Posted on 05/07/2015 by Elizabeth in Naked And Afraid and Cast Interviews

By Ashley Thompson

Luke may be known as the inexperienced, yet knowledgeable survivalist on Naked And Afraid. But he gave us some information that might surprise you. Those inventions aren't all he has to talk about.

RW: How were you cast?

Luke: Basically I was watching the show and I decided that it was something I'd like to attempt. I literally googled it and found a Discovery Channel website questionnaire, filled it out and sent it in. I honestly never thought I'd hear back because you never do when you do anything like that. It was 3 months later when I got a phone call from metal flowers media.

RW: Did you do anything special to stand out?

Luke: I think that I had enough of a background of doing things out of the ordinary that would make me stand out. I'm a former Marine, I don't think they focused on that. Just a little bit of my background, I don't think was crazy compared to lots of the other cast members but maybe more than the general public.

RW: We didn't know that you are a former Marine, do you think that kind of experience helps you in something like this?

Luke: Absolutely. Being in the Marine Corp you get the basic survival knowledge off the bat. It didn't necessarily translate into starting off with nothing. Most training has to do with using what you can carry with you. Just he mentality of survival is what I took most with me out of the Marines.

RW: How far in advance did you know your location?

Luke: I want to say it was about a month before I went they said I was going to Mexico... but they didn't say where. So that didn't really mean a whole lot, it could be anywhere. There are all sorts of different environments there. It was about a week before I left they told me specifically where I was going.

RW: Did you get a chance to prepare?

Luke: I did my best to do my research online for the area. I didn't get a chance to do the best kind of research but you can only find so much information on the wilderness in a certain area. Besides after getting there and getting the opportunity to ask some locals for some tips there wasn't a whole lot of real preparation time.

RW: They showed the audience that you hadn't used survival skills only studied them. Now that we know you are a former Marine, do you wish they would have put that information in there?

Luke: Yeah, I mean, after watching the show... I feel they shied away from saying that so people were like, "oh". For that reason I wish they would have pointed that out. But that may be my own fault for not emphasizing that during my audition process. But I do wish they would have thrown that out there.

RW: Do you recommend that type of preparation (YouTube tutorials) for future survivalists on the show?

Luke: Absolutely. It sounds ridiculous that I learned this and that on YouTube, but I'm a pretty strong advocate. I've learned a lot of things on YouTube. That's how I learned how to fix my car. It works every time. I literally learned out to set traps by watching those shows... now I've actually gone out to set traps. I've gone on trips to practice that. I'm a tattoo artist for a living and where artist learn how is on YouTube.

RW: What were you most afraid of before you got to the Yucatan?

Luke: Just the unknown. You like to think you've got all the knowledge in the world but until you're sitting there you don't know what kind of materials you've got, what kind of animals are going to be there, what kind of plant life will be like. You never know what you're getting yourself into.

RW: Once you had been there for a while, what did you become afraid of?

Luke: The bugs. ::laughs:: There wasn't a real moment when I was "afraid" except when the bugs came out at night. That was the point I realized every day that when the sun was going down and you get that first bite, you know the rest of the night is going to be pure torture.

RW: The fire didn't keep the bugs away, then?

Luke: ::laughing:: It's funny, we didn't have bugs in the beginning. We literally went 10 days without bugs. The night we got fire the mosquitoes showed up and never went away.

RW: That's the exact opposite of what we would think would happen...

Luke: Right! The EXACT opposite. I don't think the fire brought the bugs I think it was just coincidence. It finally rained right before that and I think the rain just helped.

RW: Since you're butt naked, the sand is everywhere... what was worse, the bugs or the sand?

Luke: You kind of get used to the sand. Overtime you get a chance to rinse off in the water the bugs became the worst, not the sand.

RW: When did clothing become a priority?

Luke: I never thought about the clothing situation. It wasn't a huge issue for me. I would try to wrap myself in leaves but it never worked. The amount of time you would spend was not realistic. I buried myself one night and my bag was over my head, but my one arm that was out was getting swarmed by mosquitoes.

RW: Is that why you didn't make shoes?

