Chris Hardwick on ‘The Wall,’ ‘Talking Dead,’ and That Marilyn Manson Episode

“The Wall giveth, The Wall taketh away” is the slogan for NBC’s new primetime game show, and the stakes are high: Contestants can potentially walk away with as much as $12 million, all for answering a few trivia questions correctly and making some smart decisions about where to drop giant glowing balls down a four-story wall.

But get those questions wrong (or have a streak of bad luck), and those glowing balls will subtract hundreds, thousands, even millions of dollars from the bank you earn on The Wall.

Comedian, actor, and Nerdist papa Chris Hardwick hosts the action on the dramatic new high-stakes game show, and he talked to Yahoo TV about the massive titular wall, trying to help the contestants keep their cool with life-changing piles of money on the line, and what makes the relatively simple concept so engrossing.

“It’s one of those shows where I think the mechanics of it, if you just watched the wall itself, that would be entertaining,” said Hardwick, who also hosts @Midnight and Talking Dead. “And you know that this money is going to change these people’s lives, if it all goes well. Then on top of that, there’s the trivia aspect, and there’s strategy, and you really develop emotion and empathy for the people who are on, because they’re all really good people.”

Hardwick also shares his reaction to The Walking Dead Season 7 premiere, and tells us what it was really like in the studio during that memorable Marilyn Manson episode of Talking Dead.

I have so many questions about this instantly addictive show, and that wall. First of all, can you go to the top of it and manually drop things down?
I think you can, but I wouldn’t. I don’t like heights, and I think it’s four stories high. I felt like I was getting vertigo even standing at the base of it and looking upward. They have cameras hooked up to the rim of it so that they can track the balls on the sides. … I’ve seen the camera and if it looks straight down the wall, I feel like the pit of my stomach, I just feel like, “I don’t know if I can look at that.” We had to shoot the show basically where James Cameron shot Avatar, because we needed a soundstage that was enormous. We used these James Cameron stages because the wall is so big, and when you see it in person … if it looks flashy on television, to see it in person is unbelievable, because it’s just so massive. At some point, maybe I will [go to the top], just to say I did it, but for now, I’m content to just be on the ground at the base of that monolithic wall.

In addition to hosting, you’re also an executive producer on the series, as is LeBron James. How is he involved with the game?
LeBron’s influence was to make sure that the show was all about people who were very special in their own community in some way. They’ve either made sacrifices for their own community, or they’re trying to make their community better, or they’re just good people, and so you really root for them. I would spend hours with these people. … It takes a few hours to shoot an episode, because the wall is complicated, and whenever we’d change the dollar values, everything just … it’s a big thing. I would really get to know these people and be genuinely affected by what they could do, what they planned to do, with all this money.

It is such a potentially huge amount of money. A smaller prize on The Wall is the equivalent of the most you can hope to win on other game shows.
Yeah, exactly. It could end up being $12 million if everything went right. The pace of the game, where they’ll be up a couple million dollars, and then a couple bad bounces or a missed question and they’re back down to zero, then they’re back up again, then back … I think that’s the thing that I didn’t necessarily expect, how emotional it would be to actually do it. I think normally with a big flashy game show, whoever is hosting is sort of, they’re kind of neutral, you know? They’re sort of a neutral traffic cop. They’re there to set up the game and make sure that it moves, but I feel like I get the chance to be very involved, and I really am more on the contestants’ side than I am on NBC’s side. Like, I really am kind of an ambassador for the contestants, to help counsel them, to be there to help them.

