Jeopardy! Champion Amy Schneider Wins By Being Herself

Amy Schneider is the most successful woman to ever compete on “Jeopardy!” The former engineering manager held a 40-game winning streak from November 2021 to January 2022, the second-longest in the show's history. Her winnings totalled $1.3 million, making her the fifth-highest earner of any contestant on the show. In advance of competing in the “Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions,” Schneider joins guest host Talia Schlanger to discuss how she prepared to compete, how being the most authentic version of herself led to success, and how her life has changed since her historic “Jeopardy!” run. (Update: She won!)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Talia Schlanger, and you're listening to Here's the
Thing from I Heart Radio. There are some people you
just can't help but fall in love with when you
see them on TV. Amy Schneider is one of those people.
She won a lot of hearts and a lot of
money when she took Jeopardy by storm earlier this year
and became the most successful woman in the show's history.

(00:24):
Schneider held a forty game winning streak, which is the
second longest ever, and racked up an incredible one point
three million dollars in winnings. But it was Amy Schneider's
warmth and charm behind the podium that quickly endeared her
to Jeopardy audiences around the world. Schneider is back now,
competing in the Jeopardy Tournament of Champions this month, but

(00:46):
before we get to that, I wanted to know what
it was like for her the first time the phone
rang and a voice on the other end said You're
going to be on Jeopardy. It was the fall of
and you know, it was something I've been trying for
for a long time. And I got a text and
it was like, Hey, this is John from Jeopardy. Do
you have time to talk this afternoon. It's it's good news.

(01:06):
And so I, you know, pretty much knew what it was,
and you know, we talked and he said that I
was going to be on the show. Yeah. So you've
been auditioning for years. What do you think it was
this time that made you successful? Yeah, I mean, I think,
you know, to an extent, I don't know that's the
secrets of the Jeopardy casting process, but I definitely think
a big factor was that it was the first time
I had reached the sort of in person although it

(01:29):
was over zoom auditions, since I transitioned, and I realized
looking back on it, I mean even when I just
looked like old pictures of myself some you know, the
occasional old videos of myself, like I'm just so closed
off and so like, you know, not wanting to reveal
anything about myself and and not wanting to give anything away,
and that, you know, is not the case anymore, and

(01:50):
that's that's not how I am now that I've transitioned,
And so I think I was just much more like
lively and engaging to them, you know, to be on
camera than that I had been in the past. Oh,
that's so interesting. I mean, I'm sort of done by
that right off the bat, that it's bringing your full
self to the table. Is something that allowed you to
achieve this lifelong dream. Yeah. No, And that's been like

(02:11):
a sort of just unexpected lesson of transitioning that that
I think can apply to a lot of people. Is that, like,
you know, I just thought it was something I had
to do and it was going to make my life
harder in a lot of ways, but I just needed to.
But then it's it's made my life easier in a
ton of ways that I just didn't think about and
didn't expect. You know that when you're being yourself and
whatever you're doing, you're you're just more successful at it

(02:33):
and things come easier. And that's that's not something I
expected to happen. Wow, it's so it's beautiful. And I
want to talk a little bit more about that, about
the transition later and about that part of your life.
But first, so you get the call from Jeopardy from
this text message in the in the afternoon. How long
is it between the time that you find out that
you are going to be a contestant on Jeopardy and
the time that you actually have to pack your bags

(02:54):
and and go walk into that studio. Yeah, so generally
it's like three or four weeks, like coming down in
three weeks, that will be the date you tape your episodes.
And I did. I flew down to l A. And
then that afternoon they called and they were like, hey,
there's been an issue like negotiations with the union over COVID,
you know, protocols or whatever, and so we're we're just
going to have to cancel taping and we'll reschedule you

(03:17):
for a few weeks later. So I flew back home,
and then in the intervening time, Alex passed away, and
so you know, obviously everything was kind of up in
the air, and they eventually, for for me and a
few other people that were kind of in my position
that have been rescheduled a couple of times, they decided
to just put us on hold until they were sure
things were stable and they wouldn't have to reschedule us again.

(03:37):
But they didn't. They didn't actually tell us that. So
I was just like waiting a year, being like, is
this really going to happen? Are they like? Have I
been tricked to a dream that it was a weird
interlude there, did you say a year? Yeah, so wait
a minute, You've achieved your dream and now you have
to wait a year and tell me what are you
doing in that year? Are you preparing yourself, are you

(03:58):
giving up hope? Combination of all of this. Yeah, So,
I mean, I guess what I'd say is that, like
the way the Jeopardy audition process works is that once
you get to that last stage, they just tell you, Okay,
you're in the You're in the pool for the next
eighteen months, and in that eighteen months you might get
a call to be like, hey, you're on the show.
And if you don't, then you didn't start over from

(04:19):
the beginning. And so it was not the first time
in my life that had been in that kind of
state of this might be happening soon, so you know,
and I was just doing kind of what I've always done,
which is basically nothing too intense, but mainly just like
during my downtimes, going through old games online, old questions
and just sort of looking for things that I was

(04:41):
consistently not knowing, or you know, patterns of things that
that they focus on that that might be unexpected, Like
you know, they talk about like Edith Wharton and Henry
James and like turn of the century authors, like a
lot more than most people are. You know, they have
these weird kind of like you know, things that they're
they're disproportionately focused on. So yeah, So I mean, like

(05:01):
that's just something that I've you know, done off and
on for the you know, twelve thirteen years that I've
been auditioning, and so I just you know, kept doing that. Wow,
So You've been preparing for this a long time, and
I think probably your whole life building up this brain network.
I want to know, what else are you reading encyclopedias?
Are you keeping up with the news, are you calling friends?
What are you doing? Yeah? One thing I'd say is
that apart from the like going through the old Jeopardy games,

(05:24):
like I'm not doing much like specifically studying for Jeopardy.
I've just always been just sort of curious and wanting
to explore and find out new things. So like, you know,
for you know, as long as it's been around. When
I'm protrastinating at work, one of my things I'll do
is just kind of go to Wikipedia and sort of
just like click around and find something interesting and then

