There’s no doubt Travis Kelce is an elite football player, but some people were not sure whether he could transfer his skills to the world of television.
However, we will soon have an answer to that as he is fronting a new quiz show, Are You Smarter Than A Celebrity?,on Amazon Prime Video.
The quiz show is a spin on the popular original format, Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? In the revamped version, a contestant gets help from a range of celebrities to answer questions taken from the elementary school curriculum for the chance to win up to $100,000.
Kelce has previously hosted Saturday Night Live and had an acting role in the current FX series,Grotesquerie, but the new quiz show will be the first time he is at the helm of a major TV series.
One of the celebrities to help contestants win the big bucks is comedian Natasha Leggero, who was not too sure if Kelce would make a good host. She ended up being pleasantly surprised when not only was he charming, but great at being in front of the cameras.
“We loved him. He was so cute and he was so prepared. He really blew me away because I did not have very high expectations… you could tell he took it really seriously and he killed it,” Leggero told Newsweek.
Leggero admitted to feeling the pressure when teaming up with contestants who were relying on her to win big money.
“I was paired with someone on a $10,000 pyramid and we lost and she started crying and I felt so bad that it was my fault,” she said.
“There’s that added pressure, because there’s a lot riding on it for these people and they’re also nervous because they’re on camera.”
The comedian coped with the pressure of answering some tough questions by reverting back to her own school days.
“I had noticed right away that I’m not going to know all this stuff, so I went back to my roots of being the class clown, I was trying to shout out, like how I acted in school,” Leggero said.
Other stars to appear on the Prime Video quiz show include Nikki Glaser, Ron Funches, Nicole Byer, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Chad Ochocinco, Garcelle Beauvais, Lala Kent, Sophia Stallone and Lilly Singh.
Funches also spoke to Newsweek of Kelce’s hosting skills.
“I got to watch his whole progression and it was really fun to see him come in a little bit unsure, like anyone would be on their first day at a job, especially if it’s so different from your normal job,” Funches said.
“You know, he had some hiccups here and there, and you can see how much he did care.”
The first three episodes of Are You Smarter Than A Celebrity? premiere October 16, 2024 on Prime Video.