Q & A/Patrick Guilfoyle, Plainsboro, N.J.

In June 2001, Patrick Guilfoyle, township administrator for Plainsboro, N.J., headed for Zurich, Switzerland, to participate in ABC’s reality game show Mole 2: The Next Betrayal. On the television series, 14 people competed in a series of physical and mental games and tried to earn money for the jackpot. Meanwhile, one of the players was The Mole, an undercover double agent who tried to sabotage challenges and minimize the size of the final jackpot. Each of the 12 episodes ended with a quiz during which participants answered questions about the identity of The Mole. The participant who answered the most questions incorrectly left the show. During the final episode, which aired in August, The Mole was revealed, and the remaining player received the $636,000 jackpot. Guilfoyle survived four episodes.

Q: How did you become interested in getting on Mole 2: The Next Betrayal?

Guilfoyle: I watched the first year’s series and became a fan of the show. I was interested in Survivor also, but then I thought, “On The Mole, they put you up in nice places; they feed you, serve you alcohol and treat you quite nicely. Then you get to see some interesting places.” So those were things that made me go to ABC’s Web site and pull down the application, fill that out, put together the obligatory video and send that off to Hollywood.

Q: Did you do anything to prepare yourself for the show?

A: No. It’s not like there were a lot of physical challenges. The big thing you had to do was to figure out the strategy that you wanted to use.

Q: Did anything from your job as a town administrator prepare you for the competition?

A: This is a game of deception, misdirection, lying and deceit. If you’re not The Mole, then you’re trying to figure out who The Mole is, and, at the same time, throw people off track to lessen their chances of figuring out who The Mole is. So when they asked me if I would be a good Mole, I said, “I’ve been in government for 30 years. Give me a break. You don’t think I know how to lie, cheat and steal?”

I guess a 30-year career in government taught me how to behave on stage, to control my outward emotions and to present a public persona that may not be the accurate reflection of my true personality. A lot of the players said that they were portraying themselves in a way that was not really reflective of their true personalities to try to throw people off.

Q: Did you have a favorite or a least favorite challenge?

A: I have a love-hate relationship with [the challenge in which I ran through a town wearing only a Speedo bathing suit]. The weather that day was 50 degrees; it was raining; it was cloudy; we were at about 8,000 feet elevation; and I was in that thing for about five or six hours as we took a train to San Maritz, which was a little higher, elevation-wise. By the [time we got to San Maritz], it was 5 or 5:30 at night and still drizzling. By that time, I was getting cold, and I was getting extremely self-conscious. That was probably my least favorite challenge in retrospect, but at the time, I had a lot of fun with it.

Q: How did you feel about being filmed all the time?

A: I’m comfortable with that kind of stuff. Being in the public sector, I’m very much accustomed to being on public view a lot. The first couple of days, it was a little odd having a camera right there and being wired all the time, but I quickly got used to it and really didn’t let it bother me. We quickly learned that an easy way to get rid of a camera was to expose products on camera that weren’t sponsors. Everybody started doing that.

Q: Did your participation on the show satisfy your desire to be on reality TV?

A: In life, I’ve learned that there are two words you should not use. One is “always,” and one is “never.” So I can’t say that I would never want to do it again, but I don’t think so.

But it has led to other interests. I have a friend who does a lot of TV commercial work. After seeing The Mole, he encouraged me to try my luck at acting and TV commercials, and that’s become a new venture in my life within the last couple of months. I may be selling Preparation H one day or something else like that.

Q: Maybe Speedos?

A: Hey, I’m available.

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