(05:44):
and read up on it. I mean I've always been
a big reader. Sometimes starting in my like mid twenties,
I really like started gravitating towards history and reading a
lot of that. And that's that's true to this day.
That's like probably like fifty of what I read, and
so that too. I think his returns out to be
really useful for Jeopardy and you know, life, because it

(06:05):
kind of touches everything, like, you know, everything you know,
a good work of history will tie into you know,
economics and politics and science and gender relations and art
and and everything else. Can you know fit into that?
Oh for sure. Now there's a pattern that I think
is really interesting. You studied computer science. Ken Jennings, who's

(06:28):
the current host of Jeopardy and the longest reigning champion,
also studied computer science, and Matt Emotio, who is now
below you as the third longest streak in Jeopardy history
with thirty seven wins, also has a PhD in computer science.
I found that really surprising because you don't think of
that as a subject that a lot of questions are about.
But do you have a theories or something about the
computer science brain. Yeah, I think that there's a certain

(06:51):
type of person that gets into programming because you know,
and this is at least the case for me, because
of kind of the creative side of it. You know,
it is something that it's got the career security that
creative writing and art and things like that don't have.
But at the same time, you are kind of starting
with a blank page and being like, make a thing.
That's why some people get into it. Some people just
have these really like orderly logical minds that fit well

(07:14):
to it, and those I don't think are going to
be as well suited to jeopardy. But I think if
you're interested in that. And the other thing that I
found fascinating about it was that it's really about translation.
That you're taking something a human said and telling it
to a computer, and that forces you to realize all
the like unstated assumptions and you know, subtext and everything

(07:37):
else that go into you know, human language, because the
computer doesn't know anything, it isn't going to assume anything,
and you have to tell it all explicitly, and so
it requires you to understand things kind of in a
deep way in order to tell them to a computer.
And so if you're interested in like diving into things
like that there's a good chance that you'll apply that interest,
not just programming budget, to just whatever else. One of

(08:00):
the things about me, but like I always you know,
didn't quite fit in in the industry, was that like
a lot of programmers will work all day and then
go home and then write more code at night for
their own personal projects. And that was never me. I
was like, that's fine for the day, but I've got
other stuff I want to do with the rest of
my time, like what oh, you know, like I've always
had like various half finished projects going on, like if

(08:23):
I've always needed to have something creative going on in
my life. For for most of my life, that was theater,
and it was like if I went, you know, maybe
six months without being in a play, I'd get like
itchy and I feel like I needed to do it again.
And then in the last ten years or so, it's
just the time commitment, I just haven't really been able
to do that. So I've been finding other things I've done,
like stand up comedy. One of the big things I've

(08:43):
done was podcasting at a Doubt Nappy podcast. For a
long time, that until now was my claim to fame.
It was it was reasonably successful. I've got probably like
ten twenty things that are like ideas I had and
started on and abandoned that I intend to pick up
again someday. Yeah. Okay, wait, we're taking a little detour here,
but I have to know, is there a dream role
that you have in theater that you'd like to play

(09:04):
one day? Yeah? I think, you know, I think I
wound up like doing a lot of comic roles in
my time, so definitely one of the like big, you know,
tragedy ones. I think both McBeth and Lady McBeth are
fascinating roles that i'd be by be interested in. I think, yeah,
oh wow, imagine playing both of them on alternating nights
or something like that. Right, Yeah, that would be something

(09:25):
that would be fascinating. Oh and the other one would
be one of the three leads in Rosencranson Guild and
Sturner Dead. That's that's maybe my favorite play. M M.
I love it. Okay, back to Jeopardy. So we've got
the brain prep and I guess it sounds to me
almost I'm picturing like neural networks that you're building in
your in your mind almost as a web for mental preparation.
But then there's also the physical preparation of button clicking,

(09:47):
buzzer pressing, Like you got to be good at the buzzer,
So how did you go about preparing for that aspect
of being on Jeopardy. Yeah, I mean, you know, there's
only so much you can do, so I definitely i'd
read you know, past champions and the advice of they've given,
and certainly, you know, when I was watching the game
at home, i'd have like a ballpoint pen just to
sort of get in the habit of like that. Absolutely okay,

(10:11):
But the thing about it is like you can't really know,
Like the way the buzzer works is that there's somebody
flipping a switch that enables them and turns on some
lights by the side of the board when the when
the host finishes the question, and if you buzz in
before they've flipped that switch, then when they do flip
the switch, your buzzer is locked out for a quarter second,

(10:31):
and so other people will be able to get in
ahead of you. And so it's really like it's just
all about like, you know, being in tune with that
person and you know, no, you know, feeling when they're
about to do it so like I had, you know,
I had read that advice and I went in with
a certain strategy of like, okay, you sort of aim
for like the last syllable of the clue as the
hostess reading it and things like that, and it was

(10:54):
doing okay, but it wasn't really it wasn't doing well enough.
I mean, it was up against this really good champion
in my first game, and so for whatever reason, I
just in the middle of it was just just decided
to kind of throw that out and just stop trying
to time it and just going by like intuition and
just feeling when the right moment was. And it worked
and it it kept working. So you know, it's like,

(11:14):
I don't know if that would work for everyone, but
that that's how it was for me. Let's talk about
that first game. Tell me what it was like the
first time you walked onto the Alextro Bug stage at
Sony Pictures Studios, Like, what how did it compare to
what you had dreamed of? Yeah, walking on the stage
was you know, it was a lot And that was

(11:35):
really I think the biggest, you know, some of the
most important preparation I did was in the last week
or two before taping, because I realized that, like I
was so afraid of losing that like it was getting
kind of paralyzing and becoming counterproductive. And so really in
that time, I was really focusing on lowering the stakes
for myself and saying, it's fine, like if you go

(11:57):
on and lose, you go on and lose. It's definitely
a possibility that really might happen, and it would be
okay if it did, you know, and you're just there
to like be in the moment, have fun, enjoy the experience,
and let the chips fall where they may. And so,
you know, I was definitely it was definitely an effort
that that you know, anxiety and that tension and everything

