I was given the opportunity to speak with Julia Collins about her time on Jeopardy! and what the future holds for her. In the interview, you’ll hear what her preparation for the show was like, how it was to keep her experience a secret before the airings, and even what her favorite board game is.
You’ve won 20 games, giving you the second-longest string of wins in a non-tournament, and you became the biggest female money winner with a total of 429,100 dollars. Now, when I read those stats, how does that make you feel, and has it sunk in yet?
I’ve had a long time to process it, so I think it’s sunk in. But it’s exciting. It’s still exciting to hear that. I taped the shows back in January and February, so I’ve had a couple months to think about it. [chuckles]
Oh, wow. So, yeah, so I was going to ask, because you taped these shows well far in advance, tell me what the taping schedule was like when you taped your shows and how hard it was to not tell anybody about your winnings.
So, the show tapes five shows a day, so they’re long days. It starts with Monday and ends with Friday. So, since I was on for four weeks and then one day in a fifth week, I spent several full days at “Jeopardy!” playing “Jeopardy!” all day long. [both chuckle] So, that was pretty, I mean, which was great. It was wonderful. I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want it to stop. But it is kind of exhausting. I’m not used to being on my feet for such a sustained amount of time, so that took a little getting used to. And vanity prevented me from wearing more comfortable shoes, although, well, they were comfortable, but not for standing for extended periods of time, I found out.
But yeah. But it wasn’t as hard to keep it a secret as I thought it could be, or as I thought it would be. I had some friends, I actually had some friends who were there for 15 or 16 of my games, and so they knew. They’re friends who live in Los Angeles, and lucky for me, have very flexible schedules and could spend all that time at “Jeopardy!” with me. And my mom had come and my brother, each for a few games. So, I had my immediate family in this secret, the circle of the secret. So it wasn’t too hard to keep it a secret from everybody else, although I think people were a little confused about why I wasn’t looking harder for a new job. [chuckles] Because I thought, “Oh, I’ll kind of take a break from doing that for a while.”
Wow. So, having your friends and family there, they also had to keep the secret as well, because they watched your games, they watched you win all that money, and then so not just you, but also them.
Yeah. So that, I think it might have been harder for them than for me. I know one of my friends told some other friends of mine [chuckling], and I was like, “Listen, it’s okay that you know, but you can’t tell anybody else.” So that was a little bit tougher.
So, did you have any strategy going into the show? So once you knew you’re going to be a contestant, did you have any strategies, any preparation? What did you do?
I studied a bunch for the test. I mean, for the show, not for the test. I didn’t study for the test at all.
Okay.
That you take when you try out. But yeah, I watched the show a lot over the years, and so I felt like I had a good sense of what kind of questions come up on the show, what you’re likely to get called upon to answer. And so, I studied kind of the usual suspects, like opera, Shakespeare. I feel like there were so many questions about the space program and the space shuttles, maybe just around the time that the space shuttles were getting transferred to those different museums. I don’t know. So I ended up studying a bunch about the space program and the Apollo missions and Gemini missions and Mercury, and didn’t end up needing any of that information.
So, actually, I studied quite a bit. I reviewed some old textbooks because I thought, “If I get these questions about European history and I don’t remember them, even though I know I learned them, I’m going to kick myself.” And that actually helped. That helped. There were a handful of things that I think I remembered, particularly because I’d reviewed them. I just kind of refreshed my memory about those. But most of the stuff you study doesn’t come up. There were a few things that I Googled kind of on a whim that ended up being useful, but there’s a lot of stuff that just wasn’t helpful at all. [chuckles]
Did you have a dream board in mind? Like, if you got on stage, what would be a dream board? What categories would you just love to have, or did you have during your 21-game streak, or 21 games you appeared on?
I ended up having almost, I think, almost 1,200 clues that I came up against over the 21 games. And so, I kind of feel like I saw it all, although the day after I lost the next game, there was a category on Rodgers and Hammerstein, and I would have loved to succeed in that. I love Rodgers and Hammerstein. I knew all those answers. [both chuckle] But it’s a mixed bag. You kind of think, there were topics that I felt like, if you asked me, I would say, “Yeah, I know a lot about that,” that I didn’t know as many of the responses as I thought. And then things that I surprised myself. There was a Spider-Man category, and I saw the first Spider-Man movie around the time it came out, and that’s at the extent of my knowledge of and interest in Spider-Man. And I got four of the clues, and I think somebody else beat me to the buzzer on the fifth one. So, you kind of never really know how it’s going to be. I’d say in general, I’m pretty good on the literature questions. I was always happy to see those, but there were still ones I didn’t know the right response to, and I think one or two I got wrong. So, you kind of never know. It’s a mixed bag.
