TV Tattler: Celebrity Interviews
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<< Page 1: Les Stroud Interview
I am amazed that you shoot all this footage by yourself. I would just leave the cameras instead of walking back.
[Laughs] If they could find a way to give me little mini-disposable cameras, I'd just leave them up everywhere. That's the part of me that is a passionate filmmaker. I never wanted the show to just be some little home video. I work really hard trying to create imagery that is beautiful and compelling.
Why is so important to do it yourself instead of bringing a cameraman with you?
If I am going to create a true survival situation and actually survive, the only way I can do that is to not have a camera crew. As soon as you have a camera crew you have camaraderie and joking around and say, "Can I have a bite of that Mars bar?" I'm weak. Who is not going to cheat if you have a camera crew? It would be very difficult.
I'm always a little worried you aren't going to make it.
I guess that part of the drama is the terrifying aspect. I'm not terrified out there. I feel good out there and adapt really quick to it. I've always been really comfortable in the wild. There is no terrifying thing to me... except in polar bear territory.
I'd be dead in two days because I ate poison berries.
When I was just in Alaska there was wild celery. Right beside it was poison hemlock. They almost look identical. You've got to be really careful.
I have to ask you about the recent Bear Grylls controversy about him supposedly staying in hotels. Do you think it casts a bad shadow on survival documentaries like yours?
It doesn't cast a shadow on mine, because his is completely different. I'm not there when he makes his show. I've never met Bear, I have nothing to do with that production, so I can't comment on the allegations. If they are true then, as any other viewer, I'm disappointed. I just continue to go out and do what I do and survive on my own and give truest representation of survival that I feel is possible as filmmaker. I don't let that other stuff worry me or get into my psyche.
So you aren't worried that people will be skeptical about how real your show is?
Worried? No. Are the lines going to get blurred? Yeah, that's the business. So I just keep my [goal] in sight and people that watch my show will go, "Stroud's the real deal man. He really does it." End of story. I have very strict orders to my production team. If something goes really wrong during the week, say all my cameras [stop working] ... they are under orders to come in and quarantine me from any and all food, water, aid and assistance. They straighten out the problem and get it over as quickly as possible so I can get back to my zone. I have a safety crew out there, but it is very strict. I tell them, 'I don't want to know you exist.' There are going to be technical issues along the way, but I've got to stay in my zone and stay true to my promise to survive a week alone.
Finally, on this 20th anniversary of shark week you'll be giving life-saving tips. What will we learn?
You are going to see some shots of me in the water surrounded by sharks with them bouncing off my shoulders. It was really something, but I was giving tips about if you are in this situation, what you can do.
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