NEED TO KNOW
Survivor's crew now includes many children of longtime production members
Jeff Probst's niece Abby joined the crew, and he tells PEOPLE, "She kicks ass"
Key grip Calum Anderson works alongside his daughter, Morag, and says bringing on family helps "keep each other accountable because we can't let each other down"
It's been years since Survivor had a "Blood vs. Water"-themed season pitting loved ones against each other, but the family ties are also going strong when it comes to the crew.
The groundbreaking reality show has created quite a community among its employees, fostered by living together in exotic locations for months at a time while filming over the series' 25-year (and counting) run. Despite the challenges — including dealing with the elements and spending long stretches away from home — many crew members have been with Survivor since its early seasons.
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Many children of longtime crew members grew up visiting their parents on location around the world, and some of them have now become part of the production's team.
One way into Survivor's behind-the-scenes squad is via the Dream Team, crew members who do everything from testing the challenges to assisting across departments. One 2025 Dream Teamer was Abby Probst, whose uncle is host, executive producer and showrunner Jeff Probst.
Courtesy of the Probst family Jeff Probst with his niece, Abby Probst, on set of 'Survivor' Jeff Probst with his niece, Abby Probst, on set of 'Survivor'
"She kicks ass," the Emmy-winning face of Survivor tells PEOPLE on location in Fiji during the filming of season 50. "She came in with a last name that put a little bit of a spotlight on her, but she got the job on her own. She got asked back on her own."
"We're very clear here — everybody runs their department. And I know it's a little weird because the last name is Probst, but had she not earned it, she wouldn't be back," he adds.
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Probst, 63, says his niece is shadowing the assistant directors and learning more about television production.
But the host is also having "proud parent” moments on behalf of others as he sees the next generation of crew members hone their skills. He recalls when Kenny Hoffmann — the son of camera operator Matthias Hoffman, who has been with Survivor since season 3 — was tapped to do the camerawork for an intricate scene that would open up a season finale episode ... despite being an assistant at the time.
Courtesy of the Hoffman family Kenny and Matthias Hoffman on the set of 'Survivor' Kenny and Matthias Hoffman on the set of 'Survivor'
Probst remembers, "I turn around, and I see Kenny with the gear on and I realize, 'Oh my God, Kenny is shooting one of the biggest shots we do each season.' And I don't want to put the spotlight on him, but immediately, I started going, 'Oh, you cannot mess up. You've gotta be perfect.' "
Probst says after doing an "elaborate walk and talk" where he discussed the final five competitors to introduce the episode, moving through the fire-filled tribal council set, a producer confirmed they got the right shot.
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"Then Kenny goes, ‘F--- yeah!' " Probst says with a laugh. "We just had this moment of, you were a kid! You just shot that! And I texted his dad that night, and I said, ‘Matthias, I just witnessed one of the most proud parent moments for you, on your behalf.' "
Kenny tells PEOPLE, "Even more incredible yet is just — at the time I didn't know he was excited, but seeing him afterwards and how excited he was for me and just the show in general, to see people come up from the place I came from, it's really special. It's not often you get to have a little bit of a personal relationship with such an important figure on a show. It's just something special about this place."
Matthias adds, "There's more of a family atmosphere than any other show I've been part of, and it makes your work better and your life better, and I think it makes the show better ultimately because people love to come here. They love spending time on that set and being part of something that's really special.”
Courtesy of the Hoffman family Kenny Hoffmann working on 'Survivor' Kenny Hoffmann working on 'Survivor'
Like Kenny and Matthias, some of the parent-child crew member pairs work in the same department. When key grip Calum Anderson had an opening in the team for a grip assist, he looked no further than his daughter, Morag. However, the role wasn't taken lightly.
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Morag tells PEOPLE, "He said, 'You're going to have to work really, really hard. You can't let me down, and you've got to promise that you're going to do it for me because it's my job on the line.'"
