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" The competition was definitely heating up on last week&amp;#039;s Apprentice with just five candidates remaining in the running for the coveted job with Mr Trump. Unfortunately for Stephanie Castagnier, her time on the NBC show came to an end following her stint as PM in a task that involved creating a 30-second TV commercial for AT&amp;amp;amp;T mobile TV. The clients were unhappy with the concept - centering around employees watching TV in the office - and the fact it took so long for the brand name to be mentioned in the promo - and Stephanie became the 11th candidate to be fired (although Mr Trump told her sole teammate Liza that he hadn&amp;#039;t been impressed with her either). We caught up with Stephanie, who now works for The Trump Network, as she chatted to reporters about the experience... How do you reconcile the fact that Liza is still there and you are fired? &amp;quot;Well, such is life! I guess you win some and you lose some, right? I&amp;#039;m not so disappointed at the fact Liza is there and I&amp;#039;m not, I&amp;#039;m disappointed at the fact I&amp;#039;m not there. I was in it to win it and I stepped up every week and made a lot of decisions. That&amp;#039;s what happens when you make decisions; you get called back into boardroom. I didn&amp;#039;t want to just coast through this competition, I&amp;#039;m very happy with my performance and the outcome is the outcome, it&amp;#039;s out of my control. Unfortunately for me I&amp;#039;m out of the competition at this point but it was a great experience.&amp;quot; What do you think Mr Trump sees in Liza? &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t know, I honestly don&amp;#039;t know. That&amp;#039;s the million dollar question, right? I think in this competition there are two strategies that one can take - and this will be good advice for next season&amp;#039;s contestants. You can be hands on and go for it, be aggressive, make decisions and prove yourself to Donald Trump and the world or you can sit back, play it safe, coast and you get through week after week. Here is the reality - if you don&amp;#039;t take initiative or make key decisions then you&amp;#039;re not on the chopping block come boardroom time because you really can&amp;#039;t be blamed for anything. It&amp;#039;s probably a smart strategy to stay in the game but that&amp;#039;s not how I live my life and it was certainly not how I was going to play this competition - I can&amp;#039;t do that. I have to contribute, roll up my sleeves and throw myself in there and do everything I can do to help my team win.&amp;quot; You said you are disappointed not to be in the competition anymore and mentioned the strategy of staying in the background and not getting blame, but was there any part of you that thought maybe you would be staying over Liza? &amp;quot;Well, yes, I definitely was very surprised to go before Liza but on the same token she got as far as she did. Walking into the boardroom I thought there was a chance this was my week, especially given the fact I had stepped up as Project Manager and I have to admit that I intentionally stepped up as Project Manager for probably one of those reasons; it was time for me and time for everyone in this competition to really realize if this was truly a business competition and the person with the most skills and contribution was going to win or if this was just a television show. I wanted to step up because it was time for me to realize what the truth was and, &amp;#039;Am I moving forward or am I caught in this merry-go-round?&amp;#039;.&amp;quot; Have you spoken to Liza since the competition? &amp;quot;Yes, we&amp;#039;ve spoken since the show. We haven&amp;#039;t spoken in the last few weeks. I have nothing personal against her or anyone on the show. I know we were all in this competition to win it and we all have our own unique personalities and I respect that but in a business competition you expect everyone to contribute and that&amp;#039;s where my frustration levels came from.&amp;quot;  What was your proudest moment on the show? &amp;quot;Well, obviously when I was Project Manager on the Rockport Fashion Show - that was a great episode. I feel like that was probably the only episode where the women didn&amp;#039;t bicker and it was the only episode where we actually all worked together and blew the other team out of the water. It just goes to show that when women stop focusing on everyone else&amp;#039;s negativities and just focus on winning, we can do it.&amp;quot; What are your thoughts on the remaining candidates? Is there anyone you think is a potential winner? &amp;quot;I think that Brandy, Clint and Steuart are all strong competitors and I could see any one of them winning. My preference is Brandy just because I have a good relationship with her and I think she is very polished and professional. So if I had to pick, I&amp;#039;d pick Brandy but I think Clint and Steuart are both good competitors as well.&amp;quot;  What have you taken away from the experience and would you do it again? &amp;quot;It was a great experience and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. It was a learning experience and I&amp;#039;m rejuvenated and very motivated and excited to get to work and build my own brand now.&amp;quot; How did you go from being fired by Mr Trump to working for the Trump Network? &amp;quot;I was actually approached by them [when the show began to air]. The Trump Network is the multi-level marketing organization that Mr Trump started. Its products range from beauty and health to wellness so I&amp;#039;m working with them in that organization with regards to sales and marketing.&amp;quot;  How has the job changed your life? &amp;quot;Well, I&amp;#039;m going to continue working in banking and I&amp;#039;m also going to continue working with the Trump Network and I&amp;#039;m also going to continue doing all the charity work that I do, so I&amp;#039;m going to be one busy woman!&amp;quot; The Apprentice continues this Thursday at 10/9c on NBC "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/the-apprentice-usa/interviews/a288839/stephanie-castagnier-the-apprentice/>