The Traitors star reveals biggest challenge as autistic player after calculated banishment

The Traitors star Dan opens up about his gameplay (Picture: BBC/Studio Lambert)

The BBC’s hit gameshow The Traitors is the perfect mix of strategy and emotions, with twists and turns keeping every player on their toes.

But when you’re autistic, it’s easy to have rigid thinking—and for banished Faithful Dan, that was ‘one of his biggest downfalls’.

‘As soon as I got an idea in my head, I just ran with it,’ he tells Metro. ‘And that’s a massive strength in some ways in life because, from my experience, my autism means that I’m incredibly determined and focused on our top goal, and I don’t really let anything divert me.

‘But in a game like this, you have to be more flexible than that, and there were certain times when I had suspicions of people and I just wouldn’t let up and I wouldn’t see alternative viewpoints.’

It was, he says, a ‘very compartmentalised’ experience for him being in the iconic Scottish castle, as he decided it was ‘fair game’ to view everything from a game-focused and strategic perspective.

‘So I never really took anything personally,’ reveals Dan. ‘And my mistake was expecting that other people would feel the same way, but I think that there were definitely times in the game when my empathy did come through.

Sadly for Dan, he was banished by his fellow players (Picture: BBC)

‘I was really vocal in my defence of Kas because I had his back—both from an alliance and a Faithful perspective—from early on, and I wanted to be there for him.

‘Autistic people aren’t devoid of empathy, but I just went into the game knowing it was a game and knowing that I just didn’t want to be too emotional myself.’

And when emotions ran high in overwhelming roundtables and other discussions, Dan was able to take breaks. He praises the ‘really, really lovely team’ behind the show, which gave him ‘the space that I needed to process things quietly by myself for a while’.

‘I mean, from a game perspective, I didn’t find it too difficult [to preserve my social battery,’ says Dan. ‘So having strategy conversations with people or being competitive in the missions or at the roundtables never really bothered me. It was all the other time that you spent with people that I found quite difficult, and developing those social bonds, which is also a really important part of the game.

‘So I did take quite a few breaks,’ he continues. ‘Whether it was sat outside in the area under the pagoda, by myself, and just to completely recalibrate, because I’m not used to being around people all the time, and I couldn’t do that in the game; I had to bring myself into the game.’

There came a difficulty, Dan goes on to explain, given alliances are essential to get far in the game.

He notes how vital alliances are to succeeding in the game (Picture: BBC/Studio Lambert)

‘I think alliances are definitely the most important thing,’ he says.

‘Particularly at the start of the game, but then your mind starts to kind of warp as the game goes on. You think, “OK, I’m doing great at being protected by my allies.” For the first five roundtables, I didn’t get a single vote, and that’s because people protected me.

‘But then you start questioning what you’re doing in the game, and I thought, “Well, my reads of who the Traitors are are really off,” so then you think, “Oh, I should pivot and go for the people I genuinely believe are the Traitors at this point.”

‘So it’s a really hard balancing act, to be honest, and I don’t think I was able to kind of make that transition.’

With a game as deceptive and as tricksy as The Traitors, the many balancing acts required of players are immense—from maintaining alliances and hunting Traitors to having conviction in your suspicions but also being open-minded and, finally, to balancing rational thinking and logic with having an emotional side.

Dan knows he definitely led with the former. ‘I think that’s particularly evident in that last mission that I was a part of. From a logical perspective, I succeeded exactly in the mission how I wanted to, but I didn’t account for the emotional response that other players would have following that.

Dan has been flooded with messages after being open about his autism (Picture: BBC/Studio Lambert)

‘I just didn’t account for the fallout, because I genuinely didn’t believe that it would generate as much of an emotional response as it would.’

That mission proved to be what sealed Dan’s fate, resulting in him being banished after he held back telling Frankie that he ‘marked’ her as someone who shouldn’t get a shield, relying on the idea that he would be the last person she suspected.

Such an impersonal approach to the game had other drawbacks too, as Dan soon went viral for one frustrated eye-roll while in the room with English teacher and fellow Faithful Joe, as the two disagreed over approaches to the game.

‘I don’t know what it was in the castle,’ Dan says. ‘We just clashed. I think we’re both quite strong, stubborn personalities, and our game plans just never really aligned.

‘And that’s fine; you know, you’re not going to be able to get along with everybody perfectly in the castle, but Joe and I are absolutely fine—we all are.’

So much so that he struggles to pick out a single name when asked about one fellow player who was particularly understanding of his autism, listing Minah, Frankie, and Kas as just three examples.

He told his fellow players that he is autistic early on (Picture: BBC/Studio Lambert)

‘It was actually quite refreshing in the game for most of my game, because I think I was accepted by the cast,’ reveals Dan. ‘I told a lot of them about my autism quite early on in the game, so I think they were able to understand that I processed the game differently, but I suppose everybody’s patience has its limits.

‘When we got to that final challenge, I was just behaving obviously selfishly and just decided to do what was in my best interests. I think people, rightly so, questioned that, and they were able to make their own decision about whether they wanted me to stay in the game or not, but I felt like I was able to be myself fully in the game, and I’ve not always felt like that in other experiences in my life.’

The Traitors continues Wednesday at 9pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.

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