-year-old has always made up for a lack of qualifications with leadership skills, confidence, and a personally as boisterous as her laugh that shakes the jungle. It's what allowed her to go from teaching to leading product teams at an e-commerce company to now competing on the island. An avowed reality TV junkie, Stephanie comes into her own unscripted experience knowing she'll need to tamp down on her more "alpha" tendencies to survive. And, true to her analytical mind, she's done a ton of Survivor sabermetrics before coming out, building a pregame manifesto that included not clicking "Add to Cart" on idols and advantages.

Read on for my interview with Stephanie, and check in with Parade.com daily for interviews with this season's contestants and other tidbits. Survivor 48 premieres on Feb. 26 with a two-hour premiere on CBS.

Related: Meet the Full Cast of Survivor 48

Interview with Stephanie from Survivor 48

To start, give me your name, age, and occupation.
I'm Stephanie Berger. I'm 37 years old, and I am a technical product manager, so I lead product teams at an e-commerce company.

Have you always worked in a corporate environment?
Good question. No. So I started out my career doing something totally different. I was a public school teacher. I taught as part of the Teach For America program. I moved to New Orleans in 2008. Most people teach for two years; I stuck around and taught for eight years. It was really cool. It was awesome, and it was a really fantastic challenge. But at some point, I realized that I needed to make more than like, $56,000 a year, and decided to go to business school. So I went to the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth in 2016, and then was recruited to the company I worked for after that. So I've worked my way up the corporate ladder a little bit. Been lucky enough to be promoted, had new opportunities. But it certainly was not what I started doing out of college.

Well, that's all about making transitions and changes of your own volition. "This is something I have in my mind. I'm gonna get it done." Feels very transferable to the game of Survivor.
I mean, very transferable to just getting on Survivor, right? To say, like, "Wait a second, here is a dream of mine. Here's a goal. It is wildly ambitious, and there's going to be lots of people who say that it can't be done, or maybe even the doing of it is not worth my time or worthwhile." And just going and doing it anyway, which is very much my style.

Let's get into what got you here in the first place, that got you to pursue this dream. What's your history with watching Survivor, and what made you decide to go from fan to player?
So I started watching Survivor during the pandemic. Like a lot of people, I was a Survivor OG watcher. I watched with my parents on the couch, the same way that 55 million people watched that year. I saw Richard Hatch's whole ass on television, or whatever it was. I remember that pretty vividly. I must have been 13-ish. But I came back to Survivor in the pandemic. I had just made it through all of Love Island UK. And once you've conquered something that has 55 episodes a season, something with only 40 seasons, you're like, "Oh, 13 episodes? I could do that!" [Laughs.]

So I jumped in. Friends have been recommending it for a long time. I jumped in and was absolutely hooked. Made it through. I think I started with what is proverbially known as "Survivor: Race Wars." Fantastic season, really fun winner. Went down to Season 7, kind of followed the online guides that told me what seasons I should watch. And then, like I normally do, forged a bit of my own path. Was like, "Okay, sure. Amazon's not supposed to be that good. I'm gonna watch it anyway. Whatever."

I love this idea of you getting into Survivor after Love Island. Being like, "Okay, when's the heartbeat challenge? When do they get to pie each other in the face?"
[Laughs.] Oh my god, stop it. Can you imagine if they made us do a heartbeat challenge on Survivor? I mean, I think CBS would not like that. That would not go on Survivor. I mean, what did they do on Love Island, where they read tweets about you? Obviously we can't do that here, but that would be really entertaining, right? Making Q know what the world was saying about him while he was "Q skirting." I think, honestly, it would have only egged him on more.

Or maybe something like, "We'll read Jeff's preseason analysis of you while you're on the island."
Oh, no, no, wait, wait, wait, we've actually gotten to something. They read aloud a Jeff casting note, and then we have to guess. Do you remember those old school whiteboard challenges where you had to be, "Everybody says that so and so eats all the food?" Where you would have to guess who said it. I feel like, if you're really trying to get everybody to go back to camp f–king furious at each other, that might be the move. And actually, we always are gonna get asked our hot takes, our mild takes, whatever.