(12:18):
was still trying to creep in there, and I was
like having to actively hold it down. But I'm glad
I really did that preparation. I don't I think I
wouldn't have had a chance without it. That's massive, I mean,
it's a whole It sounds to me like like what
an elite athlete would have to do in order to
cite themselves up for an Olympic game or to like
to keep their head in it. Yeah. Absolutely, it's funny
because I am a sports fan, and like, I don't

(12:40):
hang out I hang out with like, you know, actors
and comedians and artists, and like I never have anybody
to talk sports with. But it was like, especially as
it went on, I really was finding myself being like,
I really start to understand these sort of sports cliches
and the sort of like the answers that athletes given
interviews that are kind of like formulaic. Like I really
started to see that competition and that that trying to

(13:02):
be you know, completely focused, trying to be at the
peak of your game. I was surprised by how suddenly
relatable I felt like professional athletes were, oh yeah, and
the endurance of it as well, Like I read somewhere
that you tape five episodes in a day, which is
fine if you're you know, in for a couple episodes
and then you lose, But if you're on a forty
game winning street, can you please paint the picture for

(13:24):
me of like what it is like to actually compete
in five full episodes of Jeopardy one day. It's a lot,
you know. One thing about it is that during the
game itself, like it goes at such a fast pace
that it's like there's like not time to be fatigued
or whatever. Like you you sort of don't notice it,
but yeah, I mean, especially like after the first full

(13:46):
day that I did, I definitely I was just so
physically tired. At the end of it. I really focused on,
you know, the next day, I was there really conserving
my energy through everything else through through the rest of
the day, Like every time the cameras rof I was
like leaning on the podium and like stretching out my legs,
giving my feet a rest, that sort of thing, because
it is it's it's like an eleven hour day and

(14:09):
you do too a week, and like by the end
of that second day, it was just like I was done.
How do you even have the energy to walk like
go back to your hotel? You just go back to
your hotel room and flop on the bed. I did.
I did. I would go and just lie down and
like do nothing, Like I wouldn't look at my phone,
I wouldn't think, I wouldn't like just do anything, just

(14:29):
like lie there until I could like start the function again. Yeah. Yeah,
And it's so weird too, because you're having this experience
kind of privately, like it's not airing as it's taping.
You're taping these episodes that will air, you know, months
in advance, So that has to be a very strange
feeling as well. I would think it definitely was. I mean,
I think overall, I'm glad that it worked that way.
I think, you know, a few things, Like one is

(14:50):
that I was really bummed as it was leading up
to my final episode because I knew. I was like, Oh,
all these people are going to be so sad that
I lose, you know. And so if I if my
episodes have been airing, and I'd sort of had at
pressure of like knowing that people were like rooting for me,
that that would have made it harder, I think, And
I think that, you know. And it also like and
there was no studio audience. It was just the other
contestants and the crew, and so that also made it

(15:12):
easier to just ignore the cameras and not worry too
much about that stuff. But then when I was at
home and and and you know, and then in the
weeks after I was done taping and leading up to
the airing of the episodes, that was really strange. You know.
I told a few people, probably more than I really
should have, but you know, still it was it was
a secret from a lot of people, and it was
just like I knew I had done this historic thing,

(15:35):
and I knew that this was going to be a
huge deal and you know, kind of a life changing thing,
and yet nobody knew about it, and I couldn't talk
about it. It was it was really weird. Oh, for sure,
it had to be. Were you watching the episodes with people?
Certainly Genevieve every night, my girlfriend at the time, and
you know, reasonably often we'd go over. There's a you know,

(15:55):
a couple that lives near Ross. We would go over
to their house. For the first episode, we had like
a whole watch party, like my friend's got an airbnb
and we had like eight or ten people, and like
it was it was a whole event, and we kind
of did a bit for the last episode two, but
otherwise it was just like, yeah, we were just kind
of living our lives and you know, if somebody happened
to be over, we'd watch with them, and if not,
it was just with us. You're probably like, if we

(16:17):
have a watch party every episode that I'm on Friends,
you're in for a long like a month and a
half of Watch period. I mean that was the other thing.
Those those first couple of episodes. I'm getting, like the
first you know, five episodes. I've got these people who
are text me every time being like, oh, good job,
and I'm like, you don't know what you've the commitment
you've signed up for if you're going to be texting
this every time. Jeopardy champion Amy Schneider. If you like

(16:43):
conversations about competitive game shows, check out our episode with
host of That's My jam An, executive producer of Password,
Jimmy Fallon. My mom goes, you know that Tom Cruise
is great. Thanks watching. He looked really good with his
long hand. You, he says his Tom Cruise, Yeah, I
really liked his long hair. I go, yeah, he looks

(17:04):
good with long hair. He's Tom Cruise. Yeah I really
like his long hair. I go, I heard you the
first three time. Okay, I'm giving you a hint to
grow your hair out. It's too short to hang up
the phone. Oh, I started hooking up. I started make hands,
returning green, I short started a rip. Here more of

(17:24):
Alex conversation with Jimmy Fallon in our archives at Here's
the Thing dot org. After the break, I talked to
Amy Schneider about the mixed feelings she had when her
epic Jeopardy run finally ended. I'm Talia Schlanger, and you're

(17:48):
listening to Here's the thing. Amy Schneider broke multiple records
in her Jeopardy run this winter. She's currently number five
on the all time total winnings list. She also holds
the second longest of victory streak and is the winningest
woman in Jeopardy history. I was curious about her strategy
for tackling the infamous Jeopardy board. The one sort of

(18:10):
like specific strategy thing I had was to like go
after categories that I felt weaker in first, so that
there wouldn't be as much money at stake if there
is a daily double. But beyond that, my sort of
meta strategy or that, the way I was thinking about
it was, I just wanted as few things to think
about as possible, so I didn't do too much about
like thinking about like, you know, a lot of recent

(18:31):
champions have gone for the higher value that you know,
amounts first, or like jumping around to keep it, pull
off balance or things like that, and I didn't want
to do that for a couple of reasons. One is
that you know, it was an extra thing to think about,
and it would you know, I wanted a simple just
like choose the next clue in the category and then
I don't have to think about and make that decision.
But the other thing is I've been watching the show
my whole life, and I know that it makes the

