Harry Connick Jr. Is Going Off Script for His New Talk Show Harry

Harry Connick Jr.’s new talk show, Harry, premiered Monday morning, with Academy Award winner Sandra Bullock kicking things off by appearing as the first guest. The Will & Grace alum hopes to breathe new life into the world of daytime television with his syndicated variety series — a note he frequently touched on during a recent interview with The Los Angeles Times.

Connick spoke about how he believes his improv background will give him a leg up in his new hosting gig. “Even if a light breaks on set, there’s a segment there,” he told The LA Times. “The main thing is explaining to the technical side of the crew [to be] ready for me to walk across the street to Starbucks in real time. I couldn’t do it any other way. The risk-reward ratio is higher because you never know what you’re going to get.”

The Grammy winner also dished on how several of the show’s segments will be completely unscripted. “When we went to NBC Universal, I said, ‘I want to have it completely unstructured,'” he revealed. “There’s a segment that we do called ‘I Got This’….I said I want to show up at somebody’s place of business or their house. I don’t want to know anything about ‘em, but y’all got to find me somebody that may be working two jobs or is a single mom, somebody that’s struggling…I show up and say, ‘What do you do?’ So I say, ‘Look, I’m going to take care of everything you do and we’re going to send you off to a spa or something and just give you a little bit of a break.’ And we’ve already shot 10 of them on the road.”

Read more at LATimes.com.