Well let's go to the whiteboard of Survivor players. Give me one winner and one non-winner who you identify with the most.
I hate this question there. I can't stand this question. First of all, who chooses to identify with non-winners? I'm fully playing there. [Laughs.] I'm so sorry, that was awful. As a white woman, it sounds really obnoxious for me to say this. Because there's been just a plethora of us that have participated. But I actually don't feel like there's been somebody quite like me who has played the game. And so I'm genuinely excited to kind of forge my own path. But there are certainly winners that I look at that I really love and admire. I mean, I look at someone like Tyson who was able to be so genuinely threatening. A competitive cyclist, and I spent a little bit of time learning about competitive cycling before coming out to Survivor; I certainly am not a competitive cyclist. But conceptually, what I learned about how it works is that you're in a line, and you don't want to be the person pushing to the front. Because if you push to the front, then it pushes everybody else to push to the front.

So it's this game. But he was so good at this thing where he does this, like, "I'm not going to be clearly the threat," when he's obviously the biggest threat in this season. And he's able to hold together a really powerful alliance his whole season, really strategically. I appreciate that. Obviously, we love his humor. I always stan a blonde. But that I think when I look back on what he was able to do, and to do it in a way where he also couldn't stand a lot of people, [but] they always thought he liked them. And that's a real chef's kiss sort of a thing.

I love Yam Yam's strategy and humor and the ways that he's able to kind of take those two things and pull them together. I was recently rewatching San Juan del Sur, and Natalie Anderson clapping back at that dude during a challenge. I lived for it! She just snaps at this dude and is like, "Come and hit me." And, man, there's just not a lot of women on television who are heroes, who are saying to somebody like, "Don't play with me. I will take on whatever you want to give me."

So, to that point, I do want to bring up something you wrote in your bio, about how you felt, a la Chaos Kass, that women can't play a Tony or Boston Rob-esque game. That there's something about how a woman with that alpha behavior would get targeted early. Talk to me more about that. How does that incorporate into your game?
Yeah. I mean, people who work with me, people who are on my team at work, would certainly say that I'm an alpha. I'm very deliberate; I'm very intentional. They know what I want. I have exactingly high standards. And I know from my own professional experience that I can't just show up that way. And part of the reason I know that is because I've come into a classroom with ruthlessly high standards and no sense of fun. I know that, when you do that, what ultimately stirs up is discontent and that people don't do their best, or they don't show up as their best, and they don't like you. Or they certainly are not going to vote for you at the end when you show up that way. And so it's a real balance.

And I have never lived in any body besides the one that I am in. So I can't deign to know what it's like to be a man. But I see men who are able to, and I talk to the men I work with, who will openly acknowledge. They're like, "I can say something, and people don't have an attitude about it. And when a woman says it, or you say it, people have an attitude about it." And so I've already learned in my life there is a way of being an alpha that also involves warmth and humor and an overload of empathy that is probably not present in a Boston Rob game, where he's making everybody sit around silently and forcing them to not interact with each other. [Laughs.]

Tony, I get the sense, and it's not super captured on screen. Although I think about Tony and Jeremy doing that like, "How many days are in a week" game, or whatever. And, actually, I don't know either of these men. I'm sure both of them are remarkably warm and loving individuals. But the Boston Rob we saw in the season that he won–and in some seasons that he didn't win–was very exacting and demanding with folks. And Tony can get away with making llama noises at somebody, and people still want to vote for him at the end. I just don't think, as a woman, that we've come as a society far enough where I can bleat at someone like a llama and that I will still win the hearts and minds of the jury. I don't think we're quite there yet. And that's acknowledging the fact that sometimes you do want to like, be mad. But I just don't think you can.

What's your favorite moment in Survivor history?
My favorite moment is Parvati Shallow, direct to camera. I think probably her first on-screen interview, showing up for a segregated season of Survivor and saying, "Is this kosher?" [Laughs.] That is camp. It is so good! And you just immediately think to yourself, "You have more charm and reality TV star prowess in those three words than some people get in a whole season." I live for, "Is this kosher?" I use it in my regular life. [Laughs.] Like, "Is it kosher for us to go into the restaurant before everybody else? What do we think?" It's too good!