(18:53):
show better. And you know, I love the show, and
I knew it had have been having a tough time,
and especially as I was going on, I just like
I wanted to serve the show and put on a
good show and understand the people at home, and I
knew that they would appreciate that you did. I think
people really fell in love with you. My folks would
tell me about you all the time, like how like

(19:14):
they and they're they're not alone, Like so many people
really just fell fell in love with you, and I
think really enjoyed rooting for you. And it's probably weird
to analyze yourself in this way, but I mean, you've
watched yourself on the show. I don't know if you
have a take or an idea about what that is. Yeah,
I mean I I do. I think that you know,
I definitely had like debated going in about like how

(19:36):
was going to present myself in in certain ways and
like around my femininity and my voice and different things
like that, and also you know, just in general, how
do I want to be on TV? And I eventually
decided partly in that like don't give myself too many variables.
Was just like, I'm just going to be myself and
be as just like authentic as I can be. And

(19:57):
because if I did that, then I knew that I
would be okay with how I came off on TV,
whether or not, you know, people liked it or connected
with it or whatever, you know, And so I wasn't
really worrying about whether I'd be connecting with people or not.
I was just focused on, you know, ignore that, stay
in the game, be myself, and what will happen happens.
And I think absolutely I think that people saw that,

(20:18):
and you know, saw that they were seeing like the
real me, and and that's what they responded to. Yeah,
regarding your your voice and your choice to speak in
your natural speaking register, can you explain to me, like
have you done gender affirming voice therapy in your outside
of Jeopardy life to speak a bit differently? I did

(20:38):
it was It was a few years ago, earlier in
my transition, and if I was put to it, I
could like speak in a more feminine voice. It's about
like just first of all, it's just like you know,
speaking that higher pitch, but there's also other things about
like being breathier, like speaking more in your head and
less in your chest, doing more up talk and being
more pleasant that way, and that sort of thing, which
I kind of do naturally anyway, And that was my

(21:00):
intention was to do that because I really, you know,
I going into this in particular, I really didn't like
my voice. I didn't like hearing it. I you know,
I've done a podcast. I was used to hearing it,
but I never liked it getting called sir on the
phone would like really like bump me out a lot,
and all those sorts of things. And so I really
couldn't imagine like not doing that feminine voice on TV

(21:21):
until like the days leading up to it, and it
just suddenly felt wrong and in ways that I couldn't
quite define to myself at the time. But it was
the right decision. I think that. For one thing, like
it kind of forced me through that dysphoria and that
dislike because everybody liked me fine, and it wasn't the
big problem that you know, it's that was in my head.

(21:41):
And the other thing that I realized afterwards that I
think I was subconsciously thinking about is that, you know,
this is how most trans women's voice sounds. Like changing
your voice is is doable, but it's like really hard
and a really weird thing to do, and it's a
very I think most trans women like give up on
it because it just feels so unnatural and awkward. I

(22:03):
knew the trans people would be watching me because I
watched trans contestants on Jeopardy and like really like focused
in on them, and so I wanted to I didn't
want to give them like too high of a sort
of standard to reach, if you will. I didn't want
to give them this ideal that might feel less attainable
to them. Wow. I think it also if we go
back to the elite athlete thing, you had a job

(22:24):
to do, like you need every bit of your mental
energy and your physical energy to compete on this program,
and the idea of having to do an extra little
bit of mental math or even like reading a slightly
different way you went for it. You gave yourself the
best chance to compete. Absolutely, no. I mean it is
like most of what I was doing in that preparation

(22:46):
was just thinking about you know, again, I've been telling everybody,
I went on that show to win money, you know,
that was that was what I was going there to do.
But like, I'm so glad that I went with the
approaches I went with and and all that sort of thing.
They had so many more benefits than just giving me
a better chance to win. Like, I really learned a
lot about myself through this process. Yeah, did you hear
from trans people about that particular issue about your voice?

(23:07):
I did. It was funny. I was really surprised by
a lot of different stuff that I talked about, like
somebody connected with you know, I talked about having an
older sister that died in infancy before I was born,
and I heard from several people about that. You know,
I've talked about having a d h d on on
Twitter and people connecting about that. So, you know, all

(23:29):
the stuff I've talked, like, you know, everything I've experienced,
somebody else has experienced, and you know, finding all those
connections has been you know, I think that's been another
amazing thing coming out of this is to feel so
much less alone in these various things, for sure, And
I think for people to see you. I mean, in
each episode of Jeopardy, Ken Jennings asks the contestants questions,

(23:50):
and you're on for forty episodes, so you answer forty
different questions about different parts of yourself. And I think
that that was one of the most amazing things to
watch unfold. It's just like to be able to it,
to know all these different facets of you over time.
And I thought it was interesting that you chose to
talk about being trans like a handful of episodes in.

(24:11):
Was that a deliberate choice on on your part or
on the show's part? It was, you know, it wasn't
like nobody on Jeopardy reference the fact that I was
trans at all or mentioned it until I brought it up,
until I wanted to wear that pin, you know, and
it was clear that, you know, it was empirely up
to me that they would never have mentioned it if
I didn't. Yeah, and wait, sorry, just for people who

(24:33):
are who are listening and maybe not familiar with the
pin you wore, would you describe it? Yeah, it was
just the trans flag, you know, so a standard flag
pin but with those colors, and actually Kate Freeman, who
was the first trans woman to win a game of Jeopardy,
had worn one, and I didn't want to, like I'd
consider just like wearing that, but then I just didn't
want to because you know, I've talked about you know,

(24:55):
I'm trans, but that can be a thing that kind
of like overshadows everything else. That can become like the
thing that you are. And it's like, you know, when
I think about myself, that's not the first thing that
I think about, you know, I think about that I'm sport,
that I live in Oakland, that i'm you know, like
all these other things, and then you know, that's definitely
in there. Um, So I didn't want to like make
it about being the trans person. But then once I

