Dax Shepard on the game of life
“Spin the Wheel” host talks family, career.
What would you do with $23 million?
“I would run to the nearest Prevost dealership and order a motor home,” says Dax Shepard, host of Fox’s game show “Spin the Wheel,” premiering Thursday (9 EDT/PDT).
Created by Andrew Glassman (NBC’s “The Wall”) and executive-produced by Justin Timberlake, the show allows contestants to win upward of $20 million by answering pop-culture trivia questions as they spin a 40-foot-tall wheel. If they’re correct, they earn the amount of money the wheel stops on.
For Shepard, 44, “it’s like playing a real-life Willy Wonka,” he says. “I have access to $23 million and I can give it to some strangers. That sounds fun.”
The actor, who stars in ABC’s “Bless This Mess” and co-hosts the popular podcast “Armchair Expert,” chats with USA TODAY about his new series; daughters Lincoln, 6, and Delta, 4; and marriage to “The Good Place” star Kristen Bell.
Question: What separates “Spin the Wheel” from other game shows on TV right now?
Dax Shepard: There’s no other show where you could win $23 million. I bet it’s one of the few game shows where the network is in the control room panicking, genuinely worried they’re going to lose their jobs. So I’d say the stakes are much higher financially, and then the fact that I’m not a conventional host. There are easily 5,000 people who are more handsome ... but I’m truly interested in the contestants and (open to) asking less-than-normal questions.
Q: What game shows did you watch growing up? Shepard: I grew up in a modest, single-mother household and “Wheel of Fortune” was where I could see all this (stuff) I wanted: big-screen TVs, dune buggies. There was a lot of eye candy. And of course I was
attracted to Vanna White, and thought Pat Sajak was the most elegant man I had ever seen.
Q: In “Bless This Mess,” your character Mike and his wife, Rio (Lake Bell), move from New York to a farm in Nebraska. Could you ever leave LA?
Shepard: I very much have the fantasy that Mike and Rio have, but mine is more just traipsing around the US in my mobile living quarters, towing a trailer full of off-road toys.
Q: Would your family be down for that? Shepard: The daughters for sure. Kristen digs (roadtripping), too. We do, minimally, three vacations a year, and she’s into it. She’s a big nester, so she likes to get everything sorted in the motor home and decorate.
Q: What are your kids into right now?
Shepard: My 6-year-old and I ride dirt bikes together. I just got her a mini Polaris RZR (two-seater). She drives like a (expletive) – she’s so good, it’s mindblowing. And she’s 6! I let her drive me around and I’m almost crying, it makes me so happy.
Q: Do they like “Frozen?” (Bell voices Princess Anna in the 2013 movie and its sequel, out Nov. 22.)
Shepard: They like “Frozen,” but that’s not their jam. They have other favorites. They like “Mamma Mia!” more.
Q: You and Kristen have been together for 12 years, and regularly inspire articles about your “relationship goals” and how you are one of the most “relatable” couples in Hollywood. Do you mind that kind of attention?
Shepard: We feel differently about it. She is more comfortable with it than I am. My fear is that people will think they just need to find their perfect match, and I fear people think we’re a perfect match.
I would argue that this relationship was the hardest of any I’ve ever had to get into a productive flow. We’re so opposite, it’s crazy. We started off in therapy, and my two thoughts about her that I kept cycling through were one, she’s the genuinely nicest person I’ve ever met, and two, she has a personality that I want to be sitting on a porch with when I’m 80 years old. I’m going to try to figure out these other eight things that are not a seamless fit right out of the gate.
So it’s flattering that people think that and I appreciate it immensely, and yet I also feel very compelled to (say), “It’s a ton of work, we rarely agree on anything and it’s a ton of compromise.” We didn’t see each other across a crowded ballroom and weren’t lit up by angel dust. So as long as people understand that part, then I’m comfortable with (the attention).