Joel McHale Talks Taking 'The Soup' Live From Talladega Superspeedway (Oh, and 'The X-Files' Reboot)
After more than a decade hosting The Soup on E!, Joel McHale has probably seen everything. But on Oct. 23, he and the show will experience a first: a one-hour live show, from Victory Lane at a NASCAR track.
McHale and his crew have traveled to Alabama for “The Soup Invades NASCAR, Live from Talladega Superspeedway.” It may seem like an odd pairing, but McHale has had a relationship with NASCAR since 2006, when he was asked to perform during the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series banquet. He and K.P. Anderson, The Soup’s executive producer and head writer, have stayed in touch with “the NASCARians,” who McHale says were incredibly nice and a very good crowd. “We’ve always kinda been chatting, and then I think they were like, ‘Hey, you want to do a show from the infield?’ And we were like, ‘YES!’ Given the opportunity, we jumped at it,” McHale tells Yahoo TV. “I’m sure from the infield there will be zero noise issues.”
Fan favorite driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. has already teamed with McHale for the promo above, and he’ll definitely make an appearance on the show, as will Danica Patrick. McHale expects a few other drivers to pop by as well during what will The Soup’s longest live show ever. “I’m very much looking forward to it, and I think there will be a lot of mayhem,” McHale says, adding that they’ll build the show as usual out of whatever inspiration the week in TV and entertainment news gives them. “I’m pretty sure NASCAR is more popular than baseball. The number of fans, and the number of fans that come out for the races, are staggering. It’s crazy. So I just hope they like it. I hope we can draft off of them and get half of a percentage of what they get in ratings, and that’ll probably quadruple our ratings.” (Nice use of “draft,” which is a word you hear used a lot at Talladega, we tell him. “See? There you go. I could have said, ‘dovetail,’ but I chose ‘draft.’”)
The Soup’s special runs ahead of Talladega’s main draw, Sunday’s CampingWorld.com 500. That race name is almost as good as our all-time favorite, the Pork the Other White Meat 400. What would McHale name a race if NASCAR gave him the chance? “JoelMcHaletheOtherWhiteMeat.gov,” he says without hesitation. We expect he’ll have to settle for a consolation prize. “I think they’re gonna allow me to get on the track with one of the drivers, so that alone is worth the admission of life,” he says. “If I can do that, I’ll be very happy.”
Something else that makes McHale very happy: His role in the X-Files reboot premiering Jan. 24 on Fox. The X-Files fanatic who’s seen every episode and movie plays Tad O'Malley, the anchor of a conspiracy-seeking Internet news show who enlists the investigative skills of Scully (Gillian Anderson) and Mulder (David Duchovny). As fans who saw a sneak peek of the six-episode series at New York Comic Con already know, the character has an epic rant near the end of the first hour. “That was all scripted. If I could come up with that stuff off the top of my head, I’d be some sort of improv super genius,” McHale says. “It was a lot, and I hope I did it justice. If you really listen to the conspiracy of what my character’s saying, it’s pretty damn cool. And I had teleprompters because part of it takes place in a news studio, so it would be natural to have a teleprompter. That saved me a lot of time.”
Related: ‘The X-Files’ at NYCC: Our Spoileriffic Recap of the Premiere
The character is also positioned as a potential suitor for Scully. “There’s been a couple of like ‘How dare you’s, which only brings me joy since most of my entertainment career has been people saying that — like ‘How could you do that?!’ But so far no one has said, ‘I’m comin’ for you. How dare you ruin the greatest romance in science fiction history,’” McHale says.
Did the man who still can’t believe he got to say the names Scully and Mulder out loud take anything from the set? “Five aliens. They weren’t the extra large ones,” he deadpans. “No, I didn’t keep anything. I would never dare to take something from the X-Files set. … I did sit at Mulder’s desk, which I was pretty excited about. I’m not gonna tweet that photo until after the six episodes air.”
Yes, we wouldn’t want him to anger The X-Files creator Chris Carter, but could he leave us with two truths and a lie about his character? “Are you ready? He’s a white male… Wears size 13 shoes… Has a six-foot tail. You figure that out.”
“The Soup Invades NASCAR, Live from Talladega Superspeedway” airs Friday at 10 p.m. on E!. The X-Files premieres Jan. 24 at 10 p.m. on Fox.