(25:17):
you know, want a couple of games, it was like, well,
I also don't want it to be a secret. I
don't want it to be something that I'm like hiding
or seem ashamed of or anything else like that, because
you know, I am trans and I'm proud of it
and I like it. I think it's I feel sorry
for his people. I think your lives are more boring
than man and all that sort of thing. So I
did want to. I I felt like after a few games,
I was like, Okay, I don't want to leave this

(25:38):
on acknowledged. Yeah, of course, And I think you did
it in the week leading up to Thanksgiving, which I know.
I have friends who said that it was very meaningful
to them to see that, because it was sort of,
I don't know, to them. They took it as a
wink and a not of like, you might be going
to be with your families, you might be in situations
where it might be hard to talk about this, and
and I sort of I see you sort of a thing. Yeah, yeah,

(26:00):
absolutely what it was. And I mean it's you know,
like because Thanksgiving, of the various holidays, is the most
family oriented, and you know, trans people, you know, statistically
are less likely to have a good relationship with their family,
and so it can it can be hard. So yeah,
that was that was definitely part of the thinking. For sure.
Can I ask about your relationship to your to your family?
You know, it's good. My mom there was a little

(26:22):
bit of like hesitation or something like that, but she
was always accepting of me when I when I came
out to her, you know, just sort of resistance on
like changing pronouns and things like that, but like not
a big deal, and that's all been good for for
years at this point. And yeah, my my dad had
passed away before I came out, and you know, I'm
not you know, to be honest, I'm not sure how
that would have gone. And so, you know, we'll we'll

(26:44):
never know. But my brother is great and always has
been and always will be. So if we come back
to the game itself and playing Jeopardy, being in this studio,
these you know, five show tapings in a day, did
you surprise yourself with how much you knew or with
like with answers to questions that you're like, where did
that come from? In my brain? I mean, I guess
I wouldn't say that. I there was definitely cases whereas

(27:06):
like I don't know how I knew that, but that
didn't surprise me. That happens to me, like in my life,
Like I'm you know all the time, I'm like where
did I learn that? You know, Like, especially as the
show was going on. I remember specifically like one time
our friend Will being like, how did you know that?
And I'm like I read it somewhere once I don't know,
like and it's stuck, Like how do I answer that question? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,

(27:30):
yeah yeah. Well does it do you feel that you
have a photographic memory or is it something else? It's
not photographic for sure, God knows. I lose my phone
all the time and all sorts of things like that.
Like I'm bad at remembering people's names and faces. But
you know, there's something about the way my brain is
set up that like is just well set up I
think for like kind of like trivia facts. I don't

(27:51):
know why, but those things stick in my brain pretty well.
And I think that part of the reason at least
is that sort of like wanting to dig into things
that I talked about, Like I'm no good at remembering
like years or like these sort of like specific things
that are kind of like arbitrary and don't really matter, um,
but like things that I can tie into a story

(28:12):
and like, you know, this is what was going on
in the world at that time, or this word, you know,
it has these etymological things that it comes from, these
languages or whatever else. Like if you learn something and
then kind of dig into it more, then that thing
will stay. Yeah, are there any answers or questions that
still haunt you from your time there. Yeah, I mean

(28:33):
obviously the last one when I lost it is definitely
one I'll always think about. And there was another one
that I think was in that same final episode where
it was a football question and the answer was Johnny
Unitas they were showing Johnny unitis on the screen. I
thought Johnny Unitas, and then I rang in and my
mouth said Joe Namath and I was just like what
what what? How did that happen? And I know there

(28:55):
are a few others. I remember a couple of times
watching where you know, I'm watching the episode out and
I'm being like ring in, Why am I not ringing in?
I know this, you know. But yeah, on that last episode,
can you tell me a bit about the mixed bag
of feelings that were probably part of it, because I
imagine one of them maybe was relief a little bit.
It sounds grueling, Yeah, yeah, I mean definitely, like the

(29:18):
first thing was just like loss and sadness, Like it
was really hit me hard in that like first moment,
you know, and then my my second thought of that
after that was like, you know, keep it together, like
don't you know, I really, like Madam Moodio talked about
when he lost, he really wanted to make sure that
the person who won was getting the focus on them,
and you know that it wasn't about his loss and

(29:38):
it was about their win because it's such a big
thing for them, and so I wanted to, like, you know,
be doing the same. But then shortly after I had
the thought, I don't have to come up with any
more anecdotes to tell Ken, which was you know, a
good feeling, and I don't have to keep leaving you know,
Genevieve and Meep every week and like I can get
back to my normal life and all those sorts of things.

(29:59):
I'm I can't imagine how Ken Jennings did what he did.
I was still so far away from his streak and
it just like you know, I always respected it, and
now it just blows my mind. Yes, seventy plus episodes
something like that, Yeah, yeah, exact number. Did you have
a good cry? Though? Did you have did you let
yourself cry? At some point? So I I was walked
back to where the other contestants were hanging out in

(30:21):
a in a parking garage, and in a parking garage, yeah,
for for social distancing, that that was the place they
could find, and so one thing was on the way over.
You know, I was clearly struggling a bit, and the
crew member who was walking me said, it's it's like
the end of a show, like a play. You know,
We've all been working together, collaborating to put this thing out,

(30:42):
and it's just suddenly like gone. And I really appreciated that.
I realized that was the exact feeling I was having,
and that also comforted me in a bit, because, like,
you know, that's not when you think about when you
go remember a play, you remember the run of it.
You don't remember that sadness at the end. But so
I did like then, and I sort of like you know,
said hi, you know, contestants, and did a little small

(31:03):
talk like that, and I was like, hey, I gotta
go to the bathroom. And then I went in the
bathroom and I cried for a couple of minutes and
I let that go, you know, and then pulled myself
up together and came back out. But yes, I did.
I knew I needed to, Oh for sure. I can't
imagine the release of that. I also read somewhere that
you gave thank you notes to the crew. Is that true?
It is? I'm yeah, no, I just I mean, first