Yeah, and you mentioned how someone was quick on the buzzer on a category that you knew. Do you think the buzzer strategy is just as important as just knowing some of the clues?
Yeah. I guess to call it a strategy might be overstating it, but definitely facility with the buzzer is really critical to winning, because often, at least one other person knows the right response. Often both other people know, are trying to ring in as well, so getting that timing down is really key. I mean, I didn’t really have a strategy for that per se, just to try to be the first one when I wanted to ring in, and I held off if I didn’t know the answer or the response. Excuse me, the technical clue and response versus question and answer. [both laughing] Yeah. So, I mean, that wasn’t so much a strategy as just I tried to buzz in first when I knew what to say.
I think you’re right. I think, like you said, having that mix, having the knowledge and just being ready to buzz in first actually adds to the equation of winning a game of “Jeopardy!” Would you say?
Absolutely. I think that makes a really big difference. I mean, I could see in some of the games when I was watching on TV other people looking very visibly frustrated that I would beat them to the buzzer. And other people, I would say, in every game I got beaten to the buzzer, some more than others. [both laughing] Some games more than others. It definitely happens no matter how good you get with it. But I guess the strategy that I had, I guess one part of the strategy is I didn’t really ring in if I didn’t have a pretty high level of confidence that I would be able to respond correctly. I didn’t do as much of the buzzing in and trying to think of the answer after I did that. A few times I did, if I thought, “I know I know this, and it’ll come to me.” At least one time it didn’t, so I regretted that. [both laughing] But I typically wouldn’t ring in unless I was sure of the right response, or pretty sure. Sometimes the context clue tells you enough, and then you don’t really need to actually know the information to be able to respond correctly.
So, we ran an article on our website explaining that in your eighth grade yearbook, you actually made a prediction about this. And this is true, right?
Yeah. There’s a picture on Twitter. A friend of mine dug out the yearbook and posted, I guess, hers and mine on Twitter. She edited out other people. [both laughing] They did not volunteer to have on public forum that they wanted to be a roadie for Phish. [both laughing] Which was one of them. That was pretty fun to get to see. Yeah. I don’t know. I liked the show when I was a kid. I watched it. It was on after school where I grew up, and so I used to catch it periodically over the years. I mean, it was on at the same time for decades, and so I’d catch it, yeah, from time to time. Often enough that I liked the show and thought I would be good at it, even when I was a kid. And I don’t know, I don’t think I realized what the rules of being a contestant were at that point, because at that point, you could only win five games, which I knew. But I didn’t realize that if you were in one tournament, like if you were in the college tournament or something, you couldn’t be on the show again. [both laughing] So, I just picked something sort of pie in the sky. Yeah, I just thought it would be kind of fun to be on it.
Well, it came true. You said 10-time Jeopardy! champion, and you doubled that, so I think that’s well done. [both laughing]
Yeah, I guess the lesson is if you have a goal, however unrealistic it might seem, you might still meet it.
I think that’s great. Yeah, aim for a goal, shoot high for it. You never know what you’re going to get, so well done with that. We have a couple of questions here that the viewers have submitted on our Facebook page. These can be quick-fire questions if you like, but I figured these are some fun ones to ask you. So, the first one I have here is, what’s the pen like? For the Final Jeopardy!, I assume. Is it as bad as the pens on the credit card machines in the grocery checkout? [laughs]
That’s an interesting question. I found them pretty difficult to write with. I don’t know if you can write legibly with the credit card machine pens, but I know it took a lot of effort. I have pretty bad handwriting in general, and so it took a lot of effort to make sure I was writing legibly with the light pen. I know the first couple times in rehearsals that I wrote my name, they said, “All right, do it again.” [laughs] They cleared it, and I had to try again. So, I did find it difficult, especially a few of the Final Jeopardy! responses were several words. And so, to be able to write quickly and legibly was kind of tough. Sometimes you’ll see somebody will write half a word and it cuts off. The light pen stops working when the time is up, and that’s kind of tricky because you have to write. You only have the 30 seconds to figure out the response and write it down, and I could not write fast with the pen.
