I was a huge fan of Revenge Of The Nerds. I must've seen it a million times on HBO back in the day. Two of the movie's stars, Curtis Armstrong and Robert Carradine, have had huge careers in Hollywood, working with noted directors like John Carpenter, Taylor Hackford, Savage Steve Holland, Martin Scorsese, and Quentin Tarantino. Armstrong and Carradine have teamed up again to create and star in King Of The Nerds, a reality competition about nerd culture airing on TBS beginning January 17th. The guys spoke with us about what we can expect from the show and Revenge Of The Nerds.
You guys aren't only the hosts of the show, but you're also the creators. How hard was it to convince TBS that America needs a competition show starring nerds?
Carradine: Boy. That is a great question. They held their cards pretty close to their chest, but when they reacted with eight episodes, we figured they didn't take that much convincing.
Armstrong: I would say that's probably true. We first had to convince our producing partners when we got involved with Five By Five Media and Electus. They were the ones who we had the initial meetings with. We had actually gone to a couple of places, but TBS was the one we really wanted. The reaction was pretty much the same as it's been from almost everyone who first heard about it, which was "How was it that this never happened before?" It seems like such a no-brainer, if you can say that about a show about nerds. I think TBS definitely saw the potential in it.
Did either of you find hosting the show any harder or easier than your normal acting roles?
Carradine: The thing that seemed to be challenging to me was last-minute script changes. But other than that, it was just a matter of being in the present.
Armstrong: It's physically not that dissimilar. You come in the morning and you put your wardrobe on and you go and you do it. That much is like any acting job. The difficulty is because we have to be really specific. The only thing that's written down in this set-up is when we're describing challenges and we have to be really word perfect on the challenges because we have to make sure that all of the contestants understand what is happening completely. The rest of the time that we interact with the nerds, that's pretty much improvised on the spot.