Most hosts can’t necessarily affect the game, but you are in the middle of the most emotional part of it, when the contestants have to make strategic decisions and remain calm enough to do that. In the sneak-peek episode, you’re helping keep contestant Angel focused. You’re encouraging her when she gets a bad bounce; you’re telling her, “No, no, shake it off. Keep going forward. Focus.” Because she’s in a position where anyone would get flustered with so much at stake.
And as I said, it took a few hours to shoot a show, so there’s a lot of me swearing at the wall when the bounces would go bad. I’m not even sure it was anything I was really conscious of, because obviously none of that would stay in. It’s so hard not to be involved, and honestly, the experience of standing there in front of this massive engineering feat, and watching it happen, and it sort of looks like Tron, the effect. It’s very dark, but then these thin lights, but then the wall itself is also the main viewing screen. The wall really is every piece of the game, every mechanical piece of the game is that wall. It’s the game board, it’s the monitor, it’s the good news, it’s bad news. It really is this central, this huge thing. When my wife saw it for the first time, she was like, “Holy s***.” You can tell people it’s big, it’s this big wall, and we drop a ball down it, but when you see it in person, it’s a completely different experience.

I’m very happy to be there for emotional support. I mean, people really do need, not really a host, they kind of need a guide, an emotional guide. Game show laws are stricter than you could possibly imagine. It’s not like I can tell them exactly what to do, or give them any hints or anything, but I can say, “Well, statistically if you [drop the ball] on this side, there’s a higher probability that it’s going to land in this bin, and so it’s up to you to decide how confident you are that your partner knows anything about this topic, as to where you’re going to place that.” I can remind them, “If you triple up here, then you could potentially be up $6 million, or you could be completely wiped out.”

What are the balls like, the ones the contestants get to drop into the machine? They look like very, very glowy bowling balls.
Yeah, they’re these giant plastic balls, basically. They have LEDs inside them, and when answers are right, they turn green, and when answers are wrong, they turn red. They kind of take on a personality, in a weird sort of way, this sort of positive or negative [quality], and you do blame them, even though it’s just physics and the random nature of how a ball’s going to not bounce the same way twice in a row. But you really do blame them for [bad bounces], and so they do sort of take on this weird role of either hero or villain.

Another fun aspect of The Wall is that, unlike a lot of other really big-stakes primetime game shows, event-type game shows, this one isn’t convoluted. There is trivia, there is some strategy, there is a lot of luck, and that’s a pretty simple recipe for what ends up being really dramatic.
I hope so. You know, answers are right, ball turns green, you get money. Answers are wrong, ball turns red, you lose money. Then, yeah, there are little things here and there, there’s the contract at the end, or just how the rounds play out. … The creator of the show, Andrew Glassman, I’m pretty sure he showed the [premiere] episode to a group of kids, and they all got it, and that made him feel like, “OK, well, if they’re invested, and they understand, then that’s a good sign.”

It’s been described as “Plinko with balls.” That’s a good comparison, right?
Yeah, I guess, in a way. When I was growing up, everyone had a pachinko machine, which is basically what all of that’s based on. It’s like Japanese vertical pinball. When I went on my honeymoon, they have these pachinko casinos all over Japan, and so I bought a pachinko machine, a Star Wars pachinko machine. They’re super-advanced now, and they have all sorts of graphics that do all sorts of crazy stuff, but yeah, I mean, it’s fun to watch. If it was just the ball dropping down a wall, and figuring out which bin it’s going to land in, I feel like I would watch it. Then you add all of the other elements, and that just kind of enhances all that. I just think there’s something about the human brain that’s like, “Where’s it gonna go?”

OK, have to ask you a few Talking Dead/TWD questions. How many times a day do people try to get spoilers from you?
Oh, always. Always. That’s one of the reasons why I don’t ever watch ahead, because there’s nothing to get out of me. I’m not a great liar; I feel like they would know, even in just what I didn’t answer, people would figure stuff out. I feel like just for the safety of everyone, I watch on Sundays when the show airs.

You watch it live as it airs? You don’t even watch it earlier in the day?
No, no, no. I watch it at about 2 in the afternoon, which is about as late as I can watch it and make it to our camera rehearsal before we do our show.

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Did you watch the Season 7 premiere ahead of time, with the big Negan deaths?
I watched the day before. That one, the network said, “you should probably watch this one a day before.”

