[This story contains spoilers for The Traitors season three.]
Miss Guided. The Babyfaced Killer. These were just some of the names Dylan Efron found himself being called during season three of Peacock’s award-winning reality show, The Traitors.
The 33-year-old — an influencer and producer on projects including Netflix’s Down to Earth starring his older brother Zac Efron — started the season as the quiet player, his words to the show’s confessional were, “I really do feel like the underdog.”
Efron, a certified Survivor fanboy, eventually ditched his quiet player strategy and emerged as a leader in taking down Traitors; he was undeniably the first to cast doubt on Drag Race alum Bob the Drag Queen before he was banished. That intuition took him all the way to the end — along with former Bachelorette Gabby Windey, The Real Housewives of New Jersey star Dolores Catania and Lord Ivar Mountbatten — and was officially crowned a winner of The Traitors Thursday night.
In the two months since The Traitors’ third season premiered on Peacock, the internet and viewers of the competition series have become a bit infatuated with Efron, something he isn’t taking for granted. “The fact that people are embracing [me] is special to me because what you see is me,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter on a Zoom call just before his big Traitors victory. “That’s me on the show.”
Below, the 33-year-old reflects on his Traitors journey, including the friendships he made along the way, digs into his current pop culture obsessions and shares his chances of being on Survivor.
Congratulations are in order. What’s your perspective on coming out on the other side of The Traitors victorious?
It was a weird ending in the fact that, strategically, it made no sense. We shouldn’t have ended with the four of us, but that’s really what made it special. It’s not the big dramatic ending that I think a lot of people could want. It could be looked as boring on one side, but on the other side, the Traitors were cannibalizing each other this entire season. We saw how much mayhem there was.
It was honestly beautiful that the Faithfuls stuck together in the end, and I think it was cool because, if anything, I felt like I was on the hot seat. Britney [Haynes] definitely put a target on my back. It would’ve been easy for people to move on from me and just be like, “Look, one of them’s a Traitor. We don’t know which one.” The fact that they had my back at that roundtable, I was ready to end the game with them. They earned this just as much as I did, and it was so cool to just win it and share it. If it was just me standing up there, it wouldn’t have had the same effect. It would’ve felt a little empty.
In episode one, you seemed apprehensive and a little less confident in your abilities, but you were probably the first to clock the Traitors with Bob the Drag Queen. As the show continued, you seemed to really gain confidence to speak your mind more. Going into the show, what was your gameplay strategy?
My strategy going in was honestly Sam Asghari. The way he played, he stayed quiet in the beginning. He was observing. That was the game I envisioned myself doing. I threw that strategy out the window. The issue I got in was, once I thought Bob the Drag Queen was a Traitor, I told a few too many people. Again, you want to cement your alliances with people. I told a few too many people, and I realized at this point, I need to say it at the roundtable to make sure everyone knows he’s my target. I did that as a way to protect myself, but trust me, it wasn’t what I wanted to do. It was not how I saw the show starting. I did not want to get in an argument with one of the quickest-witted people I’ve ever met.
Unfortunately, it seems like some of the people you grew closest to on the show did end up being Traitors-
All of them.
Yeah, all of them, unfortunately. It is a game, but as fellow castmembers have said, things feel heightened and personal in the moment. What was that like for you to, at least in the game setting, feel betrayed by the people you trusted the most?
I don’t see it as betrayal. I would think Carolyn [Wiger] and Danielle [Reyes] would say the same, is everything we felt, we felt for real. I do call them friends, and I really do have a special connection with them, and that’s just how the game ended for me was like, look, the first half of the game, I made really strong alliances and that was genuine to me. The easy part for me is making friends with people. Then, once it got further, I had to reflect on everything and stop ignoring some stuff. My friends get an extra red flag, if that makes sense. They can do something sketchy, but I’ll overlook it. Then, pretty soon, once you figure it out, you have to play the game. They’ve been lying to you. You can’t feel remorse for it. None of it was easy, to vote them out, but I knew it was a game and I wanted to win. That was the end of it. It was all very, very true emotions, and when they got up and said they were a Traitor, it was nothing but respect. I didn’t feel betrayed. I was proud of them for giving 100 percent because those are some hard shoes to fill.
Were you just there to play the game or were you going there to win?
I was definitely trying to win. I grew up watching Survivor. I’m just like the audience. We envision what we would do in those situations. I watched Survivor and I’d be like, “Oh, I would’ve cut that guy’s throat.” Then, you get there in real life and you realize these are real people and you get attached. That’s the truth of it. I absolutely wanted to win. I researched before. I knew I had a good shot. I was an underdog, and I say it in the beginning, no one expected me to go far and it was a great spot to start the game. The fact I did win, so many lucky things happened, and I can’t say I won because of strategy. It was so much luck involved, but I did my best out there.
