Your 40 day total, $1,382,800.
And you've now been the Jeopardy!
champion for 40 days and 40 nights.
Amy Schneider, our 40 day champion.
What an honor it has been to watch you at this game, I have to ask,
what's been the best part of the experience for you?
The people. 100%.
Everybody that I've worked with here, whether it's the contestant
coordinators, hair and makeup, just everybody involved at Jeopardy!
has just been a delight to be around.
And I'm, you know, genuinely going to miss them.
What will you miss most about being here?
Part of our Jeopardy! family for over two months now?
Yeah, it's such an intense experience and like the feeling of like,
you know, it sort of suddenly being over was really,
you know, a little overwhelming in the moment of just like this
that like it, just you have to be so focused
and it's been my whole life for the last few months.
And to just like, have that taken away, it's like, wow, what?
What do I do with my life?
What was I doing before? Like, yeah, yeah.
All right, I want to take us back to that last game as it was going along.
How were you feeling?
Where was your mind? What were you thinking?
You know, I had thought that Rhone was going to be tough going into it.
I loved hanging out with him.
We had great conversations before the taping, but I could also tell
that he, like, was here to play and that he was going to be good.
And I don't know, I did just sort of feel like.
I just like I didn't have...
it feels weird to say it like this, I didn't have the killer instinct
that I felt like maybe I needed. And you know, it wasn't.
It wasn't much. And I obviously I still came very close to winning,
but I did sort of feel like I feel like maybe I'm slipping a little bit.
And once he got off to like it was clear he was fast on the buzzer.
I was like, this is going to be a battle all the way.
What was it like spending so much time with our G.O.A.T.
Ken Jennings? I didn't know how he would be as a host.
How to you know how he would be sort of behind the scenes or whatever?
But he's just he's so nice.
Very self-deprecating.
And he just really sets everybody at ease
and doesn't doesn't put any added pressure
on the contestants because we're all putting enough pressure on ourselves.
And he just really keeps a nice, chill attitude.
That was really nice. What was it like to hear him say,
I'm sure glad I'm hosting and not playing against you Amy Schneider right now?
I think, you know, he's still Ken Jennings.
I think he could still do pretty good against me, but it was...
It's really been an honor.
I mean, just to really know that like I'm, you know, one of the most successful
people at a game I've loved since I was a kid wanted to be on since I was a kid.
And just to know that I'm I'm part of its history now.
I just I don't even know how to process it.
So as a 40 day champion,
you always knew the next record was going to be Ken Jennings at 74.
What was going through your mind with that?
You know, I wasn't really thinking about it yet.
I mean, I wasn't
I wasn't completely not thinking about it, but what it was more than anything
was just really having been through this and the amount of energy that it takes.
I could have gone and won ten more games
and then gone and won ten more games and then gone won ten more games after that.
I still would not have caught up with him.
And I just like, I didn't think... I thought...
I didn't think I was going to make it that far.
I thought I was going to collapse
at some point, and I think I probably would have whatever had happened today.
So I'm even more impressed by that record now than than I was before
I had this experience.
Well, when you get home, what's the first thing you're going to
do, do you think?
I really think just like take some time
to let it sink in and to process.
I mean, there is, you know, I'm still kind of...
I'm still kind of thinking about that last Final Jeopardy!
And like some of the things I missed and all that sort of thing.
But, you know, set aside the the one loss at the end
and really focus on the amazing thing that I've done.
And, you know, take the time to really feel it.
So, Amy, a lot of people have been watching your journey.
They're curious about your story. And what would you like to share with them?
It's really important
to to do two things, and one of them is to be proud
of your identity to be...own your identity and to accept your identity.
And the other thing is to not make that...
you don't have to let that define you, that the the great things about
you are the same things that are great about anybody.
Whatever it is in your case, your intelligence, your kindness,
your courage or, you know, any of those things
like that's who you are, just as much as any other part of your identity
and you deserve to be celebrated for all of those things.
One final question.
You're now part of the Jeopardy!
history books when people think about Amy Schneider, the Jeopardy! contestant.
What do you hope they think of?
I think I like to think that I've just been going through it
with the right attitude of being open to it, being excited by it,
but not letting it sort of overwhelm me or define me.
You know, I'm I'm Amy Schneider, the person that I was before and still am,
and I just had, you know, a great, a great run on Jeopardy! That's all.
You certainly did.
We loved watching every minute of it,
and we can't wait to see you in the Tournament of Champions.
Congratulations, Amy. -Thank you.