Stephen Fry has shared his doubts about taking part in the missions on The Celebrity Traitors, which kicks off on BBC One next week.
The actor, writer and presenter is among the 19 stars set to compete on the first Celebrity spinoff of the hit competition, alongside comedian Alan Carr, musician Paloma Faith and actor Nick Mohammed.
When speaking to the BBC ahead of the show’s launch, former QI host and Blackadder star Fry was asked if he was looking forward to the missions, which typically tend to be physically demanding group activities based around the lake or the woods at the show’s filming location in the Scottish highlands.
“It’s very hard to say,” the 68-year-old responded. “Some of them may be tedious like being back at school, forced into compulsory physical education.”
He added: “It will be interesting to see if we can work together. I'm sure we'll get very excited if we manage to accomplish something. There are players who are strong and sporty, who will be good at strong sporty things, and then those of us who are less strong and sporty will have to try and hope that we can use our wits in some way.”
Fry conceded that while he wouldn’t describe himself as competitive, he does “get annoyed if people don’t really throw themselves into” a game.
He said he thinks it is “absolute nonsense” to believe that it’s possible to truly read people. “It’s just like astrology or anything else. Woo woo. You just can't do it. You know, empiricism proves it. People time and time again ask those whose job it is to interrogate and to find out the truth and it’s simply not possible.
“We can all be convinced nonetheless, even though the facts tell us otherwise. These notions of ‘I just knew, it’s the way he lifted his glass, his eye doing that thing’ – all nonsense.”
Fry said he would much rather be selected as a Faithful by host Claudia Winkleman, than a Traitor. “I just don’t like the idea of having to plot against people,” he said.
“It’s mean and it’s annoying to have to find that side of oneself, because in order to play well, you have to be a bit mean. You have to decide to kill people. Really annoying. You're conspiring with others to do it, and you can't trust them either. So, you’re just under much more pressure.
“You can see from the previous series that being a Traitor is really quite stressful.”
The celebrities are playing the game of detection, backstabbing and trust in the hope of winning up to £100,000 for their chosen charities.
The Celebrity Traitors launches on Wednesday 8 October 9pm on BBC One and iPlayer. There will be two episodes per week on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