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What's one life experience you feel has prepared you most for the game?
I'm gonna give you a combo answer here. Earnestly, I've never been fully qualified for any of the things I've ever done. I was the assistant manager at a boutique when I was in college, just because I was there. I was a public school teacher at 22 and had gone through several weeks of training. And they tried really hard to train us like, and I tried really hard to be good. But still, I'm not sure that I would trust a 22-year-old to do a ton. And I'm sure I'm competing against at least one of them out here, so maybe no knocks on 22-year-olds. [Laughs.] It's fine.

And I showed up to business school having literally zero clue what I was doing. I didn't know anything about a profit and loss statement. I didn't know anything about a supply curve and a demand curve. All I knew about working in retail was clicking the buy button on a website. Then I went to work as an intern at a big e-commerce company, and all I knew was they were gonna pay me half of my teacher's salary to work 12 weeks for the summer. And I thought to myself, "Well, I could stand on my head for 12 weeks if that's what they need me to do. I don't care what project they give me. And if I'm not good, joke's on them."

But I'm willing to take a risk on myself, and I'm willing to do something that lots of people are gonna say, "You probably shouldn't do stuff." And I'm gonna just say, "I'm going to see how it goes." Because I trust myself and because I've got the kind of confidence you get by just putting yourself in the arena over and over again and getting knocked down a few times. I've been fired from jobs. I've gotten terrible feedback from people who've worked for me. I've had projects that I launched ultimately not succeed, and have to be turned off or rolled back., I've had the experience of not being successful. And I'm still here! [Laughs.] And it's the combination of those experiences that is, I think, part of why I get to be on a beach in Fiji. And so, whatever this experience gives me, I'm gonna take it, and I'm gonna do something else really cool with it too.

Give me your biggest superpower and your biggest piece of kryptonite when it comes to this game.
They're the same darn thing, man. So, I wrote myself a five-and-a-half-page manifesto before coming out here. And my computer [went] fully blue screen of death on me literally the day that we flew out. But I wrote my manifesto, and the first guiding principle of it is balance. The reason that all of us are going to be excellent Survivor players is also most likely the reason it's gonna be hard for us to win. That is the magic of Survivor, it's the ambition and cunning and strategy and likability and outgoingness and desire for a million dollars that everybody has. And all those things are why you're gonna be so good at this. And they are also your biggest risk because people will see those things in you. I can't take those parts of my personality and leave them at Ponderosa and not bring them with me to the beach. They're gonna come no matter what. And it's how people interact with those things that will ultimately decide what happens out here.

So I think everything that's gonna make me a good Survivor player out here, I think is also the thing that's gonna be challenging for me out here. I will also add to that, I'm probably–actually, we're gonna take the "probably" out. I'm not the strongest person out here. I can go to CrossFit before coming out here a couple of times a week. But I think we've got somelegitimate college athletes who graduated college two weeks ago, who are here currently. Really, genuinely, very fit people. So I'm not going to be the strongest person out here. And I'm going to have to maneuver around being probably not the best of challenges and hope prayers that I can hold my own, and that I can do myself proud in those circumstances. But that seems hard.

You're someone who works in a leadership position. Is that something you'll try to do on the beach, considering how much of a double-edged sword that is?
What do you mean? I think that the most important thing I could do is show up on Day One and start telling everybody how to do things. I think everybody on my beach is going to be really grateful for the guidance and leadership. [Laughs.] Of course, I'm not coming out here and f–king hitting them with that! [Laughs.] No, I'm gonna have to sit on my hands. I'm gonna literally have to sit on my hands and hold back and allow other people to be in charge, which transparently sounds really nice. I think part of my journey being here will be about letting go of control and being comfortable with being really vulnerable in a massive setting.

And the fact is I can't control what the pictures they took of me today look like, or what my first interview is gonna sound like, or even if it all is absolutely perfect. How people are gonna perceive me, I can't control even right now. How the people sitting in the tent with me, waiting to come talk to you, are perceiving me. They might be like, "She looks really fun," or they might be like, "She looks like a nightmare. I cannot wait to get rid of her." And so letting go of control in all ways, I think, is important. And certainly not taking the lead unless I have to. I desperately do not want to play Dee's game. If that winds up being where I find myself, I think I'm adaptable enough to realize that that's what's happening and then play it the right way. But, oh man, that's hard being the kingpin for much of a season, that's a really hard job. Because people are gonna come for your throne all season long. And she managed to do it without people coming for her throne, which is truly magic. But I don't know; that seems really challenging.

