[IMG:L]Seacrest In!
America’s favorite frosted-tipped TV emcee and radio DJ is about to take center stage as the host of this year’s Emmy Awards ceremony, and when Hollywood.com caught up with Ryan Seacrest just a week before the awards it sounded like he was going in with nerves of steel–maybe because his frenemy Simon Cowell’s evaluation of his performance won’t be on the air…or will it?
Hollywood.com: So you’re hosting the live broadcast of the 59th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards and you’re not nervous at all?
Ryan Seacrest: I don’t think so. You’re kind of making me nervous by saying it like that. You’re tone has made me think that maybe I should be more nervous. I’m not yet. To be honest with you it’s such a fantastic invitation, but the reality is that for me it’s so far away. Like, tonight I’m traveling to Charleston to audition kids for American Idol for the next two days and then it’s back to L.A. and I’ve got a series of E! shows and radio shows and everything until we get to the end of next week where we really start walking through what the show is going to be. Obviously, I’ll have the chance to hone in on it when I get back to Los Angeles, but no, I’m not that nervous today.
HW: Will there be a theme to the Emmy broadcast this year?
RS: Other than reflecting television over the course of the last year I don’t know that there’s a running theme. I do think that the show is going to be fresh because some of these shows that have been nominated like The Office and Ugly Betty, and as a green team we’re certainly trying to do our best and be responsible in the eco-world. But I don’t know that there’s a theme per say.
HW: You’re in an interesting position being the Emmy host and hosting E!’s pre-ceremony red carpet coverage. There’s a chance you might have to ask some of the nominees on the red carpet those tough newsy questions that people aren’t always expecting. How are you going to handle that this year?
RS: How am I going to handle the tough question of, ‘Who are you wearing?’ Boy, let me see–it’s intense [Laughs]. I’m just looking at the list of people that are coming and when you look at the board of presenters and nominees there’s usually one to two beats with each person that you’re most likely going to get to and most likely the viewer wants you to get to. They’re not long, drawn-out conversations. They’re certainly not very in-depth and many times they’re lacking in substance, because we’re talking about fashion and how many glasses of champagne that you’ve had in the limousine on the way to the awards show. So I don’t think it’ll be that difficult.
HW: Is there anyone that you’ve met on the red carpet or interviewed that intimidated you or tongue-tied you?
RS: I don’t know there’s a celebrity that does that per say. The good thing about having done radio for about 15 years is that you’re pretty well versed for about two minutes in any conversation. I think that when you run into someone or run into a topic you can at least talk about something for a couple of minutes. So I don’t know that I’ve really run into anyone that I’ve gotten tongue-tied in front of. I mean, obviously there are people when you meet them for the first time are exciting to meet, those who are the biggest stars in the world. It’s always interesting to see what they look like and often how small they are in real life.
HW: Is there anyone famous that you haven’t met yet that you’re excited to meet one day?
RS: I haven’t met in person David and Victoria [Beckham]. I’ve talked to them both [on the radio], but I haven’t really met them in person. I think that fortunately with the red carpet duties I’ve met just about everybody that was on that list. Sometimes I am in the moment where you do meet someone and you’re asking a question and you’re brain is sort of having another conversation about that person. Whereas when someone meets me they might think that I look smaller in person than I do on American Idol. I’m sort of having that dialogue about people I’ve met, like “Wow, they look older in person” or “They look younger in person. My God, I thought they would be taller –” And at the same time I’m having an interview discussion on the red carpet. So that can be a bit frightening at times.
HW: You were part of the team that won the Daytime Emmy in 2006 for the broadcast of The Walt Disney World Christmas Parade. You hosted the show – did you actually get your own Emmy trophy?
RS: I did actually get an Emmy and it’s slightly embarrassing to be the only cast member of American Idol to have an Emmy, even though it is Daytime. It looks and feels exactly the same.
HW: Idol’s yet to be rewarded with a Primetime Emmy. How important is that to you, to win one?
RS: I’d love it. Look, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t want to win one. When you go back to thinking about television in general for any of people that I work with, I think it’s great to be on a television show that people watch and that people are interested in and that they can talk about. Then it’s wonderful to be invited to the Emmys and to be nominated, but at the end of the day it would be great to have one of those to sit on your mantle at home for Primetime.
HW: Any advice to the Emmy winners on their speeches?