(31:28):
of all, they're all great people, Like you know, I
wasn't expecting them not to be fine people, but I
was really impressed by basically everyone there. And then it was,
you know, it was such an intense experience and they
were the only ones that were there with me through it,
and like, there were definitely several occasions like that last
one where they just said just the right thing at
just the right time. That was really what I needed

(31:49):
to hear. And I just felt like I had to
like let them know how how much I appreciated them.
That's Amy Schneider. If you're enjoying this conversation, and be
sure to subscribe to Here's the Thing on the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
When we come back, Amy Schneider shares her perspective on

(32:10):
the rash of anti trans legislation on the rise across
the country. I'm Dalia Schlanger and this is Here's the Thing.
Jeopardy champion Amy Schneider's life has changed dramatically since her

(32:34):
epic run on the show. Her social media following has exploded.
She was honored with a special recognition at this year's
GLAD Media Awards. She's even had a day named after
her in Oakland, California. I wanted to know about the
first moment when Schneider realized that she had become a
public figure. I think maybe the first one. I was
surprised by how fast like things took off, and like,

(32:57):
you know, how many Twitter followers? Why is getting how
many like interview request? I was getting that sort of thing.
But I had known something like that was going to happen,
even if I didn't know the degree. But I think,
you know, there are two things that really kind of
made me realize, like, this isn't just a thing that's happening.
This is a new phase of my life. I think
the first one was I got robbed at the beginning
of the year. UM. Didn't have anything to do with Jeopardy.

(33:20):
It's just you know, I was I had bad luck
on that and you know whatever, UM and I mentioned
it on Twitter and then it was a news story
and like people in my life found out about it
because they had seen it in like their news feed
and things like that, And that was really a moment
of being like, okay, like I have a public life
now and a and a personal life, and it's it's
up to me to monitor where the boundaries between those are.

(33:41):
And that's just going to be the case for who
knows how long. So that was one moment, and then
the other one was like, once my episode stopped airing,
like I played, I put off a lot of things
on the assumption that once my episode stopped airing, things
would calm down and to have more free time. And
then a week or two in I was like, Wow,
that not happen at all, and this is not going

(34:03):
to stop, and yeah, I had to like just recalibrate
my whole plans for you know, the next few months. Yeah,
well I think kind of the rest of your life.
Like you quit your job, Yeah, yeah, I did. Was
that our decision to make? No? Um, you know, I'd
been struggling and with dissatisfaction of my career for a while.
I mean, I think, like a lot of people in COVID,

(34:24):
it was just like is this really what I want
to be doing with my life? And you know, just
not feeling the fulfillment that I used to have, so
you know, like this coming along, it was like I
was thinking about doing it anyway, and having you know,
a million dollars to cushion the financial blow like made
it a lot easier. I had thought that I was
going to hang in there for a few more months,

(34:44):
like get some stock options to fast and some other
stuff like that, you know, see if things were really
going to be sustainable. But then it quickly became clear
that they were, and like it was just like, this
is foolish. I'm actually not doing any work. Like I
had this realization I needed to write this like RFC
about spec automation you know, whatever that means. And I
was like, I'm not going to do that. I just

(35:05):
can't imagine myself doing that anymore. That's that's so uninteresting
to me. And so yeah, I said, of meeting with
my manager, and that was it. What's the dream now?
You know a lot of people have been like suggesting
a lot of things to me, but I think what
I've kind of settled on is that I think my
dream would be if somebody was to be describing Amy
Schneider in a few years, that they would say she's

(35:27):
a writer, and then maybe adding other things after that,
maybe like you know, podcasting or like hosting a TV
show or things like that. But I think that, like,
you know, I've written some essays that have been online.
I've put together a book proposal, and I'm going to
be trying to write a book. And I've really found
that to be the most satisfying to do or even
think about, of all the things that have come along.

(35:48):
It's amazing. I want to ask you about your life
on online a little bit. I know your in person
life has changed so much, but your life online as well.
And I understand that Jeopardy like makes a recommendation to
people to shut down their personal social media accounts before
they're on the show. Can you tell me a little
bit about that aspect of things and what it's been
like for you. Yeah, I mean it's been interesting. I

(36:10):
will say that before the episode started airing, Jeopardy put
me in contact with Glad, who gave me, you know,
a fair amount of like advice and like preparation and
training for being a queer person in the public eye,
which was super helpful. You know, it's been tough. Like
I I used to be on Twitter a fair amount.
I used to post a fair amount to my you know,
three followers or whatever. And then I'd already kind of

(36:32):
like stopped that during the pandemic because I just didn't
feel like I had anything to say about, you know, COVID.
It was always just so like off the cuff too,
Like I would think of like a funny thing and
like you know, spend twenty minutes like crafting it and
like debating over commas and stuff, and then then throw
it out there. But now, you know, I can't just
like you know, take an edible and think of something
funny and post it because like you know, it's going

(36:54):
to be in the news, and I had need to
be you know, more thoughtful about it, and so trying
to find that balance of where's the like still like
you know, casual and me and natural, while also being
you know, thoughtful enough to not you know, do anything foolish,
oh for sure. And also I mean, like you said
that Jeopardy put you in touch with Glad to talk
about being a queer person in the public eye. Do

(37:16):
you feel like like having to deal with that side
of things has politicized you more in your transness maybe
then you felt as a private person. I actually I
think that I've been very politicized as a trans person.
That's something that I've been you know, intentionally de emphasizing
in my social media and in my public presence because

(37:38):
I don't you know, I don't want my Twitter feed
to be a place where people are arguing all the time,
and that's not, you know, my goal. But yeah, it's
been interesting. It's certainly like hardened me and things that
I already felt. And I guess it's made me think
through more like my politics and my beliefs and things
like that. It's really you know, because if I am
going to address it, like I say, I need to

(38:00):
do it now in a thoughtful way, and I need
to really think about what will actually you know, persuade
people and not just what will make me feel good.
And so I've been That's something I've been doing a
lot of thinking about, and it's something I do want
to be, you know, I don't want to be an activist,
you know, per se or things like that, but I
do want to start like using that platform a bit