You seem to have developed a very fun friendship with Boston Rob [Mariano], which has been very sweet to see online. Did you expect people to love your bromance so much? You seem to really look up to him, so what was it like getting close to him?
My stance is, at the end of the day, I love Boston Rob. What you see on TV is truly him. He’s not putting on an act, and he’s even funnier than you see. He’s not this big mafioso, cutthroat person. He’s there to have fun and he’s having fun. When I meet people like that, it brings the best out of me. I guess what it brought out of me was a little fanboy.
I think it’s hilarious. I’m watching the edit and I’m like, “Oh my gosh. I’m so dumb. How did I not put it together that they were amping up this relationship?” I remember they [producers] asked so many questions about how much I look up to him, all these things. That’s where the rookie comes in. I should have picked up on that. But no regrets, obviously. Anytime I’m showing emotion, I love it. He genuinely is a friend. We’ll be in touch the rest of our lives. That was a highlight for sure.
Do you have any highlights of this experience overall?
Honestly, it was an experience of a lifetime for sure. From my perspective, I am the fan in this. As much as it’s weird to say, I think a lot of us in the cast feel this way, but it’s hard to feel like you belong there because… and I’m not the only one that felt that way. We’re all intimidated. I’m meeting people that I’ve watched on TV since I was 12 and that have established themselves with seasons of work. The biggest highlight for me was how quickly I was accepted, if that makes sense. They could have just treated me like trash and been like, “Who the hell is this guy? You’re just Zac’s brother,” but it never felt that way. Wells [Adams] immediately was like, “Hey, I know who you are. You do some cool stuff on social.” They just embraced me, and feeling a part of that was so special to me. For how cutthroat the game was, for how intense it was, it really felt like I made friends out there.
What do you hope viewers could see that they might not have had a chance to see on the show? What do you wish they knew about you?
Fom the show, the fun parts, maybe. We all had so many laughs there, and what you see on TV is a highly polished, intense game. I would say, equally, there were moments where I was just belly laughing. There’s a moment when Boston Rob fell through the stage. Things that were so funny that would never make the edit. Sometimes I’m watching the show back and I’m like, why am I so serious? I’m the least serious person in real life. It was like this whole time I had my inspector glasses on. The editing team’s incredible for being able to tell that story cohesively. I have no idea how they did it.
In terms of your life outside of The Traitors and other work, what do you do to recharge yourself?
I’m big into fitness. Since I was a kid, I was playing sports. That was my passion. I very much tie my mental health to my fitness. I cleared my schedule this morning so I could go swim. I needed that. I’m going to New York. I know there’s not going to be sun there. I needed that sun and that time outside to just be in my head and swim some laps. Fitness is absolutely core to my mental health and a backbone of who I am. I just love any type of sport. Give me a ball and a bat, I’m going to have a blast. That’s what I live for. I love being able to just be active, be with friends.
Then, on the flip side, for my work, what I’ve been doing really is a mix of just travel and sharing experiences that I have, and I have a documentary coming out this weekend that I’ll release on YouTube. That is what I love most. We told this story, that’s just such a small story, one that we would just never hear of. I don’t know. There’s a part of me that loves traveling to places that people don’t normally travel and being able to share those experiences. This project came together. It was like we ended up going to Guyana for a second time. We heard a story about this village that saved a fish from extinction, and how that village essentially saved that village from going extinct. We went and interviewed them, talked to them, caught a fish. It was such a cool journey that me and my friend Brandon shot fully ourselves. That is my passion, being able to get out in the wilderness, have these authentic experiences and share them.
Do you have something you’re obsessed with at the moment in pop culture?
I’m watching Severance, which is just unbelievably good. I just finished Fallout. I’m pretty big into fantasy books, so I just finished Onyx Storm. I’m all over the place with what I watch. I just started Southern Charm, which is hilarious. It’s been fun getting into this Bravoverse and finding some shows that I wouldn’t necessarily watch that are super fun, especially knowing some people on them.
How did you stay grounded during the long filming days of The Traitors?
I got some workouts in, which was key. It was small windows. I could work out for 30 minutes, and I remember a few times I was just like, I’m going to spend all 30 on the treadmill just to work off energy. I definitely got some workouts in, which was nice, but it was brutal. The weather was pouring rain every single day. The food was pretty tough for me. I couldn’t get the stuff that I normally did. I didn’t have my supplements. I was struggling there. You can tell I got sick. I think I was sick for three or four of the episodes. It definitely wore me down.
If they were to do an all-star season, would you go again?
I think so. The hard part is that I don’t know what I would change too much. I could see them wanting me to be a Traitor, but I wouldn’t want to be a Traitor still. We’ll see. I had so much fun that it would be a blessing to be able to do it again.
You seem to be a huge Survivor fan. Would you ever do the show?
That’s in their court, and they like casting people that haven’t been on shows before. I’ve always been a fan of Survivor, but that’s up to Jeff Probst.
Source: Hollywoodreporter
