Danielle Alexander lasted two weeks in the Big Brother Canada house, but she doesn’t regret a minute of it, despite getting the boot on Thursday’s eviction episode. The 20-year-old student (she attended U of C last year, then Mount Royal University this fall) is still somewhat discombobulated, time-wise, on Friday morning when I catch up with her for a chat on the phone. “We don’t have any time in there. It was a lot more difficult than one would think. You don’t know how long you’re doing things for. And it feels like it’s three in the morning, but it could be just nine at night,” Alexander says. it could be the afternoon, you have no idea. . . . It’s a lot of speculation.
Q: How has your morning been?
A: Good, it’s better than last night, for sure.
Q: What was the best part of your Big Brother Canada experience?
A: The best part was just being on there. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It was so much to learn, so much to take with me. I made some great friends and I had a lot of fun on there. I think Gary and I will be lifelong friends, so that’s good.
Q: You won’t be friends with Jillian?
A: Um, no.
Q: What was the worst part of the experience?
A: I would have to say not being able to talk to your friends and family because you’re in this house and so many emotions are just flying all over the place. I’m the kind of person who opens up about my feelings, I don’t keep them bottled in. First, you have to decide who you want to open up to. Then some of the people you thought you could trust would use it against you. It’s a gamble. It was just really hard for me to not be able contact people that I know I can already trust, like my mom, or best friend. I thought it was extremely difficult.
Danielle and Gary pass the time by doing Danielle’s makeup. Now that she’s out of the BBCan house, the aspiring actress is thinking about moving to Toronto.
Q: You move to volunteer to be a pawn, in some aspects, it was solid game play.
A: I never once thought that Jillian and I were good friends. I knew she didn’t like me in the first week; I had a gut instinct about that. Deep down, I knew that she didn’t really like me. But Gary and I, we were the underdogs, and they were gunning for us anyways. So in a sense, I didn’t really have anything to lose. I knew that I had to get in with a stronger alliance. And there were no showmances that I could get myself into because they were all taken up. So I suggested that I will be the pawn, if it’s 100 percent sure that I won’t go home. I wanted to show that I could be loyal to these players. It ended up just not working out, unfortunately.
Q: We saw Jillian and Liza saying we know these guys are playing us, but we’ll ride them and then cut their throats. Let’s work on a girls’ alliance.
A: Really?
Q: Did that surprise you with how open people were with their showmances?
A: Honestly, I was completely shocked at quick the showmances came into play and how open they were. It’s almost like the showmances are all intertwined. I mean, some of them are kissing on the couch but they’re also rubbing someone else’s shoulders. I’m like, ‘What’s going on in here? Oh my goodness I’m in a couples’ retreat!’
Q: Everyone on the show says they are a student of Big Brother, but they are so open with it (which is usually bad game play).
A: I think it’s because, in the house, things change so quickly people every single day that people even forget things. I mean, Alec is getting his PhD in, I think, social psychology. I mean that’s what the game is all about and people were worried about that for maybe half a day. Other things happened and people move on. I think that’s why people are so open. It’s all strategy; you don’t know why they’re doing these things. It’s almost like even if I say this out loud, it’s not going to matter because someone else will say something else that matters more in about five minutes.
Q: How concerned were you with what viewers at home were going to think of you?
A: I am mostly positive and I am confident in myself. I tried to stay true to myself. Some people will view you in a positive light and some people just won’t whether you’re on the show or in your day-to-day life. I definitely was worried a few times because you are on TV and sometimes you forget with the cameras. And sometimes I felt like, ‘Oh, maybe I should have censored this, or maybe I should have censored that.’ But you know, I was just being myself in the end and I was just glad to be true to myself. And if someone isn’t happy with that, that’s okay by me because I am happy with it.
Q: It seemed like you were really having fun with it.
A: I went on the show because I really wanted the exposure. I want to be an actress. I want to do other things. I went on the show to get my personality out there. . . It would have been great to win the final prize as well. I really wanted to just be myself and take it as a good experience, especially when I started to figure out that people kind of wanted to get me out, that they thought I was a floater, pawn. I started thinking to myself, ‘You know what, I might as well just have fun now.’
Q: Prediction for the final two?
A: I don’t really know who the second person is going to be, but I definitely think that Peter will win. He knows the game very well. I think people are underestimating his physical abilities, too. Obviously, people are aware of his mental abilities, and they are using him for that. But he was the last guy to stand on the first HoH competition, but he aimed all the focus onto Gary. So he is kind of flying under the radar, taking the attention off himself. And I think people aren’t going to realize it until all of a sudden, ‘Bam!’ and he’ll take it all home.
Q: Who’s the sneakiest player?
A: I feel like Aneal is the sneakiest player because I really thought he was on Gary and mine’s side. I really thought he was one of the top people that I could trust. When he was put up on the block, I mean, I was even really shocked. And then, I was talking to the other players, they told me ‘Oh, we put him up for these reasons,’ and ‘He said that you said this,’ and it was like he said/she said. And I was so shocked. Wow, this guy is playing a way dirtier game than I thought.
Q: Are you going to watch Big Brother Canada until the end?
A: For sure. I will be addicted to it I think. I know the people on such a personal level now that it’s going to be really hard not to.
Q: What do you want people to know about your Big Brother Canada experience?
A: I wish I could have stayed longer, but I did give it my all and I did what I thought was best and I stayed true to myself and my morals. And I’m happy with the experience overall.
Big Brother Canada airs Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday on Slice.