(38:21):
more to advance the humanity of people like me. Do
you have any advice for people listening about finding their
own authenticity or about finding harmony within parts of themselves
so that they can do their own form of what
you've done. Yeah, I mean it's tough. It took me
thirty some years, you know, it's it's it's certainly a
difficult thing to do. But I think what I'd say

(38:43):
that I've what I've learned from transitioning is that as
you think about there's some part of yourself that you
haven't been expressing, some part of yourself that you've been
kind of ashamed of or just you know, wanting to conceal,
not wanting to highlight. You are exaggerating your fears, and
you're underestimating the benefits. Like, I'm confident of that it

(39:04):
is not going to be as bad as you think.
The negative things won't be as bad as you think
they are, and the positives there's going to be positives
to it that you were not even thinking of or expecting.
Like I I really think that's true. That's so beautifully sad.
Do you ever think about what your life might have
been like if you hadn't found the courage to make
that transition, to take that leap. Yeah, I mean, you know,

(39:26):
I lived it for a long time, and it was
miserable in a way that I didn't know because that
had always been with me, and so you know, you
talk about courage and and there's a truth to that.
But once I really like started to experience seeing myself
as a woman, letting you know a few people close

(39:46):
to me in my life see me that way, you know,
acting that way with other people, it felt like there
was no choice. It didn't feel like something that I
was bravely deciding to do. It felt like something that
was like happening to me, Like coming out was happening
to me because I could not stay in the closet
any longer. So yeah, that was my experience with it.
So this spring, you went to the White House for

(40:07):
Transgender Day of Visibility. Unbelievable. How did it feel to
be there? Well, it's definitely one of the many, you know,
mind blowing experiences I've had this year. A sort of
surreal feeling, you know, just there. It is just like
in the movies, you know, you're here at the White House.
And it was also just really drove home for me
how much things have changed in this country for trans

(40:28):
people that you know, I would be invited by the
White House and they would think it was good politics
to do, so, you know, that was really neat So
On the one hand, I mean, that's such a powerful
thing to have a transferson be invited to the White
House to mark this day and be so visible on
Transgender Day of Visibility. And yet this year we've also
heard so much noise in the media, so much anti
trans legislation being brought forward, I think, more than any

(40:51):
other year in history in two And I want to
know what you think, Like, what's your perspective on where
we're at right now? Those are two very a posing states.
I think, yeah, I mean I think that fundamentally, I'm
I'm really actually quite optimistic. And I don't want to
undersell the sort of danger that trans people, in trans

(41:11):
children in particular, are in right now. You know, the
being denied gender affirming care is is will will some
of them will die from that. It is life saving
medical care for many people. And I know that that
may be hard to understand if you, you know, are
not trans yourself, but I can promise you that it's true.
But at the same time, I was talking with their
friend the other day and they were saying how awful

(41:33):
they feel for the kids that are going to be,
you know, forced to stop their transition. And I was like, well, remember,
it wasn't that long ago. There was no need to
pass a law for that, because no kid would have
been given that medical care in the first place. So
when you think about it that way, it's really remarkable
how far we've come, you know, not just over the
course of my lifetime, but just in the last five

(41:53):
ten years. And so this movement right now is a
backlash against the progress that we've made, and it's a
backlash that I think, quite frankly, has come too late.
Too many people have already, you know, met trans people,
come to understand trans people and understand that we have
a right to live our lives in peace, and you know,
those people aren't going to change their minds. So it's

(42:15):
definitely scary right now, and people are going to get hurt.
But I think that, you know, assuming that we continue
to have a functioning democracy, you know, trans people are
going to be okay in this country. That's a really
valuable perspective to hear. I'm curious about how it affects
you day to day to have so much discourse about
trans rights in in the media. Are you able to

(42:35):
compartmentalize or is it exhausting and disturbing a lot of
the time, you know, I I mean I am able
to compartmentalize. It's not like there wasn't always terrible news
around if you were you know, kind of looking forward
or just you know, on trans twitter as I was,
you know, so kind of the flood of scary things
has has been out there, you know, since I've come out,

(42:59):
So yeah, you know, it's just something you just sort
of learned that, like, yeah, there's always a bad thing
out there, but there's good stuff out there too, and
it's not scary, so it doesn't you know, spread as
much and it doesn't make headlines. But just all these
little things like me being on Jeopardy, like trans people,
you know, advancing in the military were always like moving

(43:19):
forward and breaking new ground. Um, and we should be
just as aware of that as we are about the
scary things. Mm hmm. Those scary things are getting so
much attention. These bills are being talked about so much,
and I'm wondering if you think that they're truly reflective
of the way that people feel or transphobia on a
day to day, person to person level, or if this
is a lot of political theater because people are so

(43:39):
polarized around trans rights. I mean, I think, you know,
certainly political theater to a fair extent, but I think
that you know, what I've learned being out in public
and hearing so many stories of especially older people, seeing
me on TV and kind of having that sort of
the light dawns on them about trans people, and I

(43:59):
just that so many people, you know, anybody who's like
my age or older, grew up with the you know,
most horrific demonizing stereotypes of trans people, you know from
like Silence of the Lambs on and you know, if
you've never had a reason to question that, you just
sort of grew up believing what you believed. And so

(44:20):
I think it's for so many people, it's not about
I hate so much. It's just about discomfort and having
to question something you thought you knew. But I find
that that's pretty brittle, and once it breaks, people can
pretty quickly understand that, yeah, those were just wrong what
they grew up with, and trans people are fine. Amy.
I hate asking somebody who has a personal stake in

(44:41):
an issue like this what other people can do to help,
but I am curious to know from your perspective, are
there things that folks can do to combat this. Yeah,
I mean, I think you know, just the most important
thing is too in your daily life, don't let it
go unanswered. If you hear people saying hateful things and
and be visible as somebody that is an ally of

(45:02):
trans people and that that believes in their rights, it's
not necessarily going to change the minds of the people
that you're most frustrated with. But again, it's that thing
where people grew up with the idea that everybody shared
hateful beliefs about trans people, and so showing the people
around you that people they know, people that are in
their community, their workplace, their church, whatever it may be,

