The Anonymous: Victoria Vesce & Lilly Jenkins Interview (Where The Season's Showmance Stands)

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The Anonymous

The Anonymous season 1 created some incredible dynamics between the contestants, who were consistently moving between Anonymous mode and Real-Life mode, including Victoria Vesce and Lilly Jenkins. While the series officially crowned Nina Twine, daughter of Survivor legend Sandra Diaz-Twine, the winner of the competition, Victoria and Lilly were part of her close circle throughout the game, and made it all the way to the final six. Victoria, Lilly, and Nina were joined by Andy King, Marcel Cunningham, and Christopher Shulstead at the end, but the endgame didn’t go exactly as the ladies planned.

Created by production team Studio Lambert, The Anonymous mixed the deception of The Traitors with the anonymity of The Circle, creating an entirely new competition series. While each player wanted to remain as anonymous as possible, the players had to vacillate between real life mode and anonymous mode, creating a persona that would become their identity in the anonymous side of the game. While interacting with one another face-to-face during the day, the players went into the domain to discuss gameplay under the guise of their handles, hopeful to keep their actual identity a secret.

While it was a difficult undertaking, Victoria and Lilly did their best to move through the game and remain as anonymous as possible, creating alliances when they were in-person that they’d hope to carry through the anonymous side of the game. Strategic, poised, and inventive, the women worked hard to move through the game undetected. Though they weren’t able to take home the final prize, Victoria and Lilly chatted with Screen Rant about their time in the domain and what they’ve reflected on after The Anonymous.

Screen Rant: Great to meet you both! After watching the season, a big congratulations to both of you for making it so far into the game - the competition was tough, and both of you had really formidable efforts. I’m curious, what drew you to The Anonymous?

Victoria Vesce: I actually had a friend, Kat Dunn from Big Brother [on the casting team]. I was in Jamaica, creating travel content and she hit me up and asked if I’d be interested in casting for a new show. She’s my girl, so I was like, “you know what? Sure.” One thing led to another and I wound up in the domain. It was a wild, crazy fast casting process for me – I wasn’t looking for it, but The Anonymous found me.

Lilly Jenkins: For me, I’ve always loved and grew up watching reality TV, and I’ve always wanted to see and participate in a show. Any type of romantic, lovey dovey type of show is off the table for me, because I’m a happily married person, so I wanted to find something that was a social strategy competition and it worked out. One thing led to another, and I ended up in the domain.

Screen Rant: That’s so exciting. This game had a duality to it when you got to switch modes back and forth throughout. Did you feel that switching between Anonymous mode and Real Life mode got easier as the game went on, or more difficult?

Victoria Vesce: I think it was more difficult for me. At first, I was like I don’t know any of these people from Adam, I don’t care if I lie to them. Then as you go on, you start to build these really deep connections. You don’t see everything in an hour episode of the show. Lilly and I connected a lot, Dillian [Frelow] and I connected deep, too, so we all had deeper connections than the surface level you see on TV. Once I got to know who everyone was, it got harder, and harder, and harder, it really took a toll on me.

Lilly Jenkins: I think it got easier as the game went on, for me at least. At the beginning, it’s very mentally taxing and difficult every time you hear – overhear , especially, someone talking about your handle. It’s almost like somebody calling your name and you can’t look. That part was really difficult. Switching back and forth was hard at first, too, and also saying something in anonymous mode and feeling like you’re being an evil person. You feel so guilty talking so much s*** about someone and then going and seeing them in real life, acting like you didn’t say all that. It was really mentally taxing, but as the game goes on, you see that everyone is doing it and you just have to do what you have to do to survive.

Screen Rant: It looks tough, genuinely. Talking about tough things, what would you say your best move in the game was?

Victoria Vesce: For me, eliminating Jack [Usher] - it was a hard decision, I remember I sat there and I was staring at the DANI screen and I was like…am I going to make this baller move? I’d gotten to know Jack, and I started to feel like he was a friend outside of the game, but I was like…you know what? You don’t have friends in The Anonymous. You can have friends in the real world, but you don’t have friends in the domain. So I was like, okay. This Victoria has to come out and has to make this move.

Lilly Jenkins: That was brilliant. For me, I think the best move in the game was one, aligning myself with strong women in the game – so, Victoria, Bismah [Ahmed], Nina [Twine], I felt like we had a really good pack going for a while. I relied on them because once they got power, the kept me around. That, and I think my second handle in the game being Robot was pivotal for me, it really gave me confidence. So, kind of being an alter-ego villain in anonymous mode was a game-changer for me.

Screen Rant: Victoria, I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask about your relationship with Christopher [Shulstad] – we saw the two of you connect in the game. Do you feel like it helped your game to be in a showmance?

Victoria Vesce: I mean, I’m not going to lie – it helped my game. Two is better than one in a game of getting as far as you can in the game. Two is better than one, so it helped me there. I do think it hindered my game, too, though, because everyone was thinking we were going to be doing sign language to each other. I want to know who started that rumor – because there’s no way Christopher knows sign language from a rock. So, I thought it was a hindrance for me being a new player, but it was also an advantage being a new player. At the end, I knew it was becoming a disadvantage – I knew that the showmance was going to be my downfall, because they were going to choose Christopher over me because he was an OG.

Screen Rant: Where do you stand with Christopher now?

Victoria Vesce: Well, there’s no such thing as Vistopher anymore, it’s just Victoria now. I’m my own woman living my best life in South Florida, doing my thing. As Christopher’s favorite line goes, “things aren’t always as they seem in the domain,” well, things aren’t always as they seem in the real world outside of the domain.

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Screen Rant: We love independence.

Victoria Vesce: We do! We love independence and we love boss ass women like myself and Lilly, and our girl Nina.

Screen Rant: Amazing – last question for the two of you, if you could do one thing differently during your time on The Anonymous, what would it be?

Victoria Vesce: I’ve got you right here - no ‘mances. No more showmances, no romances for Victoria. Especially if it’s a competition show, because it doesn’t matter how far we go in the world as women, it’s always going to be the women they take out. It’s such an unfortunate thing. So, no more showmances, let’s just be a solo ride or die on my next show.

Lilly Jenkins: For me, piggybacking off Victoria, I would have rebranded my third handle as Rainbow. I think I really, really started to [drop after that]. Robot was my peak, and then I went down the mountain after that. I was just really out of it by the end, I can’t even find the words to describe it clearly.

Victoria Vesce: I feel like we were all really out of energy by the end. It really became about who had the most energy, and it wasn’t us.

Lilly Jenkins: I should’ve had an espresso and gotten going.