The 33-year-old spoke to the ECHO in an exclusive interview about his memorable time on the hit show
Dan Bird spoke to the ECHO in an exclusive interview after his appearance on The Traitors(Image: PA)
The Traitors’ Dan Bird holds no hard feelings about his sudden elimination from the show. The 33-year-old Scouser was one of the standout cast-members on the third season of the smash hit BBC programme.
The Speke native certainly left his mark in the Scottish castle as he was never afraid to share his opinion at the roundtable and he played a key role in uncovering the first Traitor of this series when Armani Gouveia was banished. However, his journey came to an end in dramatic style on the latest episode when suspicion came his way after two players discovered he lied to them during Friday’s mission.
Dan’s fellow Scouser, Minah Shannon, was one of the contestants to cast doubt on his true intentions as she voted for him to leave when he broke her trust and selected her to be covered in gunge during the most recent challenge. The irony of it all is Minah has actually been lying this whole time as she is pulling the strings as one of the two remaining Traitors.
However, there is no animosity about how it all panned out as Dan heaped praise on his Liverpudlian compatriot in an exclusive interview with the ECHO. He said: “I started to feel like [the Traitor] was somebody who I was close to and Minah was in that shortlist so I wasn’t surprised [she was one of them]. If anything, I was quite proud. I was like, ‘you’re playing a brilliant game, so well done’.
“I can’t wait how to see how her game progresses from here.” Dan is proud of his Merseyside roots and thinks Minah has what it takes to go all the way in the contest as he said the city gives you the perfect tools to earn people’s trust.
He added: “Scouse people are quite warm and straight talking. In a game like The Traitors, being straight talking can ostracise you, but I actually think it helped as well a lot of times because people knew where they stood with me.
“I think the same thing is happening with Minah. There’s a lot of charm that comes with being from Liverpool so Minah and I employed that in very different ways in the game.”
Dan, who works as a bank risk manager, adopted an untraditional approach to The Traitors as he remained brutally honest throughout by reminding the other contestants how he was playing selfishly in a self-interested game. While it could be said this eventually led to his downfall, Dan has no regrets with his strategy.
He added: “I played the game authentically how I wanted to play it. I would have liked to say I could have played it differently and more flexibly, but that wasn’t the game I was playing in that moment.
“Seeing how everybody else approached that mission, maybe I would have done things a bit differently, but I’m a little bit proud that I stuck to my guns as well.” Dan was open about his autism diagnosis during his time on the show and he explained how the neurodivergence influenced his approach as he is proud to have been able to represent people living with the condition.
He said: “I got my diagnosis quite late on in life and since then I’ve been quite confident in talking about how it manifests itself for me. I didn’t necessarily go on the show to be that representative but I was really proud that the show did tell my story.
“It definitely influenced my gameplay at times and it did make me quite able to see the whole thing as a game and look at things a bit differently. I’m really proud of the way the programme did show me opening up.”
The show was filmed last May and Dan said he needed some time to process everything that happened during a drama filled stint in the castle. However, he is delighted with the end product as he said: “I went on a real journey after the show so, for the first few months, you overthink every decision you made and think, ‘could I have done this differently?’ Eventually, you get to a point where you think, ‘it’s cool’.
“Everything was a great experience and I don’t regret anything anymore. It was definitely nice watching [my last] episode because it felt like a nice bow on the whole experience.” He added: “I’m over the trauma of everything now. It was a really good watch.”
The Scouser was a part of many of this season’s highlights with his hilarious eyerolls at the roundtable regularly going viral on social media. Dan laughed he had no idea about the habit as he said: “It’s been, excuse the pun, quite eye-opening because I never realised I did it.
“I’m going to be so conscious of it all the time going forward. Some of my friends and family have said, ‘you do that all the time. You give us snide looks when you don’t even realise it.’
“That was my way of processing it as well. If I got really annoyed with someone in that moment, I think my face just dropped. That was my way of channelling that irritation. I’d like to think I’m not that annoyed every day in my day to day life so hopefully I don’t do it as much.”
Dan is now excited to see what comes for the rest of the series and is open-minded about what the future will bring after his stint on The Traitors. He said: “I didn’t come into the game with any ideas of what might happen afterwards. I just really wanted to play, have fun and be strategic and that’s exactly what I did. We’ll see what happens next. It’s been a wild ride and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. I’ve got no regrets, I played as me and that’s all I could do.”
However, one thing he isn’t too concerned about is fame as Dan laughed about the measures he has taken to avoid being recognised after his memorable stint on one of the biggest shows on TV. He joked: “I haven’t been recognised at all but I think that’s down to the fact I’ve been wearing a big hat and glasses, which I never wore on the show. I’ve been doing it strategically to try and not be recognised.” He laughed: “The game never finishes.”
The Traitors continues tonight at 9pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer