Q&A: Bear Grylls

Britain's hardcore survivalist lives on

So how would you introduce Bear Grylls? ‘Ex-SAS television survivalist; good sense of humour, loves interesting food and travel’? Maybe. Here at WideWorld we reckon he needs no introduction. He’s back on the British screens with a new series of Bear Grylls: Born Survivor, a rampaging one-hour slice of danger watched by 1.2bn people worldwide. WideWorld caught up with Bear on his return from Vietnam to talk about danger, teamwork and smiling in the face of adversity. And bear crap too.

You’re already synonymous with danger. How much more extreme can the new series be?

Well, the nature of the programme is that they’re all quite full on. I think especially in this last series we’ve really tried to push the boundaries and go to the most challenging places I’ve ever operated in. As you can imagine, I’m pretty bushed now but really pleased that we’ve done them.

Where have you been this time?

We’ve been to Siberia in the middle of winter we made two shows there. We’ve done the jungles of Belize, which are really unpleasant and well known as some of the most aggressive jungles around. We’ve done the Iraqi border; the Transylvanian mountains with some big bear encounters. We did a place in America called Hell’s Canyon that lives up to its name; we’ve been dropped on an ex-prison colony island off the coast of the Dominican Republic that’s just hell on earth. We’ve done ten for the new series. I’m really proud of these ones they’ve really pushed the boundaries for us.

So why did Siberia get two episodes to itself?

Just because so much happened. We flew out into the mountains there and did loads of cool things, like showing how people get swept under the frozen ice of rivers and how to get out of them. And yes, that’s where I do under-the-ice swims in minus 40 degrees. In the buff. Without clothes. I’m trying to remember all the stuff we did in Siberia, and God, it’s all a blur. There were loads of big ice gully climbs. And some cool yak encounters....

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