Acting experience "didn't help" save Traitors star
2025-01-17
Category: entertainment

Warning: This article contains spoilers for series three of The Traitors.A retired opera singer who was finally rumbled as one of the Traitors in the latest series of the TV show admitted her acting skills were not enough to save her from banishment.On Wednesday night, viewers of the BBC1 show saw Linda Rands, 70, of Hitchin, Hertfordshire, voted out by her fellow players.The show's oldest contestant, she recently featured on a billboard in London's Leicester Square, pictured winning a "Golden Cloak Award" for the "performance of a lifetime". Asked if her experience in opera had been useful in the show, she said: "Well, obviously not the acting. That didn't help. That didn't help at all."
The show, hosted by Claudia Winkleman, features a band of "Faithfuls" who must complete missions and try to uncover the "Traitors" in their midst.Rands was selected as a Traitor at the start of the series and, despite falling under the suspicion of some players, managed to evade banishment until Wednesday night's episode.She had kept her appearance in the show secret from her family, but was worried she had played the game badly."I thought I would be slammed for being so bad at the game. But no, it's gone completely the other way, which is absolutely crazy and lovely," she said."The thing is, most of it was actually me. That is me. I'm like that. "I mean, I overstate everything. I overemphasize everything when I speak. I mean, it's just me. It's just who I am. I can't help it."
Rands, who goes to the gym three times a week and does reform Pilates and aqua aerobics, thinks assumptions about her age may have helped her win over other contestants."Being old sort of helped me out a bit because I think they thought: 'Oh, Linda - it's just her, she's gone off. She's a bit old, so whatever.'"I think the hardest day was the first mission, because it was a lot of running, and I'm not a runner."I mean, I go to the gym and I'm pretty fit for my age, but seriously, running is not my thing."She praised fellow contestant Leon for helping her. "He held my hand and pulled me along," she said.
The banished player said she found being a Traitor much harder than expected."I wanted to be a Traitor because I thought I was really good at lying, and to my credit, I have got away with some quite some good lies in my life," she said."But once you get to know people it gets harder and harder, and when people are breaking down it's horrible - I mean, oh, it's awful to watch - and then you feel so guilty."
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