(45:25):
don't share those hateful beliefs. Maybe that you know it'll
make a few of them start to wonder and start
the question and start to slowly change the minds. Yeah,
I know when you accepted your glad a word, the
sense that I got from what you said was that
your work in advocacy was the thing that you're most
proud of from your Jeopardy rent or not advocacy, but
being a visible trans person and the way that that

(45:46):
can change people's views. Yeah, you know, when I take
my episodes and I knew it was going to be
kind of a big deal and that my my trans
nous was going to be a part of that. What
I thought was going to happen was just at you know,
it would become a talking point and people would just
dig into their own trench positions and it wouldn't really

(46:07):
have much of an effect. It would just be one
more ground that people were fighting on, and that turned
out not to be true. So that has been such
a good feeling just to like, I've heard from so
many trans people about the immediate difference that it made
in their life, the specific ways that it was helpful
to them, and you know, have such sympathy and connection

(46:31):
for all the all the trans people in this country,
and I want nothing but the best and happiness for
all of them. And the fact that I was able
to actually advance that cause was and remains just an
incredible feeling. Yeah, and for young people too. I don't
want to harp too much on this, but I just
want to bring up one more point that I found
really fascinating in the last six months or so, Like
in the spring, the governor of Utah, Governor Cox, vetoed

(46:55):
a bill that was trying to ban trans students from
participating in sports that are consistent with their gender identity,
and his his video is overridden, but when he was
expressing his views, he talked about higher suicide rates among
trans youth. But he also made a point that there
were only four trans high school students that this bill
was going to affect, right, and he said, rarely has

(47:17):
so much fear and anger been directed at so few.
I don't I don't even know what to make of that.
And I'm wondering what you what you make of that.
It's so impactful for those four people, it's everything, it's
it's their lives. Yeah, Yeah, indeed, I mean I think that,
you know, the thing about sports, I think is is
the most political theater of all of them. And it's
because it's the most sort of appealing I guess, I

(47:41):
would say argument and and in fact, I think that,
you know, it's one of the few areas around trans
people's place in society that I think there's some room
for honest disagreement about. You know, I don't think that
builds like those in Utah fall into the realm of
honest disagreement or things like that. I think that again,
these are kids they're playing sports to play sports and

(48:02):
run around with their friends and compete and all this
sort of thing. But you know, nobody should be taking
it that seriously in general, and you know, in particular,
they shouldn't be taking it so seriously that they're bringing
the weight of the state down on these four kids.
When you say honest disagreement, can you explain what you
mean by that. I think I mean, like, at the

(48:23):
very top levels of say track and field, is there
an argument to be made about what is fair and
what is not um you know, And I also think
that it's also one of those things where it becomes
incoherent because you know, some people are born with certain
qualities that give them an advantage, and everybody that's at
the top of their field in you know, swimming or

(48:43):
track and field was born with a huge genetic advantage.
And so what counts is fair and unfair is is
a really hard line to draw. But I do think
that that's something that people can make an argument about
without actually feeling they're being unfair to trans people. But
that's a very like narrow slice of the argument, and
it's a very nuanced point and very different, as you say,

(49:05):
than kids in high school who are exploring their athletic
abilities and trying to be who they are in the world. Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
it's a great point. Okay, let's talk about what's next
for you. Everyone is very excited about the Tournament of
Champions which you're competing in. I want to know how
you prepared and whether it was different than the way
that you prepared for the regular season of Jeopardy. Yeah.

(49:25):
I mean I think it was different. To be honest,
I didn't prepare as much. And the simple reason is
that going into my original taping, my life was extremely boring.
Um and my life has gotten much more interesting in
the past year, and I just had a lot of
things going on. I wanted to go to the Toronto
Film Festival and other stuff like that, so I kept thinking, boy,
I really need to get started studying. And then it

(49:47):
was like a week before taping and I was like, oh, wow,
I need to get on this. So it was kind
of a bit of a concentrated last week there. But
at the same time, I I've always felt like and
I felt like this going to last time that fundamentally,
you know what, you know, like the last minute cramming
is probably not going to swing, you know, any particular games,
so don't get too stressed about it. The main thing

(50:08):
was that it was a different mental challenge this time around,
partly because like, in a sense it was much lower
stakes because I've already been successful Jeopardy, Like, whatever happens
here is not going to change that. But on the
other hand, it was also you know, first of all,
everybody telling me all year though you're gonna win, you're
gonna crush it, all this sort of thing, and like,
I don't know, these people are really good, and it's

(50:30):
going to be completely different playing against other experienced players
as opposed to you know, always two new people that
are there for the first time. So really a lot
of it was about trying to get back into the
mindset I was last year, trying to remember how that felt,
to really get focused on how what was going to
come into my mind, what was going to be distracting,

(50:51):
and how to how to avoid that. Who are you
most nervous to face. I mean, you've got Matt Emmodio
and Matteo Roach, both also super champions who won you know,
long streaks of consecutive games. Yeah, I mean, I think
definitely Matt I think that, you know, if you look
at the Jeopardy stat heads on Reddit or wherever, I

(51:12):
think there's there's an argument to be made that that
he would be considered the slight favorite over me. I
also think that Andrew, he who was the person that
I've beat in my first game, but quite honest, was
lucky to do. So, you know, he really should have
gotten that final Jeopardy. He'll he'll say so, and so
I know that he can beat me, So he would
make me nervous as well. Are you gonna have some

(51:33):
watching parties for this tournament of champions? You need to
celebrate with some friends. Yeah. Absolutely. We're just just yesterday
putting together a trill aboard of who we want to invite. Nice, Okay,
well we will all be rooting for you. I know
I'll be rooting for you. And it's been such a
pleasure to talk to you, Amy. Thank you, Oh yeah,
thank you. Likewise my thanks to Amy Schneider. This episode

(51:57):
was produced by Kathleen Russo, Zach McNeice, and Maureen Hobit.
Our engineers for this episode are Frank Imperial and Brent Bodrick.
Our social media manager is Danielle Gingrich. I'm Talia Schlanger.
Alec Baldwin will be back next week. Here's the thing
is brought to you by iHeart Radio