“Survivor 45”'s Drew Basile unpacks his “Jeopardy” winning streak and why he lost

"I've been knocked down in the ring, but it's not a TKO," Basile tells EW. "I'm getting back up."

In his very first moment onscreen in Survivor 45, Drew Basile declared himself to be "one of the smartest people to ever play this game." It was a quite a polarizing statement to make at the time, but he's backing up his claim now — just on a totally different game show.

While the 23-year-old master’s student ultimately didn't win his season of Survivor, he is the first-ever alum from that show to appear on Jeopardy, on which he won seven consecutive games and qualified for the Tournament of Champions. However, his winning streak finally came to an end on Friday when he lost in his eighth appearance by giving the wrong answer in Final Jeopardy.

"The run has come to an end, so it's a little bit less exciting now," Basile tells Entertainment Weekly. "But I get to play again, so already I've taken the loss in stride. I'm excited to be back there on the Alex Trebek stage sometime in the near future."

Below, Basile unpacks his impressive seven-game winning streak, why he lost when he says he knew the answer to Final Jeopardy, and how his experience on Survivor prepared him for this.

Jeopardy Drew Basile on 'Jeopardy'

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Did you always want to go on Jeopardy or did that come about after you went on Survivor?

DREW BASILE: What's funny is I had grown up watching two shows, Jeopardy and Survivor. Nobody had much faith in [me playing] Survivor. But Jeopardy, everyone always said when I was a little kid watching the show, "You're going to go on one day?" I had always thought that maybe I could do well at Jeopardy, because I'm good at history, I'm good at literature, in general I've been a great student. I figured I had a decent chance. Trivia competing is something I love, and I really didn't have much expectation beyond that.

How did you get cast on Jeopardy? Was it something you were trying to do before Survivor?

They made the test go online a couple years ago. I thought, what the heck? I'll happily take the online test. I was fortunate enough to get all the way through callbacks. I forgot about that and about a year and a half later, I was fortunate to get a text message, and I was like, "There's no way this is real," especially since I had just gotten off Survivor. Jeopardy is such an opportunity that you kind of don't believe it happened until it's time to fly out there to L.A. It was really a whirlwind. I was extremely fortunate to be able to, back-to-back, play both my dreams on TV in a single year.

The timing couldn't be planned any better.

No, it really can't at all. I had to pinch myself every morning. My mother has a conventional view of career paths and things like that, so she was excited about it but, "Don't get ahead of yourself. You've got to get a job. This is not a certain thing." I think she was quite disconcerted when Jeopardy came around right after Survivor.

I love that your mom was still on you like, "You're going on Jeopardy after Survivor, but you still need to get a job!"

[Laughs] My mom is always keeping me humble.

How did your time on Survivor help prepare you for Jeopardy?

It can't be overstated that they really are very two different kinds of games. Both are cerebral, but the way that intelligence applies is completely different. The main thing that Survivor might have prepared me for is a kind of comfortability in front of the camera. I did have some experience being on TV in a high stakes thing and being okay with the idea that this would reflect back on me in the public sphere. And then secondarily, it makes interacting with the fans a little bit easier, because whenever you go on TV, there's like a sense of, "Oh my gosh, people are going to judge me. They're going to pick up on my mistakes. I won't be able to defend myself." That's very disconcerting for a lot of people. I had already kind of gone through that, so with Jeopardy, it didn't phase me and I was able to really lean into the experience and just kind of a great time. It was a blast.

Looking back at your overall experiences, which was more difficult: Survivor or Jeopardy?

It's hard to say, because Jeopardy is still so fresh, so I have all the difficulties in my mind. The physical toll of Survivor can't be overstated. You're losing an insane amount of weight. You're really in the elements. I mean, it is true to life. If anything, on TV, they hide the most intense survival moments, because that's how real it is. At the same time, Jeopardy was demanding and rigorous on the level of the mind, in a way that I have not been challenged in a long time. I mean, I'm in grad school, and the intellectual challenge at Oxford pales in comparison to what it's like up there on the Jeopardy stage. So it's extremely validating to have done so well in both competitions.

Robert Voets/CBS Drew Basile on 'Survivor 45'

You did have such a great run on both, so which was your better showing: Making it to the final six on Survivor or winning seven games in a row on Jeopardy?

