Christopher Shulstead, Andy King and Marcel Cunningham Interview (Unpacking the Stressful Endgame)

Anonymous Season 1 ended with a storming finale featuring the final four, and although Nina Twine won the prize, he was followed in the final by Marcel Cunningham, Christopher Shulstead and Andy King. The runner-up trio all had a chance to win the main prize in a tense final match where Marcel had the last bits of strength before the end of the game. Although Nina was outclassed by the guys, she was able to take the final victory after an intense matchup where each player had to lie to each other’s faces.

all the time Anonymous, a new series created in style by Studio Lambert Traitors to meet Circle, there was an interesting wave of deception fed into two different game modes. In the anonymous mode, players could freely talk about each other’s games and spread waves of distrust, while in the face-to-face mode, they had to work together to build a prize pool to take home at the end of the game. Although players sometimes had trouble switching modes, they quickly established themselves as the first in the game.

Marcel, a streamer who plays competitive strategy games as a profession, Christopher, who managed to perform a showmance during the series, and Andy, an infamous event planner who wanted to reintroduce himself to the world, all came along. Anonymous with a similar goal. Players were all interested in winning the game, even without precedent as they played through the social strategy competition. Regardless of the final prize, the guys were all great competitors and swith to talk through the difficult end game.

: Christopher, I want to start with you – last time Marcel chose you first. How does it feel to go pick your box? Did you feel like you still had a chance to win?

Christopher Shulstead: I’m a person who doesn’t break down, so I feel like in that moment I’m like
“Okay, if I have to go first, I’ll go first.”
I really didn’t care where my position was at the time because whether I chose the losing box or the winning box, you don’t see me changing anything. I was going to play it the same way because I already had a vision of what I was going to do. My favorite color is blue, so I probably should have gone with blue, but… you know. It was kind of a hard place to be. However, I respect Marcel’s decision because I would have done the same. If anyone had a chance to hold the prize box it would be me – Andy has the nervous ticks we love to see
(laugh)
and Nina (Twine) is pretty static…she did a pretty good job, but she didn’t have to stick with it that long. He only had to hold onto it for one round… which makes it easier.

: Definitely relieves pressure. Speaking of pressure, your performance with Victoria was a big part of your game. Do you feel the show helped or hindered you?

Christopher Shulstead: It helped my game tremendously, I’ll say that over and over again. If he wasn’t there and he didn’t vote for me, Lilly (Jenkins) could have gotten the upper hand and there could have been some other people who had the power that would have sent me home. He played a great game throwing me under the bus, gaining power and beating anonymous twice. Thanks for his gameplay, it was great.

Andy King: And you must have fun!

Christopher Shulstead: And I had fun, it’s true.

: It’s the total package. Now, Andy – you claimed that prize box first, but Nina ended up stealing it from you. What was your thought process after he took the box? It looked like you almost wanted to help him hold the box in his hands.

Andy King: I was dumbfounded, I was so upset. But then I was like – You know what? I never became anonymous, I never won a challenge, so it probably would have looked bad if I walked home with that box and took the prize.

Marcel Cunningham: And bought a Lambo.

Andy King: (laughs) I was in total trouble, but one of my gifts in life has always been – being a stressful event planner in my company, a lot of competition in the business world, when things get stressful, they start yelling. I’m really quiet and the guys will tell you (my other punks). I’m licking my lips, I don’t know why. It was a puzzle for me. I thought Nina would take this box. Hmm, should I make a mistake there? I didn’t, I went down and got another box and I obviously already knew what it was going to say because I already had the winning box, but…God works in mysterious ways. I kind of hope I gave up $100,000 to make a million in the future.

: Great views! Marcel, I’m curious about your thought process on this as well – Nina seemed like she had you on to the point that in the confessional interview you even said you didn’t think she knew the game that well. Why give him third when it’s probably the best position instead of taking it for yourself?

Marcel Cunningham: Before (the last fight), I had talked to everybody and asked a lot of people, “Who would be the person you’d be willing to lose to?” Many people said Nina. He had told me every single time (we talked) that he wasn’t sure about going to the final meeting, he said he was so nervous that he was soaking up the responses… and he asked really piercing questions that gave a lot away. of information. Putting him in the third spot I felt benefited the most because the earlier he went, the earlier he took his box, the less information you would get from him. I hate that they cut this out of the episode too – he actually asked me,
“Marcel, what should I do?”
and I told him to take one of their boxes.

: Wow, that changes things.

Marcel Cunningham: Yeah – I think it helped me in a way, but that last minute decision got me. He called correctly which box to take. He crushed it, he made the right call.

: So why didn’t you decide to steal the box?

Marcel Cunningham: I really wanted that silver box as soon as I saw it there. My gut carried me through the other encounters, so I thought, Can I do it again? It was actually the first time the silver box was there as well. I was like silver. It’s calling my name and it was 50/50.

: You just can’t tell, but you did a great job. Okay, one last question for you all – if you could do one thing differently during your working hours Anonymous what would that be?

Marcel Cunningham: Mine would have been pretending to be someone in anonymous mode within my own alliance or alliance. Because a lot of people used Lilly as their catalyst or Andy used Christopher towards the end to be like, I want everyone to think I’m Christopher. I think it would have been a good strategy to pick someone I’ve worked with and pretend to be anonymous.

Christopher Shulstead: I don’t know exactly what I would have done differently – maybe I wouldn’t have been so brash with my first two handles in the anonymous space. But I have no complaints because it kind of helped me and hurt me at the same time. I made it to the finals. At the end of the day, what was more important than anybody realized—I mean, Jack (Usher) was obviously great in the anonymous space, some of the other players were great in the anonymous space. You sit there and do it, nobody knows who you are, and then you’re a threat. This makes everything much more difficult, and then only one person becomes anonymous. I’d rather have really strong alliances than have the power to take one person out for a day, so I was happy with what I did.

Andy King: I think for me, I probably would have started planting small seeds. I absorbed a lot and listened a lot and I could have been more like the guys or more like Nina and start planting little seeds. I kept thinking about it, but I just went from person to person with the best possible listening skills instead of using a distraction. Apparently it worked out well for Nina. He never did it in a dramatic way, he was always pragmatic about it. Every time he left the group, everyone was like, wow. Wow. He could just change everyone’s thought process by just dropping a couple of bombs, so I probably would have tuned in to drop a few bombs instead of just listening.