Courtesy of Russ Fill Morag Anderson and Calum Anderson working on 'Survivor' Morag Anderson and Calum Anderson working on 'Survivor'
Cal adds, "We all keep each other accountable because we can't let each other down."
Keep reading to learn more about some of Survivor's families working behind the camera.
Peter and Pedro Wery
Courtesy of Chris Elisson Survivor crew Peter Wery and Pedro Wery Survivor crew Peter Wery and Pedro Wery
After working on Survivor and The Amazing Race for many years, it was hard to rattle director of photography Peter Wery — until his son Pedro joined Survivor's production.
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"The first time that I brought Pedro as a Dream Teamer, I was nervous as hell," says Peter, 67. "It's ridiculous, but it's dad instincts."
Pedro grew up in his dad's native Brazil but would sometimes visit Peter on location for Survivor, where they would have fun by filming snakes, scorpions and other wildlife. After starting on the Dream Team, Pedro is now working as a camera assistant — but his father is still protective.
Courtesy of Chris Barker Survivor crew Peter Wery and Pedro Wery Survivor crew Peter Wery and Pedro Wery
Pedro says that he recently went diving with sharks to get some B-roll footage, and Peter kept texting to see if they were out of the water yet.
Peter says, "It's funny because I do the same things — I dive with sharks, I work with poisonous snakes. But when your son, your blood, is doing it, you get much more nervous. I don't tell his mom."
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Pedro adds that Peter is in dad mode even when they're working together: "I'm building his camera and getting his setup ready, and he's asking me if I brought my rain jacket, if I called my mom."
Courtesy of the Wery family Survivor crew Peter Wery and Pedro Wery Survivor crew Peter Wery and Pedro Wery
Pedro admits that he wasn't a great student growing up, preferring spending time outdoors, climbing mountains and looking for animals, over studying to achieve good grades. So, joining the Dream Team was right up his alley.
"When he came here, he killed it. Even Jeff Probst said we've never seen a Dream Teamer as fast as him,” Peter says, adding that his son is continuing to find success as a camera assistant and has also worked on other productions, including Big Brother Brazil.
Pedro tells PEOPLE, "It worked out perfectly.”
Matthias and Kenny Hoffman
Courtesy of the Hoffman family Survivor crew member Matthias Hoffmann Survivor crew member Matthias Hoffmann
Austria native Matthias Hoffman, 57, first joined Survivor in season 3, when they lived in tents while filming in Kenya.
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"It was an everyday safari. It was beautiful,” he recalls. "I fell in love with the show; I didn't want to leave. So I did everything in my power to be a camera operator, which then happened a couple seasons later. Never left since then."
His son Kenny, now 30, later fell in love with Survivor at age 15 while visiting the set of the "Heroes vs. Villains" season in Samoa, officially joining the crew via Dream Team in 2016 for "Millennials vs. Gen X.”
At first, Kenny wasn't interested in working in the camera department, wanting to keep his family life and work life separate — but eventually, that's where he found himself.
"I thought maybe it could get overwhelming, but it's turned out to be the complete opposite," Kenny says.
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Matthias adds, "He's doing really well. I heard from way up there that he's doing really well. That makes me proud. It's an amazing feeling when you have your son working on the same show. To be honest, he had to do it himself. There was no pushing from my side. I said, 'If you want to do this, you have to work at it.' And he did. It's the best thing that could ever happen."
Kenny says that working together turned their already strong relationship into "this ultimate father-son bromance.”
"I have a relationship with this guy that I don't think many people get to have with their parents," he says. "It's deep and thoughtful, and we get to really pick each other's brains on stuff. It's really cool."
In another family tie, Matthias met his wife of 20 years while she was also working on the show, and their son Lucas, Kenny's half-brother, is one of the first "Survivor babies,” the group of 67 children whose parents met as Survivor crew members.
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Kenny jokes, "We're rebuilding the crew, that's the plan."
