One of the biggest moments on Survivor 50—and definitely the best celebrity integration—was MrBeast’s Super Beware Advantage that led to a do-or-die coin flip by Rick Devens, ultimately earning the future winner an extra $1 million.
And as crazy as it was to witness on our televisions, Jeff Probst, Aubry Bracco, and Devens are now recounting everything about that iconic moment in a new interview with Variety.
The host and showrunner talks about how they learned from past seasons in order to perfect the MrBeast tie-in. And we now get full recounts from Devens on what it felt like deciding to flip that coin in real-time and Aubry on why she didn’t take the shot herself.
“It was kind of an indescribable moment because, in a way, it felt inevitable.” - Jeff Probst about the positive outcome of the coin flip.
One of the most interesting things Jeff points out is that the return of the Survivor auction was just a guise to set up the introduction of the MrBeast Beware Advantage. “The auction was only in there to get us to the coin flip,” the host and showrunner reveals, which means there was a world where the iconic auction didn’t make an appearance during Survivor 50. But that’s not even the craziest behind-the-scenes reveal regarding the coin flip.
“The night before,” Jeff continues, “when we went out to test the flipping of the coin, we have a lawyer on location, she tests the coin…everything is fair, it’s all great…” but then when he notices how textured the floor of Tribal Council is, he decides they need to somehow inform players that if the coin lands on its edge, they’ll do a reflip. But the lawyer shot him down.
“The lawyer says, ‘There is no reflip. Our contract is a one-flip agreement for $1 million.” But of course everyone who works on Survivor is the best in the business, so she went back and renegotiated the contract so a player could reflip in the case of non-result. Jeff goes on to say, “That’s the kind of attention to detail that was happening.”
“I was so positive that if I got to flip that coin, it was gonna land on what I called…insanely sure that that was gonna happen…” - Rick Devens to Variety
When the time finally came for the players to debate who would take the chance or if they’d draw rocks, Jeff was “shocked somebody volunteered that fast.” He, like the rest of production, imagined that it was going to be a serious, time-consuming discussion between the players, but of course, Devens jumped up eagerly like this was the moment he’d been waiting for his entire Survivor career.
“I toyed with the idea…” Aubry shares, “but here’s the thing about Rick Devens…he just has this magic about him. And when I really listened to my gut and my intuition, it said to me…’Devens was born to flip this coin.’”
And while Jeff was really nervous that the coin was going to land on the wrong side and someone was gonna go home, he was more worried about making sure they got a good shot of the coin flip. “This isn’t the type of thing where we can do take two,” executive producer Matt Van Wagenen chimes in. “This was it.”
One of the biggest concerns was how they would even capture the flip on the set of Tribal Council, which is only lit by fire and incredibly dark. Even Jeff couldn’t see where the coin landed at first because it blended into the set so well. So they brought in one of the Directors of Photography to personally film the close up shot along with a couple other camera operators whose one job was to capture the coin flip. The only other time extra cameras are brought on to set is during Final Tribal Council, so this really was a big moment.
“It was the most cinematic flip ever!” Devens recalls, “I couldn’t do it again if I flipped the coin 50 times.” And the players weren’t the only ones who had excited reactions. Off-camera—where crew and operators are required to be completely silent or else it could be picked up by the mics—everyone lost it in “the loudest silent reaction I’ve ever heard” according to Matt.
“I take it with me everywhere now, it’s my lucky coin,” Devens says while pulling the coin out of his pocket on the set of the interview. Though he admits he likely shares that sentiment with Aubry since it’s the coin that gave her $2 million at the end of the day.
But it’s always so exciting to hear about how much work goes into those iconic Survivor moments. They don’t just happen. It takes a village and a little luck to give us fans the incredible viewing experience we’re gifted with season-after-season.
Watch the full interview below:
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