Survivor 50: Jeff Probst Says Old Schoolers' Energy Felt Like 'A Force,' Explains What Happened With Amanda — Watch

The morning after the "Survivor 50" marooning, I hitch a boat ride from Fiji's Tokoriki Island to base camp, located about 25 minutes away at Mana Island. From there, I'm whizzed off via golf cart to meet up with the man, the myth, the legend. Sorry, RizGod, but this time I'm referring to Jeff Probst himself, the host who's been front and center of CBS' reality competition staple since its very first season bowed on May 31, 2000. Now, Probst is ready to celebrate 25 years of "Survivor," a show he executive-produces, hosts, and showruns. A series he's never stopped championing.

When TVLine catches up with Probst, he's hard at work on the promotional side of things in preparation for the highly anticipated anniversary season. This includes awaiting a visit from a few pesky — and yes, I'll admit — overeager journalists like myself who want to grill him all about this XL-sized season that's full of all stars, one that's sure to be both nostalgic and trailblazing.

The hype for "Survivor 50" has been snowballing ever since its "In the Hands of the Fans" concept was announced nearly a full year ago. Since then, fans hungry for a new returnees season fueled the rumor mill, trying to sniff out which cast members would ultimately make up Season 50's lucky 24 castaways. Despite the pressure that must come with delivering a season that not only celebrates the series' legacy, but showcases where the game is at today, Probst is calm, cool, collected, and ready for action.

"I get really excited before a marooning," he tells TVLine in the video above. "I do, because it's the culmination and the beginning of months and months of work by so many different people, so many departments. And it all comes down to this moment when this crazy thing happens, this game that typically we've designed — not this season — all crystallizes in this one moment where you turn the entire game over to the players."

Production may not have designed the nitty gritty details of this particular game (you can thank or blame the online vote for that), but Probst says he and his team are ready to execute the fans' vision. This time, production instead serves as the middle man on hand to make this "little triangle of creativity" happen. I ask him what runs through his mind the night before a season kicks off, nevermind a season with stakes this big. How does the guy even sleep?

"The night before marooning is exciting," he says. "I'm typically thinking about the events of the morning, my job as a host. What are the opening words I might want to say? What are the questions I might want to ask? What kind of challenge do we have set up? And then, as a producer, you're just hoping that everybody's ready to go, because the marooning is the culmination of literally, typically, a year's worth of work by several 100 people to get us ready to have these people roll up in a boat, get up, get in the sand, and then we say, 'Welcome to Survivor! Here we go.' And now the production has officially started. It's Day 1. Cameras are rolling."

Once the marooning is over, Probst admits it's a bit of a relief... but that doesn't mean anyone on this hundreds-deep crew gets a break any time soon.

"When friends ask me, 'What do you do on your down days?' There aren't down days. There aren't down minutes!" he says. "This game is happening right now. I'm doing an interview right now with TVLine. They're out on the beach. Things are happening right now. It never stops and that's exhilarating. So once the marooning happens, we kick into full gear, which is: Here we go. Day 2. Here we come."

I probe Probst for some of the hardest names they had to cut from the roster. Instead, he hits me with someone they had on the line, nearly cast, but lost due to scheduling. It's someone we haven't seen in quite some time: "Survivor: China" and "Heroes vs. Villains" contestant Amanda Kimmel.

"Everybody wanted [her] back. We wanted her back. We asked her to play. She wanted to play, but it was a scheduling issue and she couldn't do it," he says. "Ultimately, you just have to start making cuts, and they're painful and brutal. And I don't want to talk about how close some people were because I think it would just make other people's feelings hurt. I can only say this with absolute sincerity, that was the single most difficult thing any of us have had to do, and we had many versions of casts put together with different people, and we would look at them and say, 'This would be really fun,' or 'We could go this way.' And we ultimately decided on this group, and I'm really happy with this group."

It's impossible not to ask about the Mike White of it all. Since his time on "Survivor: David vs. Goliath," White went on to create, write, and direct HBO's "The White Lotus," an anthology series that went on to win 16 Emmys out of a total 66 nominations. It just so happened that White had some free time before he was due to write the show's fourth season and where did he want to spend it? In Fiji, playing "Survivor." Even Probst admits be was "a bit surprised" that White said yes.

"He actually called me a few years ago and said, 'Look, if you end up doing something for 50, just know I want to play,'" Probst recalls. "Then 'White Lotus' hits, and I thought, 'Well, that'll never happen.' Kept his word. 

"Think about where he is in life. He's one of the most respected storytellers on earth. He could do anything he wants. He could be anywhere. He could be vacationing somewhere, and instead, he's out there right now living on one of these islands in Fiji, probably about to get dumped on by a storm that's coming. And he's loving it because you can't get this anywhere else. This is different [from] writing and directing 'The White Lotus.' This is a life experience that takes Mike out of that and probably renews and refreshes him a little bit."

Watch our full interview with Probst above where he details the casting process for "50," his prediction for who might be in trouble, and whether more returnees seasons might be in the cards in the near future.