RS: No, I don’t think it’s for me to give advice. I haven’t actually stood on that stage and accepted an Emmy, but I would imagine that you try to think about what you’re going to do and who you’re going to thank leading up to that moment and then once you get up there you actually probably don’t hear yourself speak until you watch it back and you realize what you’ve said. As viewers we all love to see candor. We all love to see people who are in the moment and who are sometimes caught up in emotion.
HW: Would a string of bad speeches complicate your job at all?
RS: No. A bad speech would be fantastic because it would create a great moment to react to.
HW: There’s been some buzz that there may be a performance of “Dick In a Box,” which won a Creative Arts Emmy for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics–yet it may be too risqué for the broadcast.
RS: I think that Justin Timberlake is obviously a superstar and I think it would be fantastic to have him be a part of our telecast. I would love to have him on our show. I can tell you that everyone in the production office, certainly the executive producer, is still having conversations about Justin’s participation. The trick is that he has a show that night at the Staples Center, which I believe makes the equation a bit more complicated, but we are still talking with him.
HW: How do you make through a live TV show like Emmys and Idol, with so many people watching, and keep your cool?
RS: I don’t know that I often do show poise. I guess the one thing that I have learned in hosting American Idol for so many seasons now is that the best thing to do is really to try and be honest in a moment and be real in a moment and invest in it. If you’re pretending or trying to be something that you’re not then odds are that you’re going to, a) screw up or b) it’s not going to work. I think that you can look at Idol Rewind and see how sometimes frantic I was on the air and I how I was sort of over-hosting, if you will. So I think that’s probably the essence of it.
HW: You have a LOT of jobs. What’s a typical day for Ryan when Idol’s in prodcution.
RS: Packed. Packed. I’ve actually gotten to the point where I’m crazy if there’s downtime. It’s a blessing and a curse, I think, for the people around me. A typical day is that I’m at the office by 5 a.m. at the E! building. We do KISS-FM [a Los Angeles local radio morning show] from the E! building–they built a studio there…So on a commercial break at about 8 a.m. I will tape E! News promos, during that three-minute commercial break. At 9:58 a.m. when I sign off from KISS I walk across the hall and start doing voiceovers for E! News that day. I then go from the voiceovers to a meeting about the news and then I go into the taping of the news right around lunchtime and then head over to the set of American Idol if I’m going to do Idol on a Tuesday or a Wednesday, a day like that, and we go right into a walk-through of just sort of the camera blocking and then the show goes live, as you know, at five o’clock. By 6 p.m. I take my makeup off and I’m home by 7. I decompress, watch television, catch up on the entertainment news and go to sleep. American Top 40 we track at the end of the week. It’s sent out for the weekend on Fridays.
HW: Is it hard for you to say to no to projects and offers?
RS: Believe it or not, I wasn’t the kid who was always asked to go to the dance, if you know what I mean. When I was much younger I was picked on a little bit and so to be asked to do anything is kind of exciting now, and I do have a fear of failing and I do have a fear of things not working out and I frankly don’t know how to do anything else. I’ve tried to–and it probably doesn’t seem that way because it seems like I’m doing a little bit everything–really strategically pick, given the opportunities presented to me, the ones that I can be the best at.
HW: Do you worry about over exposure at all?
RS: Oh, no. My theory is to stay under the radar and try to barely be noticed, clearly, by saying yes to everything that’s offered to me. The strategy is really under the radar. Yeah, it’s something that I certainly think about, but if you really step back and look at these programs they’re all essentially of the same theme. They’re big, live television events, whether that be the Oscar red carpet or whether it be American Idol, the Superbowl, New Year’s Eve, the Christmas Parade–all of these things you’re just in the center of. You’re the conduit to all of it.
HW: With all of your various TV and radio accomplishments, stand-up comedy has not been them. Any concerns going out to host the Emmy show that’s previously been helmed by such comedy greats as Ellen Degeneres and Conan O’Brien?
RS: Are you insinuating that I’m not funny? Look, there will be plenty of comedy, thank God. The good news is that Louis Black is going to be there, Jon Stewart is going to be there and Stephen Colbert and Ellen–they’ve all RSVP’d. So fortunately we know that there will be laughs within those three hours. As you said, I’m not a stand-up comedian and so I don’t think that I’m going to try and prove myself to be a late night host in the first act of the Emmys.
HW: And how many glasses of champagne will YOU have when you’re done with the show?
RS: When I’m done it’ll be a matter of magnum bottles, not glasses.