Well, let's talk about some of those people sitting in the chairs. Who are you picking up good vibes from in the preseason?
I'm sitting next to a guy, he has a mustache and fairer colored hair. And every time I look over at his iPod–because we're only allowed to have old-school iPods here–his iPod is playing the same music as mine. That's gotta be my guy, right? He's bumping the new Charli XCX album. Also, I'm playing Cowboy Carter. He's playing Cowboy Carter. We're clearly listening to the same stuff. There's something really nice about we, at a bare minimum, could go to the dance floor together. You could take a dance partner and turn them into an alliance partner!

There's a guy with glasses who keeps asking me, I'm one of the only folks who, I think, brought a watch out here. Note to future Survivor players: Bring a shitty watch to Ponderosa. It's a good idea. That way you can know just how slowly time is moving. And he's asked me the time a couple of times, and there's just a kind energy about him. And I think when you're looking around, I'm not looking for folks who are feeling like gunners, you know? I'm looking for folks who are feeling like they want to work together. Because ultimately, I think that that's at least where we start.

Related: Everything to Know About Survivor 48

Now, let's move to the opposite side. Are there some people in mind that you do not want to work with?
Look, the Cirie Fields tenets for emotional intelligence are you don't cut anybody out. She's never gonna tell you that you should be like, "Oh, I'm not gonna work with that person." But there are some people who are less smiley, less warm, seem super focused. And I wonder how that's going to play out in the game. You got somebody who's jumping in the front of the food line. Are they going to be like that on the beach? We are all wearing masks right now. It is Mardi Gras in there. Everyone's wearing a mask. Everyone's in a costume. But it's a peculiar choice to me for the costume to be, right after we get to the airport, to sit down with your notebook and immediately start scribbling about whoever. I'm taking those, but they're in my head. And I'm writing about my notebook when I get home right like at the end of the day. I'm not trying to do it in front of everybody.

What's your main takeaway from Seasons 45 and 46 that you're bringing into your gameplay?
My biggest takeaway, I mean, I'm sure everybody said this. But play your idol. Play your idol. Get that thing out. There is something happening where people are not accurately assessing the threat level against them. And they're attached to the idol for some reason. And I think it's a bad take. I think you gotta get that thing off you as soon as you can. And you gotta play it in a way that is unconventional. Playing it in a way where you play it for yourself is no longer the best way to do it. Because all it does is make you the target in the next Tribal. But you can't watch people go out four in a row with idols without thinking to yourself, "Hmm, first of all, is production gonna do something about that? And then, second of all, what could we learn from this and potentially do differently?"

You've mentioned some Survivor hot takes earlier. Any others you'd like to highlight?
I mean, I think all advantages at this point are disadvantages.

Interesting. So if you see a Beware Advantage, you're not clicking "Add to Cart"?
No, not an "Add to Cart." No, not for me. Look, I think Bewares are super fun to watch on television. I loved seeing Tiffany scramble. I loved seeing Hunter with his little hands underneath the stairs trying to pull that thing out from underneath. Those are memorable, exciting television moments. Neither of those people won. And I think there is pretty good data. And I did a lot of "Billy Beane-ing" on the side. I have a good friend of mine who helped me put together a lot of analysis. We did a lot of Survivor sabermetrics. And we looked at a bunch of different questions. Is it better or worse to have a final jury that is full of your old tribe mates or not? We did a Monte Carlo analysis of how and when you should play your Shot in the Dark or not. I really looked at some of these data points.

Maybe my medium take is Shot in the Dark actually has a slightly higher good guy percentage to me, and idols have a slightly worse good guy percentage to me. They're less useful. Whereas a Shot in the Dark actually could, in the right scenario, when there's a lot of players in the game, and you're relatively confident their votes are coming at you, not a bad idea to use. Advantages are a disadvantage, and I'm really not interested in them.

