This is Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast More what you Hear Weekday Afternoon's on the Drive.
You know Camden Matheson from General Hospital and All My Children, He's starting to stretch his abilities into game show hosting and that will be on the new episode of Beat the Bridge on the Game Show Network. Welcome Cameron Matheson. I understand this is based on a BBC import.
It sure is, Yeah, Bridgealize, which was a great show in the UK, and then we took it over here and in the US and Game Show Network and everybody just kind of reworked it a little bit and made it fit in for the American audiences. And I think we've done a really good job. It's been airing and people are loving it. And I usually never watch myself, like in any of the acting jobs I have or hosting jobs I have, but this and I have a good time and I get excited because I don't remember.
I don't remember how each episode ends, right. We shoot a lot of episodes, and it's been very very exciting and also new for me to be able to watch a show that I'm on and kind of get into it. So it's even for me, it's been fun.
Being a game show host is considerably different than acting behind the camera or in front of the camera.
Rather, uh, it's definitely very different. It's it's way more it's way more dreamally draining. Like you know, you're you're basically it's you're in that fight or flight state the whole time. I love to you know, very enthusiastic, very high energy, very positive with the with the teams and the guests, and obviously acting you're you're just trying to
be I mean, here's the deal. It's when I went to my hosts, I try to be very you know, very positive and like I say, I have a lot of energy going, but at the same time, very authentic and genuine. It's it's just who I am and just
how I am. Naturally, when I'm acting, you're a lot more grounded in the moment, and you're playing a different character and you're you know, it doesn't typically call for you to be up there kind of yelling and screaming and cheering, and you know, you're just kind of talking and listening and reacting and also trying to be as authentic and grounded and genuine as you can. So there's similarities, but there's a lot of differences.
Well, I imagine you have live theater experience as well. I would imagine it's closer to live theater than it is when you're when you're rehearsing and then recording or taping an episode of say General Hospital.
Yeah, I suppose it is. But at the same time, even in like theater, you're not you know, you're not presenting, You're not you're not like you know, you're you're not hosting anything. You're just trying to be super grounded in the moment and listen, react and spontaneous and truthfully in that way, it's the same whether you're acting on a TV show or not. But I know what you mean in the sense of like projecting. When you're on live theater, you want to project in the back of the house.
And so there's similarities. For sure, there's similarities, but there's definitely a lot of differences.
Cameron Mathison, he's the host of the all new game show Beat the Bridge. What's our premise on Beat the Bridge? If you don't get across the bridge, you fall into the London, you fall into the Thames River.
Yeah, that's that's I mean, I mean maybe that's like sort of the the essence of it. But nobody's falling into any rivers here. There's no like wipeout contingent, you know. Part of the show. Uh, it's basically just you got this huge interactive bridge that's got a personality to it, and you're and so you've got a team of three people and individually they're trying to make it across this bridge. Now,
the interesting thing is the surface of this bridge. It is the actual game board, right, so the contestants are stepping there. There's sort of the game pieces, stepping on the right answers, avoiding the wrong answers, trying to make it across the bridge, accumult money in their bank as they do it. Every successful crossing they get a little bonus. And then the final round of the show is this timed around where they try to make it back across
the bridge. If they do, they get to keep their money and a huge bone of us up to fifteen thousand dollars in total. And it's it's just a fast paced, lots of energy of trivia base show that is really really engaging in fun to.
Watch chess with. But they are the pieces.
Oh yeah, and it says they're the pieces. Yeah, exactly right.
Yeah, we're talking about Beat the Bridge. It is on now on weeknights at six o'clock Eastern on the Game Show Network, and the hostess cameraon matheson what are some of the questions? Because I know, you know, it takes probably a whole team of people to come up with these really good trivia questions that people may or may not know the answers to.
Yeah, it takes a whole team of people, and it takes a whole team of people, like months to do it. It's you know, we shoot a lot of these episodes. I guess its on the Game the Show, et cetera. But we we shot one hundred episodes, and so just
think about all those trivia questions. Each each episode has several rounds and different categories, and so you know, we could have a category that would be movies that were inspired by TV series, or we could have summer summer Olympic games categories, or we could have you know, there's a million million different categories and then subcategories within. So the category could be sports and then like what's the
Bridge looking for? Well, we're looking for summer Olympic games, categories or we're looking you know whatever, or you know the the the category of the overall category could be famous people and then we could be like interest, Elvis movies, you know, like, it could be a lot of different specific things. And the beautiful thing about this game, I feel like is even if you have no idea the who, like, let's say this famous person is could be like Beyonce
albums or something like I don't listen to Beyonce. But there's still the ability because it's like process of elimination, you could still make it across. We've had people make it across the bridge even if they have no idea what this category is or whatever, and just by using their deductive reasoning and process of elimination, they're still in the game.
And that game is Beat the Bridge with Cameron Matheson as the host. Do you know them from General Hospital? All my Children? And more? Do you have to go over some of the pronunciations of the questions beforehand or are they as a mount is a surprise to you as they are to the to the to the player.
I go over the pronunciations beforehand, but inevitably, you know how when you like see a word or a pronunciation and you just get it in your head like this is the one that's gonna trip me up inevitably. Inevitably, I'll still get it wrong and we'll do like an audio pickup or something. So that's happened. But they tell me when we shot this that I had like the fewest.
I had very few different I had very few pickups comparatively, but I definitely needed a few a second take at some of those pronunciations.
Well, that may be where a lot of your soap opera practice came into came into being, because you have so many lines that changed daily when you're shooting a soap opera versus a game show.
Yeah, like we you know, but people don't realize shooting I'm on General Hospital, and I was on All My Children for a long long time before that, but I uh, yeah, people don't realize you've got to memorize between twenty and sometimes up to fifty sixty pages of dialogue and one day on a soap. Yeah, and it's uh, you know, you can't really be getting you know, second and third
takes on these shows. These shows we shoot one hundred plus pages a day every day and they got to keep it moving, and so that kind of training really comes in handy for a lot of things like being able to be prepared, being able to get it in the first take, memorizing certain things, all of the above.
Cameron Mathieson of General Hospital and All My Children, host of the all new game show Network A game show, Beat the Bridge. It is on weeknights at six pm on the sixth Eastern. Yeah, sorry about that. Yes, speaking of not knowing your lines. Karen Mathison, thank you for joining us.
You got it, you got it. Thank you so much for having me. I hope everybody chicks out the show. It's a lot of fun.
Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia Presentation