Well, I won on one of those shows, so that has to be taken into account. [Laughs] On Survivor, I came in with a lot of bluster. The first line of the season — not even my first line, the first line of the season — is, "I'm one of the smartest people you ever cast to play the game." And then for me to have lost, it's like, "Well, how smart was he, really?" Fair play on that. But with Jeopardy as the follow up, maybe I had the chance to prove a little bit more substance of claims I might have made on Survivor. I think they compliment each other very well. I couldn't say which one reflected better.

I was going to ask about your opening line! Do you think this run on Jeopardy proves you were one of the smartest to ever play Survivor?

I certainly think so. I mean, seven wins is nothing to sneeze at. I think that makes me the second-best performing contestant on this season, so that's really something. It was a great joy to read on Reddit and Twitter and social media people being like, "Perhaps we were a little hasty on our dismissal of this wild claim." So that was nice. I think that I was pretty good on Survivor. I think I was underestimated, but certainly Jeopardy was a match to the talents that I exemplified on Survivor.

You were blindsided on Survivor before the final five, and then you lost the Final Jeopardy clue on your eighth game. Which loss hurt more?

Losing Survivor prepared me and made it easier to lose Jeopardy. Survivor, you're out there for 23 days. I was fortunate enough to win eight days of Jeopardy, which is a long time, but not quite 23 days. Losing Survivor for that reason was a little bit harder, because it was the first time I'd ever lost like that in such a public way, it was a little bit longer, and of course, Survivor is a one-time thing. I will probably never get to play Survivor again. I have to make peace with it. That's probably the end of my story. With Jeopardy, I have this amazing opportunity to play again in the Tournament of Champions. So that really cushions the loss, because I know that, yeah, I've been knocked down in the ring, but it's not a TKO. I'm getting back up.

Going into Final Jeopardy on your last game you had a lead, so how were you feeling as you got the clue?

I'm really happy you brought that up, because I have to tell you, Jeopardy is fatiguing. You saw that with Adriana, and you certainly saw with me. By the end of the taping day I was exhausted. I had had a terrible Single Jeopardy round, making all kinds of mistakes. I mean, MSU, Michigan State. I'm from Michigan! I know they're not the Trojans. But your mind's out of it. And then I had a come to Jesus moment in Double Jeopardy, I had really rallied. I felt I was performing better, and I finally had secured a relatively stable position going into Final Jeopardy. And the amazing thing about Final Jeopardy was I knew the answer. I knew it was Helen Keller, and I was so exhausted I couldn't remember the name. I knew I got it wrong. I was just so tired, for the life of me I couldn't remember Helen Keller's name. That comes down to a little bit of youth. That comes down to inexperience. And hopefully with a little bit of more practice, that's a correctable mistake.

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Now that you've earned a spot in next year’s Tournament of Champions, how does it feel to know you'll be back?

It feels awesome. I'm looking forward that. On another level, though, I am a competitor, I love to win, and the Tournament of Champions offers not just another opportunity to compete, but an opportunity to compete at the highest level. And that's something that really appeals to me. I honestly feel more motivated to do the Tournament of Champions, to play against the best of the best, to see Adriana again, than I did to even play Jeopardy the first time.

How are you going to prepare for that? What did you learn from your winning streak and ultimate loss that you’re going to apply to your next attempt?

I didn't really pay enough attention to the structure of Jeopardy clues, the grammar of Jeopardy, so Final Jeopardy was a weak point. Going back, I'm really going to spend a lot of time watching the show, paying attention to the way that those Final Jeopardy clues are structured. Pop culture is a weakness for me, so I'm going to tune into the new pop culture Jeopardy on Amazon, for sure. It's going to boil down to a lot of flashcards, a lot of rewatching older material, and I'm going to pick a few all star names, like, of course, James Holzhauer, Victoria, Yogesh, and study how they play and what they do, to take cues from that. I'm not going to pretend I'm the best person to play Jeopardy, or I even could become the best person to play Jeopardy. But I'm fortunate enough to be able to look at the best anytime I want, so I'm going to take cues from them.

Hearing you go from declaring yourself as the smartest to ever play Survivor to now saying you're not the best or could even become the best to ever play Jeopardy is amazing. The growth!

[Laughs] Yeah, I'll tell you one year of grad school will really do that to you. It's humiliating. You come in thinking you're going to win the Nobel Prize, and by the end of it, you're like, "I'll be lucky to produce a thesis." Reality TV is the same type of way. A point that you hit on earlier, which is salient here, is how lucky to be able to do Survivor and Jeopardy, two dreams, in one year. That serendipity is not lost on me. It's kind of like an enforced humility. No. 1, because I lost, but No. 2, because how grateful [I am] to be able to do it. I've tried to try to internalize that.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.