And if you look at the winners in the last six seasons–and it's unfortunate I don't have a fortune cookie that tells me what happened in Season 47, but I know it's already happened. But if you look at the winners, there were only two with idols. Maryanne, and Dee had a shared idol. And neither of them played them in conventional ways. Maryanne, I guess, had technically two idols. She plays the one with Drea, and then she plays her idol at final [Tribal Council]. I don't know. I think the data suggests it's not always gonna behoove you. But boy, is it good TV. Don't tell anyone in production that I'm not interested. Because they're gonna litter my walk with them. They're gonna be like, "What about that coconut, Steph? Hey, have you checked this tree also?" Literally, my joke is that I'm gonna say all this stuff in pregame, and then I know I'm gonna do different shit. I'm gonna get out there and be like, "But I wanna look for one! Everybody else has one."

When I was here this time last year, I was talking with Tiffany, and she's like, "I don't know how people just don't shut the f–k up." And then she immediately goes to tell Kenzie and Q she found the idol.
[Laughs.] Don't worry, I know that! And I'm a little bit fangirling right now. I play in a very competitive fantasy league with my work colleagues. And I listened to 18-and-a-half or 22 hours of pregame press, and it is how I pick my winner pick. It's how I figure out my draft. It is very important. I'm very excited to be here, if I have not said that clearly. And this is a very cool experience to be on the other side of this audio. And, also, please no one make me your winner pick. I don't want to be anyone's winner pick. That sounds terrifying. [Laughs.] That's a lot of expectation to live up to.

Well, you know then how I typically end these interviews. What celebrity or fictional character would you bring out for a Loves Ones visit?
Don't worry, I've thought about this one for pretty much as soon as I got the call. I have two. So as you've probably gleaned, I'm a reality TV fan. Survivor is the pinnacle. This is my favorite show. Survivor is America's sport. I cannot believe that I'm on Survivor. I look around, and I'm like, "Oh my god, this is Survivor! Look at the palm trees. Those are the palm trees from Survivor! That's the beach from Survivor! It's really incredible." So I preface this by saying reality TV junkie. So I'm gonna have to go with two reality TV girlies who I just think are both so excellent.

So my first one is Shea Couleé from RuPaul's Drag Race. Shea is, one, a huge Survivor fan, so would be really thrilled to be here. And I guarantee she has some really interesting ideas for strategy, and would be really thoughtful about the strategy that I should be playing, and would have interesting takes on the people around. And I just think [she] is so impressive. I really admire excellence, and I just that's a person who, to me, is so deeply makes their craft look effortless, while you also know that they work so damn hard. And that's something I really admire, and I only could hope to emulate.

Just don't pull off a wig and a bunch of palm fronds fall off. Too much PTSD.
[Laughs.] Shut up, you were holding onto that one. Actually, it'll be a coconut husk. It'll be a coconut husk off my head. Okay, I'm sorry. I may actually do that at some point, just as B-roll footage.

You need to. There's not nearly enough footage of people doing reveals on Survivor nowadays.
[Laughs.] My other person would be Kelly Clarkson. Another reality TV OG all-star. And then has the nicest, warmest energy. And you know that if you brought her out here, first of all, she'd sing the entire time, and then they can't roll. I'm like, "Do Billie Eilish again!" [Laughs.] I mean, that cover of "Happier Than Ever" is very good. But, yeah, someone who would be so supportive and so warm. So I went with reality TV, absolute icon in queens who I think would appreciate the Fiji experience.

Lastly, how are you going to make your mark on Survivor 48 to make sure you return for Season 50?
Look, if I'm back out here for 50, something went wrong. Something went wrong in 48. I only get so many days of PTO. And look, my work has been very kind and very flexible to let me out here this time. I'm not sure I'm gonna get that same grace in 2025; it's a busy season. So, I'm not here with an attempt to make my mark. And I'm sure some people are, and I wish them the best in their mark-making. I'm gonna be me, and ideally, as I've learned in life, if it comes for me, it comes for me. And if it doesn't, that's okay, too.

Next, check out our interview with Survivor 48 contestant Saiounia "Sai" Hughley.