Calum and Morag Anderson
Courtesy of the Anderson family Survivor crew members Calum Anderson and Morag Anderson Survivor crew members Calum Anderson and Morag Anderson
When Survivor shot their second season in Australia, Calum Anderson came on as local labor — just a few months before his daughter Morag was born. Now, the father-daughter pair work together on the show as grips, the department responsible for camera support, rigging and more.
Morag, 24, visited her father, 57, when the show filmed in Samoa and Cambodia as a child, and she couldn't wait to someday apply for the Dream Team. However, her entry into Survivor's crew didn't come as expected. When the age of Dream Teamers was raised from 18 to 21, she thought she'd have to wait longer for her chance to join the crew — until her father said his team was in need of a grip assistant in 2019.
Morag recalls that her dad said, "You're going to have to work really, really hard. You can't let me down, and you've got to promise that you're going to do it for me because it's my job on the line."
Morag adds that she's one of only a handful of women who have worked in grips, adding to the pressure. "Being a girl on grips and the boss's daughter and not really knowing what I was doing, I had to really put that work in," she says.
Her father adds that he's very proud of Morag: "She's stepped it up and grown into it, better every year."
While Morag thought coming in that working on Survivor would be a fun gap year experience before going to university, she's stayed and now has worked on 11 seasons.
Despite working very closely together, Calum and Morag say they usually get along well.
"I think the only time that we clash, we haven't spent enough time together as father and daughter. Let's just speak as Cal and Mo. But it happens infrequently," Morag says. "Cal's the best boss. He's just fair. He is hard on me, but he's hard on everyone."
Family connections are common among the Survivor crew, but Calum says that keeps everybody accountable.
"When you've got people coming in that everyone knows, they want to work harder for each other. Never want to let anyone down," he says.
Morag agrees, saying that a big part of the reason that many crew members have stayed on the show for so long is due to the strong community they've built.
"It's a dream job," she says. "Nothing like it."
Vincent, Aline and Patrick Costello
Fiji native Vincent Costello became the locations manager for Survivor when the show came to the country 10 years ago, and three of his children have also worked on the crew at points — something Vincent believes is a record for a nuclear family working on the show.
Daughter Aline Costello, 28, started on the Dream Team before working with her dad, 61, full-time as the locations assistant. She says that although she had some hesitations, they "work really well together."
"We're a very tight family, so I feel like if anyone could do it, it would be us. It's been good," she says, with Vincent quipping, "No fights in public."
On the other hand, Patrick Costello, 21, doesn't have to worry about that element as he hardly sees his father and sister while he works as a camera operator. Patrick recalls "running around” base camp as a kid before convincing his father to let him work on the production too.
"Dad wanted me to go to university," says Patrick, who worked in post-production for two years before joining the camera team. "So I kind of had to make a deal with him and just say, 'Can I not do that? Can I just come learn here?'"
Vincent, who has worked on about 50 different productions, says he had no idea when he first joined Survivor that it was "going to change my life and my family's lives."
"Fiji is very much into culture and into respect, and it's been great working for Survivor in that respect," he says. "From every single Fijian citizen on this job and for all the citizens of our little country, we've been very grateful."
Paul and Aaron Messer
Courtesy of the Messer family Survivor crew Paul Messer and Aaron Messer Survivor crew Paul Messer and Aaron Messer
Unit manager Paul Messer has been with the show since its second season, and his son, Aaron, is the first "Survivor baby” to work on the show — something he says is both "pretty cool” and "very weird.”
"I never thought my son would be here," Paul, 65, tells PEOPLE. "It's unbelievable, it really is."
Aaron, 20, started on the Dream Team for season 50 — a big change after a year from "staying in a room all day" at university — and hopes to get involved with camera work.
"His mother's very jealous,” Paul jokes about them being together on set in Fiji.