Next question I have here is, do you have a favorite board game?
Trivial Pursuit is my favorite. [laughs]
What a shocker, right? [both laughing]
Surprise. I know I had that Final Jeopardy! about Monopoly. I have not played Monopoly in more than 10 years. I have not willingly played Monopoly in like probably 20 years. I don’t enjoy it. I don’t think it’s fun. [laughs]
It’s one of those games that you want to play with people just to make them really angry at you, I feel like.
And I just, I don’t enjoy anything about it. I really don’t. And so, I don’t know. I don’t like to- I don’t really enjoy games where I have to outsmart somebody. So, like strategic games are not something I enjoy. I don’t like playing chess. I just don’t enjoy those things. So, Trivial Pursuit, you don’t have to outwit somebody, you just have to be right, which is how I feel about “Jeopardy!”
Exactly.
It’s kind of the same thing. So that’s really a lot more my style. Although I do like Ticket to Ride. Ticket to Ride is, there’s a board game, but there’s also an iPad version, which is what I have, and the setup is a little complicated with the board game because there’s little trains that you… It’s creating train routes. I think it’s really fun, but, it’s a little strategy-based.
Yes, I’ll definitely check it out. That sounds like fun. Next question I have here is, how much did you get to know the contestants, if at all?
So the show tapes five shows a day, but there’s about a three to three and a half hour rehearsal and prep period before that. And so, it depended on who I was sitting next to. But yeah, I got to know some of the other contestants, and you end up eating lunch with a bunch of people, and so you get to know those people a little better. And yeah, you get some time to interact. I’ve stayed in touch with a bunch of people from the show, which has been really nice. So, it’s a nice group. It’s a group of smart, interesting people, and people who, if I met them in a different circumstance, I would think, “Oh, I want to be friends with these people.” And not that I didn’t at the show, but it’s a little awkward. [both laughing] But yeah, I’ve kept in touch with some people. It’s a really nice group. You get some chances to get to know each other a little bit. Actually, I had sat through a taping day before I played and didn’t get drawn, and ended up sitting for most of the day next to Frédéric Delapray, who I ended up playing against in my first game. And so, I sat with her all morning. We ate lunch, and then we went through the whole prep and rehearsal period again the next day. And so she was probably the person I got to know the best, which was kind of odd. But she’s somebody I’ve stayed in touch with and somebody I really liked who I met at the show. And I’d say I liked the people I talked to. I didn’t get to talk to everybody. So, the type of person who wants to be on “Jeopardy!” is, I think, kind of a particular type of person, and you end up, it’s like these are people you would get along with [both laughing] if you are also a person who wants to be on “Jeopardy!”
Do you have any good luck charms with you?
After my first five games, I went back home and I was telling my mom and my grandma about the show, and then my grandma, it turned out, had a ring that she bought for me when I was born that I hadn’t known about. And so she gave that to me, and she really wished she could have come to see the shows but is not able to travel. And so she gave me this ring. It’s a topaz, which is my birthstone. And so I wore that for the next 16 games kind of as a little bit of a good luck charm. But I wasn’t too superstitious.
Okay. Okay. When the Tournament of Champions do arrive, do you have any different strategy that you’re going to play than your original appearances, or are you just going to go in there the way you’ve been since day one?
I’ve been pretty happy with the strategy that I have. I don’t know that I’m going to make any big changes.
What do you want to do next? What’s the next big goal for Julia Collins?
Probably find gainful employment. [both laughing] I wasn’t working when I taped the show, and I thought, “Well, this is a great time for me to enjoy a little break.” And I went on a fabulous vacation. I spent a month in Paris, because I thought, “When am I going to have time and money at the same time again?” And then I’ve been enjoying the time on the show. As we were talking about, I’ve been pretty busy with a lot of different things, a lot of media stuff that I’m happy I’ve been able to do. But now that’s kind of all winding down, so should find another job.
Well, I have to say, you really gave us great television to watch during the time on “Jeopardy!” We’re looking forward to seeing you in the Tournament of Champions. And I guess everyone, especially for my family and my friends who I got hooked on for your run for the show, they’ve been DVRing it, they’ve been talking about it. We’re just happy to see that you won. You’re very genuine, and we’re really happy of all the success you’ve had on the show, and we can’t wait to see what’s next.
Well, thank you so much. That’s so kind.