Luke: We made shoes multiple times. They didn't last very long and it was almost more trouble than it was worth. I'm not saying there' snot someone out there that would make some shoes better, but for me it wasn't that bad. The rocks were brutal but you don't always have to walk on those rocks. We made wooden flip flops out of bamboo, it worked a little bit but hard to get them to stay on.

RW: Did you get a chance to prepare your feet?

Luke: As soon as I was told I was going, about a month before, I started walking around everywhere barefoot. In southern California it's very hot so I would walk on the scorching asphalt. They have animal stuff call Tough Foot that humans can use to thicken them up. I don't know how much that helped.

RW: How did you prepare your skin?

Luke: ::laughs:: I knew my butt cheeks had never seen the light of day so obviously that was an issue. I went and got a membership at a tanning place and went and tanned butt naked every day for two weeks. It absolutely helped. By butt cheeks never got burnt!

RW: How was hygiene?

Luke: They didn't show this but we used the little bits of charcoal from the fire and scrub our teeth with it. It's funny to see and it looks disgusting but it works pretty well. To stay clean in general, there was a little salt water pool near the camp and I would go and sit in those pools at least once a day. I felt the salt water was a way to cleanse my body.

RW: Speaking of water, we saw the water filter... did any of your inventions work?

Luke: The best invention of the whole time was the water filter. It worked so well that we tried boiling water once but it took so long to cool off we just went back to the filter. We went back to it the entire time. I weaved a hat and that saved my face big time. I literally had a graveyard of contraptions that didn't work next to the camp site. ::laughs:: I kept my mind busy and occupied. I tried to make a guitar.

RW: Did you ever get desperate enough to consider drinking your own urine for hydration?

Luke: I don't remember getting to that point. TO be honest, one thing I do remember was I was in the middle of day 3 and we hadn't had water yet. That was the point I had never experienced thirst like that before. We had one day before we knew we could die if we didn't get water.

RW: We heard you drop about 10 f-bombs about the bugs... are you embarrassed it made it to tv even though you said you didn't care?

Luke: ::laughing:: It's a little embarrassing but not really. I don't care that much about it still. At that moment I really didn't care. You can't understand what it's like to be in that situation. It's very trying mentally.

RW: Would you do this all again?

Luke: When I was out there I remember saying I would never do anything like this again. I've proven I can do it so there's no point to do it again. But now that it's been almost a year I know that if they called me back and said, 'hey you want to go again', I'd say yes.

RW: If you got that chance, what would you do differently?

Luke: Um... that's a tough one because I felt I did things but they just didn't work as well as I hoped they would ::laughs::. I think I would try setting my traps better. I would at least start working on traps so that when we got fire they'd be ready to go. Because we didn't hunt until we had fire.

RW: Is there anything edited out that you wish they would have been able to show?

Luke: There's so many things. Iggy. My arch nemesis, Iggy, the iguana. He would dodge my traps. That same iguana... I set so many traps for that guy. He literally would walk up and would stop a centimeter from every trap. He would turn his head and look over at me and stare at me for half an hour and either move the trap to get the bait, or if it was something dangerous he would turn around and walk away. Pretty unbelievable. On the last day I went and made sure I took down all my traps because Iggy deserved to live. He's a smart dude.

RW: Were you happy with the PSR scores?

Luke: I don't think I'm some sort of crazy expert so I wasn't too concerned with the number to begin with. As long as it went up ::laughs::. ::laughing:: None of my contraptions worked but I feel like they gave me a few numbers for effort.

RW: We saw a little clip of you back home realizing you hadn't put on shoes. How hard is it to return to "normal" life again?

Luke: It was amazing to have things again, luxuries and food obviously... a bed, chairs. You have no idea how horrible it is to not sit in a chair. Three weeks seems like an eternity when you're out there but once you're back to reality it's ultimately only three weeks. Once you get something in your stomach and drink a Gatorade it's the most amazing feeling in the world. Actually I never stopped eating so I'm a little chubby ::laughs::.

RW: We know you're a tattoo artist, any new tattoos in honor of your adventure?

Luke: As a matter of fact yes. Alyssa is coming to my wedding in September so we're actually getting matching snail tattoos when she gets here.

Photo credit: Discovery