On Saturday, Jeopardy!‘s newest guest host George Stephanopoulos opened up about why he was nervous to take over the game show.
Stephanopoulos is taking over the podium from neurosurgeon Dr. Sanjay Gupta. The CNN correspondent has been the interim host for the last two weeks on the show. As Gupta’s two-week stint came to a close on Friday night, Stephanopoulos officially takes over tomorrow on Monday night’s episode.
The Good Morning America anchor’s temporary tenure on the game show will only run for one week though. Stephanopoulos will host the popular game show from Monday, July 12 to Friday, July 16. Most of the previous Jeopardy! interims have hosted for two weeks. However, the next few guest hosts are only taking over for a week each, including Stephanopoulos.
Previous to his first episode tomorrow night, the new guest host gave an exclusive interview to Jeopardy!. During the interview, Stephanopoulos admitted he was nervous about taking over as the Jeopardy! guest host.
“Sure! Absolutely,” Stephanopoulos said when asked if he was nervous to host the game show. “I mean, it’s ’cause it’s just a very different beast from what I do every single day.”
“You know, I was telling [executive producer Mike Richards], I do morning television – Good Morning America. I do This Week. Those are slightly different shows from each other as well. But on Good Morning America, it’s two hours of live TV every day. You make mistakes. You’re gonna make mistakes. And part of the job is making that into an opportunity, recovering from it. Here on Jeopardy!, no margin of error. You have to be perfect. That’s what the viewers expect. That’s what they deserve,” he explained.
‘Jeopardy!’ Interim Sanjay Gupta Also Shared What Made Him ‘So Nervous’ to Guest Host the Show
Previous to Dr. Sanjay Gupta‘s two-week stint on Jeopardy!, he too opened up about feeling nervous when he took over the game show. Hosting such an iconic television program is a huge honor for the lifelong fan of the show. Yet he’s never taken part in something quite like this, and that rattled his nerves a bit.
“I was super nervous,” Gupta said during an exclusive Jeopardy! interview. “I didn’t know exactly how this was going to play out. I’d never done anything quite like this.”
While hosting a popular game show was new territory for Gupta, that wasn’t what made him the most nervous about the experience. Instead, it was his utmost respect for the show, which he’s watched for years.
“But I think what made me most nervous is that I have just tremendous respect for the show,” Gupta explained. “So, I think when you have tremendous respect for something, you want to just treat it with that respect and just get everything right.”
“That’s good,” he said of the motivation to have a successful run on the show. “But it can also make you a bit nervous.”
