Cat Deeley On So You Think You Can Dance's Changes and Stealing Emmys

You sent in one tape to MTV and your career began there? Were you shocked your start happened so quickly?

Oh my goodness, yeah. The weirdest thing of all is because I had no knowledge of the entertainment industry whatsoever or how it worked or how casting procedures worked -- I mean, they could've been looking for an [Asian] girl or an African-American guy. Obviously it's not just about who's the best at something. It's about who's best for the job. If you're casting a TV show, you have to cast it. And I would've just turned around and said, "Oh, I'm no good at this. They clearly didn't want me because I'm not very good at it." Now I'm fully aware that maybe I just wouldn't have been right for that particular job. But I wouldn't have tried again if I didn't get that job. Not because I'm scared of failing or anything like that or because I wouldn't want to try again. It was more because I would lose my confidence. I would turn around and go, "Clearly I'm not very good at this. Maybe I'm not cut out for this. Let's go to university instead."

You should know that when you YouTube your name, the first thing that comes up is a tab that says, "Cat Deeley Loses It on Live TV." Upon clicking, you see it's a comic parody of reality shows you participated in. It's very well done!

At least you did notice that it was in fact a parody! You have no idea how many people come up to me and go, "Oh my God, did you lose it? When did you lose it?" And I'm like, "No, it was a whole comedy show with an amazing comedian back in the UK called Peter Kay." He'd actually rung me and asked, "Look, would you do this?" And I said, "Oh my God. Absolutely." I love everything he does. I'm his biggest fan. And it's so good. You've never see me do that, you know what I mean? You never see me lose my rag. It was so unexpected. I loved it.

Your participation makes me think you know there's a certain lunacy to reality TV. You're convincing in it.

That was kind of the goal of it. Because I'm good friends with Peter anyway, and I've had experience in hosting reality shows to award shows to whatever. He wanted me to be extremely real, absolutely believable in this extreme world. What he realized is that reality shows have a certain pattern to them, a certain format that works. You need to know the back-stories, the lighting changes, the dramatic music, the language that you use. And he did that absolutely brilliantly. All great reality shows have a very, very similar format. That's why it was so easy to parody. I think one should always be prepared to have a laugh at oneself. Because if you can't, who can? To be honest, I never take myself that seriously. Don't get me wrong; I love the show I do, and I want the dancers to have a great experience doing the show. But it's an entertainment shoot, and what's more entertaining than bring the finger at yourself, and having a joke with the audience?

You've hosted a couple game shows too: a week of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? here and the Game Show Network program 20Q. Game show hosting seems difficult, particularly when explaining difficult rules as you did on 20Q. Is it much different than reality-competition hosting?

There's always rules and formats no matter what you do. Game shows, award shows, comedy shows -- there are always certain rules and formats you have to adhere to. The one universal theme that runs through all of them is that you have to care about the people. You have to invest in the audience because otherwise it doesn't matter how much money someone's going to win or the title they're going to win. You've got to be invested. You have to invite the audience in and let them get to know the people on the show. They're inviting you into their living room twice a week. You want to make it as intimate and genuine and real as possible. If you can hook the audience in with that, they're in anyway.

One last question, and I'm sure you're asked it all the time. What's the difference between US and UK audiences? Have you found yourself treating both crowds differently?

The enthusiasm with American audiences almost boils over. To be perfectly honest, it's infectious enthusiasm. It's just great. I love when the audience comes in and they've connected with the kids. They're invested. That's a great, great thing. As a sweeping generalization, the Brits are more reserved. Just in general. It doesn't take much to get the American audience on their feet and whooping and hollering and having a good time. I love that about American audiences. There's no major, major difference. There isn't really. I think if there was, when I came here to the States they would've said, "OK, can you do this a little bit more? Or, "A little less." Or "Don't make jokes about this, that, or the other." I've never heard that from any of the execs at Fox. They've always said, "Do exactly your thing." Now I think the world is so small that we all read the same books, see the same movies. It's a global population rather than just national.

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