What was your reaction?
Well, I mean, it was upsetting. It didn’t occur to me that two people might go, because, obviously, in the comics it’s Glenn. I thought, “They could just go old school and just have it be Glenn, and that’s what people would expect.” For a while, I suspected Abraham because I thought, if you’re Negan, aren’t you going to want to take out the biggest guy? Just as a show of force? But then I thought maybe you wouldn’t take him out, because maybe he’d want him as a soldier. … He wouldn’t take out Maggie, because that would be the most brutal thing for everyone. I just never predicted both of them. It happens really fast, and it’s very graphic, the way it is in the [comics], and you really feel it as a fan. I mean, it was upsetting, in the way that a show should play with your emotions. I think that’s what [Scott] Gimple’s been doing since he’s been showrunner, is to try to create these things that make the audience feel what the survivors are feeling.

What’s the toughest part of hosting the after-show?
Well, if there is a tough part, it’s coming on after people have lost a character they love. Even after the finale, I know that Howard Stern gave us s*** because we were all very melancholy about the whole thing. It was like, “You know it’s not real, right?” Yes, of course, but is that to say that people aren’t affected by television, film, books, any kind of surprise narrative drama? That’s what happens. Of course we know it’s not a documentary, but you know, you develop a relationship with the show, and especially, even more so than a movie, which is only a couple hours long. This is week in, week out; it’s part of your Sunday night ritual with your friends, or your family, or however you watch. People make Walking Dead-themed snacks and have viewing parties. When the dynamic changes and you lose characters, of course it’s upsetting. Also, I’m sure it’s a bummer for the actors who love working on a great show, and then they know that they have to move on. So, yes, it is emotional. It’s finding that balance between, “Hey, I know this isn’t real, but it’s OK to be upset about it,” and respecting the audience’s feelings no matter how they feel — whether they love the show, or they hate the show, or they are angry at the show, or they don’t like what’s happening, or they are very happy about what’s happening. I do believe that all fan opinions are valid. It’s really just about trying to guide people back into their lives after they’ve been absorbed into this apocalypse for an hour a week.

The after-show respects and celebrates TV fandom.
Right, and especially a show like this, which of course is not real, but there are some undertones of things that are. Which is, how would I survive if society fell? Who would I cling to? Who’s important to me in my life? How does my moral and ethical axis change when the environment changes so dramatically? What is right and what’s wrong? The real world is in such a delicate place at the moment, and I think people really are … it just feels like there’s so much craziness, and so I think the show does touch a little bit on the Zeitgeist of our culture.

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And a great fan community has evolved. Going back to when we first thought Glenn was dead in Season 6, and people were actually going out and measuring the distance underneath Dumpsters to keep up hope that he survived. It’s cool that it sparked that kind of unity and discussion.
I agree, 100 percent. Like when there were people who were upset about the [Season 6 finale] cliffhanger, but the thing that was really great was all summer long, wherever I went, it was basically just a big fan convention. We would talk about it, people going, “I think it’s this person or I think it’s that person; who do you think it is?” “I don’t know, I think it could be this person.” You really felt the community out there, and we’re engaged and it was just really nice.

The Marilyn Manson episode of Talking Dead from 2013 … one of the stranger episodes, but also kind of a classic. Was it as strange in the studio as it seemed watching it at home?
When it was happening, the only thing that I was thinking of was, “He’s on one wavelength, and the show’s on a different wavelength, and I don’t want to get the show too far off the show’s wavelength.” People watch our show for a reason, and if we veer off too much, then they get frustrated because they feel like, “I want to talk about the show.”

Since then, we’ve become pals. I ran into him at a party, and we joked about it, and I think he should come back on. He’s a very sweet guy. I have no hard feelings about that at all. … It was totally fine. He was on one wavelength on that show, and we were on a different one, and honestly, it’s the most mentioned episode, it’s the most talked about. In a way, I think it might be the best episode, because it’s the one that people remember the most, for how weird it was.

And he clearly knew the show, though, and loved the show.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would love to have him back on. It’s up to him. … If he wants to come back on, he can come back on. I think it would be great to have him back, the return of Marilyn Manson.

The Wall premieres Dec. 19 at 10 p.m. on NBC.