On Saturday night in front of a live TV audience, Olympic golden boy Michael Phelps will face a new trial, he has yet to conquer: hosting Saturday Night Live.
Many have gone before him, including one of his idols, Chris Farley, but Michael feels up to the challenge.
"I was nervous coming into here, I had no idea what to expect," he tells OK!. "But after the read throughs yesterday, after the first few, I started getting into it and started warming up a little bit."
"I’m just going to run through some stuff before Saturday and I’m confident with what’s coming up," he adds. Despite his assuredness, the medal winning athlete does admit to having a slight case of the nerves ahead of his big TV appearance.
"I’m probably more nervous doing this than I was swimming in Beijing, I’ll tell you that," he confesses to OK!.
While he may be a little worried, others around him having nothing but good things to say about his upcoming hosting duties.
"Michael’s been great, and no matter what happens, they can’t take those medals away," show creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels tells OK!.
And while Lorne won’t say that Michael is any funnier than any other athlete they’ve had host, he still has plenty of praise for the 23-year-old swimmer.
"I must say that you can tell right away when we start to read things both by performance and… where people laugh or if they laugh, and you can tell right away that there’s no question about him getting it, and also being funny and knowing what to do in the piece."
Does this mean Michael has a future in live comedy TV? Maybe not.
"He’s not suddenly going to be a professional sketch player," adds Lorne, "but I think he’s going to do just fine."
His fellow Olympic colleague Amanda Beard also had positive things to say about Michael’s SNL gig, telling OK! recently, "I’m personally really excited to see how he does, so I wish him the best of luck and I hope he just has a lot of fun with it."
See how Michael does on SNL this Saturday, Sept. 13 on NBC, with musical guest Lil Wayne.
