Former All Black and current Celebrity Treasure Island castaway Christian Cullen looks back on his life in TV.

Every season of Celebrity Treasure Island brings with it a surprise breakout star, and often it’s the person you know the least about or have the lowest expectations for. This season, as we’ve already yelled from the treetops, former All Black Christian Cullen is that star. He began somewhat of a self-aware curmudgeon, mumbling and grumbling about the windy camps and sharing bunks, but has blossomed into a total crack-up with tight alliances to boot.

When The Spinoff visited Celebrity Treasure Island earlier in the year, we got to ask Cullen how he felt about the great outdoors. “Look, I’m quite an outdoorsy type person, but not a sleep-in-the-elements type of guy,” he said. “I like the home comforts: the food, the bed, the couch, the Sky TV…” So why, then, has he hurtled himself into this world of pain? As it turns out, he’s been asked to go on CTI before, and turned it down.

“This year, I wasn’t a straight out no, I was a maybe,” he explained. “I talked to the wife and the kids, and then rang a few mates, and they said ‘you’ll love it, but you’ll hate it’.” What got him over the line was the charity element of the show. “Over a year and a half ago, we lost our brother-in-law to a brain tumour, so that was probably why my wife was quite keen on me coming on and raising awareness,” he said. “That was probably another big part of it.”

On the gameplay and strategy side of things, Cullen said he much prefers to be an observer than a do-er. “I’m pretty relaxed, pretty quiet, pretty loyal,” he said. “I don’t like to stand out in the crowd. I like to walk in the room and not be the centre of attention.” Unfortunately for him, his memorable turn on Celebrity Treasure Island has now put him under the brightest spotlight of all: The Spinoff’s My Life in TV interview series.

My earliest TV memory was… Dungeons & Dragons on a Saturday morning. I think it came on about 7.30, 8 o’clock in the morning, which was tough for us, because we always had Saturday morning rugby and sport. If you missed it, you were gone. So we were always happy when there was a later game or you were playing at home and you could watch it.

The TV show I used to rush home to watch was… I was quite a big Friends fan when I was a bit older. That was on at 7.30 at night. I’d have training and go, “man, I’ve got to get home for Friends.”

The TV show that’s stuck with me is… Top Town. I used to love that. That’s the sort of stuff that as a kid you go “man, that was awesome, I’d love to do that.” My kids would watch that today and go, “what is that?”

My favourite show to binge watch is… I’m quite a big TV watcher now, and I’ll watch a lot of shows like The Blacklist or Jack Ryan. There’s a lot of episodes and a lot of series. I’m a binger – I could watch one series in pretty much 24 hours. You’ll look at your watch, and it’ll be like two in the morning, and you’ll think I’ve got to go to sleep. But that’s the skill of the writer, right? When one episode finishes, something happens and you go, “I got to watch the next one”, so you keep on watching it. I can watch numbers and numbers of episodes, and not give up until the finish.

The TV ad I can’t stop thinking about is… “Turners Turners Turners!” Tina from Turners. I like her, she’s got a great personality. 

My guilty TV pleasure is… I used to be a massive Shortland Street watcher for a long, long time. If I was away, I’d have to tape it and then come back and watch two or three episodes. It went a bit culty when Munter from Outrageous Fortune was on it. Something happened in the bush and I thought that was a bit strange, and I stopped watching it. Every now and again when it comes on and I think, “far out, who are those guys?” Chris Warner is still there, which is pretty cool. He is the show. If I ever saw him [Michael Galvin] in the street, I’d probably call him Chris. It’s lucky Suzanne Paul’s called Suzanne Paul.

My favourite TV project that I’ve ever been involved with is… I did one for the Rugby World Cup, which was pretty cool. We did it in Samoa and I’ve got relations there because I’m part Samoan, so it was quite cool to go back into the village and then do the show. There were heaps of laughs and good people running it, and then we had a little bit of a holiday. That was good fun.

The TV show I’ll never watch, no matter how many people tell me to, is… Michelle Langstone said Peaky Blinders was cool, so I started watching it, and I couldn’t get into it. People say it’s awesome, but obviously you’ve got to get through like, two or three episodes, but all the other ones like The Blacklist and Jack Ryan and Game of Thrones got me straight away.

The last thing I watched on television was… Season eight, episode nine of The Blacklist. I tried to get through it before I came on CTI, but I couldn’t. Married at First Sight was on last night, but MAFS does your head in, because they obviously get people that are total opposites.

Celebrity Treasure Island screens Monday-Wednesday on TVNZ2 at 7.30pm and streams on TVNZ+.