Courtesy of the Messer family Survivor crew Paul Messer and Aaron Messer Survivor crew Paul Messer and Aaron Messer
Even before his son joined, Paul says it was the crew that made Survivor something that he keeps coming back to.
"I think you can ask anyone who has been on the show for a long time, it's the people on the show that bring us back, for sure," he says. "And it's a great show. It's a great environment to work in."
Aaron visited his dad on location in the Philippines, Cambodia and Fiji growing up, but Paul says it's "fantastic" that Survivor now accommodates families to bring their young children to Fiji for the full duration of filming.
"As a crew, we really love that. It brings a different dynamic to the whole feel," he says. "It just doesn't feel like a workplace. It makes for a happier crew to have all the family here."
Luke Cormack and Kai Keys-Cormack
Courtesy of the Cormack family Survivor crew members Luke Cormack and Kai Keys-Cormack Survivor crew members Luke Cormack and Kai Keys-Cormack
South African camera operator Luke Cormack started on Survivor in season 8 and just "keeps coming back" — capturing memorable moments like when the contestants saw a wild elephant in Gabon or underwater shots when season 50 returnee Ozzy Lusth would go spearfishing. And while he always returned to his son Kai Keys-Cormack with such stories, "It's so difficult to describe this place and this experience and this family. You have to experience it yourself."
Now, Kai is part of the Dream Team and gets to do just that.
"Every time we hang out, we're just like, I can't believe we're both here at the same time," Kai says.
Courtesy of the Cormack family Survivor crew members Luke Cormack and his son, Kai Keys-Cormack Survivor crew members Luke Cormack and his son, Kai Keys-Cormack
Luke, 49, got to watch Kai, 22, run a challenge — and win. While it was a huge moment for Kai, who comes from a family of Survivor "super fans," Luke was a proud dad.
"My heart wanted to explode," Luke says, adding that he loves that Kai is being immersed in the community. "There's all this culture. There are so many people from different countries, and they're all at the top of their game. You can talk to them, and they can share wisdom with you — and you can grow and evolve constantly. It's like the best university in the world."
Kai produces music back home in Los Angeles, so he's been shadowing the audio team to learn "everything possible."
Of course, Luke is constantly checking in with Kai's mom via voice notes and texts. He says, "I'm like, 'I can't believe this is happening; we've done so well!' "
Rob and Jaimee Hunt
Courtesy of the Hunt family Survivor crew members Rob Hunt and Jaimee Hunt Survivor crew members Rob Hunt and Jaimee Hunt
Rob Hunt, the communications manager, has been working on Survivor for 16 years, and his two children first visited the show when they were shooting in Samoa. Jaimee, who was 13 at the time, recalls getting to be a "guest Dream Team” member, running the show's challenges during rehearsals.
"They always tried hard because they always wanted to win,” Rob, 66, recalls.
After finishing her university degree, Jaimee, now 27, officially joined the Dream Team and was able to shadow the assistant directors, eventually being offered a role on that team.
Both say they had no hesitation about working together. Rob explains, "The downside [of the job] is it takes you away for so long, so it's nice to have family here. Sometimes I don't see Jaimee for a week or so, and other times I see her every day. We live in different circles, so depending on the shoot schedule, we don't always catch up."
Courtesy of the Hunt family Survivor crew members Jaimee Hunt and Rob Hunt Survivor crew members Jaimee Hunt and Rob Hunt
The Australians now live in New Zealand when they're not filming, but Jaimee says the show has set her up with a network of people from around the world. During the off-season for the past two years, she's been traveling around to different countries to visit other crew members, including Thailand and the Philippines.
Rob calls the Survivor community a "big family," and Jaimee says she was looking at some of the old photos from her visits to the set when she was a teenager.
"So many of the Dream Teamers in the photos are still working here now, so it was cool to see that," she says.
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Survivor season 49 premieres Wednesday, Sept. 24 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS.
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[SRC] https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tv/articles/survivor-become-family-affair-behind-150000982.html