No-one wants to be the unfortunate candidate, but someone’s gotta leave first. Matty McLean caught up with [spoiler] Shortland Street’s Grant Lobban - about how he prepared for the show, his captain forgetting his name, and walking away with his head held high.
Of all the things Grant Lobban felt watching back the first few episodes of Celebrity Treasure Island, one feeling stuck out more than anything else.
“There wasn’t enough footage of me,” the actor laughs.
“I suppose that would be an honest response, but don’t print that!”
It’s true, in a series with 17 other contestants, it’s hard to get noticed early on, especially if you become the unfortunate soul that loses the first elimination battle.
But Grant Lobban - AKA Shorty’s Damo from IT - follows in brilliant footsteps, with the likes of former All Black Zac Guilford, Tall Black Casey Frank, and comedian Guy Montgomery all holding the honour of leaving far too soon on their own seasons.
“What company to be in,” he jokes, as we talk on the phone ahead of his elimination episode airing.
“Everyone that does interviews says ‘as long as I’m not the first one out’. But it’s got to be somebody, doesn’t it?”
It does, but that doesn’t mean Grant went out waving a white flag - more on that shortly, but I was curious to know whether the actor had done any preparation before appearing on the reality TV juggernaut.
“Before I went on it, I did binge-watch the one where Courtney won it,” he told me.
“And so I did binge-watch that, just so I knew what the games were about, so I wasn’t completely in the dark.”
But perhaps he would’ve been better going in blind, as he admitted “it probably made me a little bit more apprehensive”.
Indeed, behind the kind, warm, self-assured facade, Grant Lobban was very honest about his struggles with social anxiety in a team of strong personalities - in his own camp, he was teamed up with the likes of league legend Steve Price, comedians Laura Daniel and James Mustapic, and legendary activist Tāme Iti.
Speaking to camera in the second episode of the show, Lobban opened up about what that meant.
“I struggle with a bit of social awkwardness,” he admitted.
“I don’t know why I’m like that. I’ve always been like that. I wish I could just chat away about nothing to someone I’ve never met.
If it’s awkward for them, it’s a thousand times more awkward for me because I’m the one who’s dealing with it.”
With the benefit of hindsight, he agrees it was tough going those first two days.
“[My anxiety] reared its head big time, it really did. I was terribly quiet - everyone was chatting away, and I’m just clammed up because I’m feeling all anxious and nervous.”
That feeling wasn’t helped when team captain Matilda Green awkwardly forgot his name in the first team face-off.
“it made me feel a bit s-h-i-t,” Grant acknowledges, “but I don’t hold it against her.
As often happens, people think my name is Damo [my Shortland Street character].”
But she remembered his name in episode two where she chose Lobban to face off against mental health advocate Jazz Thornton from the opposing team in the first elimination battle.
Rolling balls up and over a ramp to the opposition’s side while simultaneously building a tower of blocks, whoever could complete their tower first without it being knocked over would be declared the victor.
At one point, it seemed as though Grant might have it, with a steady hand close to completing his tower.
But Thornton successfully added the final brick first, and it was Lobban who was sent packing.
Ever the gentleman, he’s thoughtfully considered in defeat.
“I said to Jazz the other day ‘I’m glad I didn’t eliminate you, because you were loving it much more than I was'."
And when he looks back on his brief tenure?
“I’m certainly not ashamed of myself. I didn’t say anything too stupid,” he laughs.
“I just did the best I could. It’s all you can do, isn’t it?”
He’s also come up with a genius suggestion for a future season of the show.
“I said to the producers they should do a season where it would be all the people that have been voted out first against all the people who won it,” he tells me.
I’ll see you out on the battlefield, Grant.
Matty McLean is a former winner of Celebrity Treasure Island, and will be interviewing the eliminated contestants for 1news.co.nz
You can watch the current season Monday-Wednesday at 7.30pm on TVNZ2 or TVNZ+
SHARE ME