Simon Cowell on What It Took to Make ‘America’s Got Talent: All Stars’

Meet the 10 contestants on the 'AGT: All Stars' series premiere.

When America’s Got Talent: All-Stars premieres tonight, it’s the best of the best versus the best! Yes, we’ve had two seasons of America’s Got Talent: Champions, but, according to Simon Cowell, there’s more excitement for All-Stars.

“Certainly, I think we’ve got more bigger winners, if that makes sense,” the producer/judge told Parade. “Getting Terry Fator and Kodi Lee, it was really dependent on those kinds of people returning for us to even make the show. I thought, if we don’t get those, there’s no point. And when I found out that they’d agreed it was like, ‘All right! We’re on. Make it as quickly as possible.’”

AGT: All-Stars will be an extension of regular America’s Got Talent, featuring winners, finalists, fan favorites, and viral sensations from previous seasons of the American version of the show as well as from Got Talent franchises around the world.

Each week, 10 acts will perform for the judges for the chance to earn one of the coveted five Golden Buzzer spots, which will take them directly to the finals. The AGT Superfans will also vote on an additional act to move onto the finals each week. Then, following the final performances, the superfans will vote again on the 11 finalists to choose the winner, which will be revealed in the two-hour finale.

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Having the best of the best made it harder for judges Simon Cowell, Howie Mandel, and Heidi Klum to make their Golden Buzzer selections because everyone was so talented, and it also made it harder for them to even judge. There were very few instances when one of the judges hit their buzzers to remove an act.

“It was really difficult. Day one, I really struggled,” Simon said. “We’d invited all these people as a supposed All-Star, so what am I supposed to do? So, in the end, you’ve got to get your head around it: OK, judge them. If I hadn’t met them, then, of course, it’s the first time I’ve met them like a regular audition. If I’ve seen them before, are they better than they were on the show? That was my criteria. But then, it just evolved naturally in the end, and everyone was super competitive, which was good, and it was a proper competition.”

And Howie agreed that it was harder to judge, saying, “These are all people who wouldn’t be here if they weren’t an All-Star. So, I’m not here to tell you, ‘This is not what you should be doing for a living,’ I’m telling you why the Superfans may respond to you or maybe not respond to you. So, I’m doing constructive criticism as a judge as opposed to having the power to delete somebody or to move them on.”

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That said, Howie actually did have the power to move one contestant on— and he uses his Golden Buzzer tonight to move that somebody to the finale.

Meet the 10 artists performing on Night 1 of All-Stars:

Alan Silva, Aerialist
Aneeshwar Kunchala, Poet
Bello Sisters, Acrobat Trio
Berywam, Beatboxing Group
Caly Bevier, Singer
Jeanick Fournier, Singer
Jimmie Herrod, Singer
Light Balance Kids, Light-Up Dance Group
Lioz Shem Tov, Magician
Terry Fator, Singing Ventriloquist

America’s Got Talent: All Stars airs Monday nights, starting Jan. 2, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on NBC.

Next, Everything We Know About the America's Got Talent: All-Stars Spinoff Coming in January