Summary

Collider’s Emily Bernard chats with Jeffrey Dean Morgan for his upcoming NBC reality series Destination X.

The show combines elements of romance, betrayal, alliances, travel, and competition for a thrilling experience.

In this interview, Morgan discusses this unusual offer, embracing this chapter of his career, co-owning a candy store with Paul Rudd, and more.

When you think of Jeffrey Dean Morgan, what pops into your head? Denny from Grey’s Anatomy? A bloody baseball bat? Supernatural? All valid. But reality competition series host? Definitely not. That’s about to change with Destination X, NBC’s new series that sends a group of strangers around the globe to mysterious locations that they, through a series of clues and games, must identify correctly in order to stay in the competition. The lucky winner will receive $250,000.
What makes Destination X especially fun is the way it blends together all of the best parts of reality and competition shows. There’s romance, betrayal, alliances, travel, and, well, competition. The competitors are from all walks of life, including a sports better who had previously never left the country, a grandma who went to Coachella and loves to party, a professional bird watcher, and a former Big Brother winner, to name just a few. Oh, and is that JaNa Craig from Love Island? They all get to their destinations on a big bus that they live on for the duration of their time on the show, which only ups the pressure, shenanigans, tensions, and hilarity.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan puts his bad boy image and badass persona to excellent use here as the ringmaster of this unpredictable adventure. During this 1-on-1 with Collider, Morgan explains how he had no idea why he was asked to host this, the way a lot of the series was found in the edit room, why he wanted to embrace this next chapter in his career, and how he came to own a candy store with Paul Rudd.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Paul Rudd Co-Own a Candy Store

“There’s just something about it that’s kind of magical.”

Image via AMC

COLLIDER: It’s really great to meet you. I’m such a big fan. I was going through your career. You’re part of so many franchises, worlds that have such devoted fans, from Grey’s Anatomy, The Boys, Supernatural, obviously, Negan from The Walking Dead. My favorite thing, though, about your career is that you co-own a candy store with a struggling actor named Paul Rudd. It’s a lovely story about how you became associated with it. Could you just talk a little bit about that?
JEFFREY DEAN MORGAN: I was doing a film on the other side of the river in Woodstock. I was coming over here, Hilarie [Burton] and I — and Gus was just a baby, baby, baby, like, less than a year old — we had a house in LA and were just going to be here for like six weeks filming. I had done a movie earlier in my career. Well, not that long ago at this time, but I had done a movie called Accidental Husband with Griffin Dunne. Griffin Dunne directed that film, but he lives in Rhinebeck. So one day it was like, “Well, let’s go. We’re gonna go visit Uncle Griffin.” And we went into Rhinebeck, and the first place that I went was Samuel’s Sweets and the owner, a guy named Ira Gutner, was the first person I met in all of Rhinebeck. I loved him.
We bought a house, a cabin in the woods, that day I think we went and saw it? Before we went to Griffin’s and put an offer in and bought it and lived there for like four years. My place was Samuel’s Sweets because I loved Ira. He knew everything that was going on in town. I just got a kick out of hearing his take on what was happening. He was just a little bit of the town gossip. But also, Samuel’s just had a very special vibe. There was something about that place that everybody kind of wanted to be around Ira and what he had built, I think. I went out of town to do a film for like six months, a miniseries, Texas Rising, and my wife called me in tears. Ira had passed away suddenly. I didn’t really think a lot about the candy shop at that time, but I came home for his funeral and then heard that the candy shop was probably going to be sold. They couldn’t keep it open. It was barely surviving at that time anyway.
We were having dinner — myself and Paul [Rudd] and our wives, Hilarie, Julie, and Andy Ostroy, who is our other partner. I was like, “Why don’t we just buy it and save it?” Storefronts change so often, like it lasts for a year and then it’s something else. John Traver had been working there since he was like 13 years old or something, and he was now 20 some years old. He was not only close to Ira, but in a position where it was really hard for him, like the thought of losing this store. We were like, “John, we’ll make you our partner. You run this sucker.” It all just kind of panned out and then kind of exploded because, you know, me and Paul love telling the story about Samuel’s Sweets and going on talk shows and handing out free candy. And it went crazy and it’s to this day, doing very well for itself. We put every dime back into the store and pay the employees that work there. We’ve kept the tradition of hiring young kids that are coming out of high school. It’s cool. It’s just a special spot. You’ve been there, you know. There’s just something about it that’s kind of magical. It’s a Norman Rockwell painting come to life.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan Is Able To Put His Badass Image To Use in ‘Destination X’

“There’s a lot of stuff, and it is convoluted and crazy.”

Let’s jump into your new show. When I read the premise for Destination X, I was like, there’s no way NBC is going to pull this off. It is the most convoluted, cool, — and I’m sure expensive — show. You also don’t necessarily think of you as hosting a reality competition series.
MORGAN: I agree!
What was your first impression of the premise? Were you wondering like, “Why are you asking me to host this?”
MORGAN: Yeah, exactly. Correct. Probably flip that. I was first like, “You got the wrong guy. There must be another Jeffrey Morgan out there somewhere that is a great host or something.” Then I was like, “What the fuck is this show?” It was a show that was based on a Belgian TV show, the same name. I watched a couple episodes of that. The host was very kind of James Bond-y, and it played a little bit differently, certainly, than me. I kept asking NBC, “Are you sure?” Because I’m not a host guy. That’s just not my vibe. I can’t pretend that that’s my vibe. And if that’s what you want, then absolutely no, I just can’t be that and nor do I want to be that.” There’s people out there that are great at it. I mean, have Hilarie [Burton] do it, for God’s sake, she’d be brilliant at it. They said, “We want you because of who you are and how you are.”
Then my wife was like, “Jeff, you’re not getting any younger. I don’t know if you can keep bouncing off the pavement and killing zombies for the rest of your life, and this might be something that you enjoy. It’s kind of in your wheelhouse, being the ringmaster of a circus. If NBC is going to allow you to have your sense of humor and kind of poke and prod and fuck with these people, then what an opportunity this might be.” She’s kind of the one that really made me feel okay about it. Like, “Okay, you know what? You’re right. Maybe this is something that might be fun.”
Then it was about trying to find the show, because like you said, there’s a lot of stuff, and it is convoluted and crazy. How is it all going to work? And to be honest with you, there was a lot of stuff that hit the editing room floor. A lot of this show was found in post-production. But we had a team that has been involved with Traitors and all that stuff. It’s like the best in the business at this kind of gameplay show craziness. A lot of credit, I think, needs to go to the casting department for finding these folks who I thought were brilliant. And then just throw me in the middle of it, and then see what happens. And that’s what we did. Especially as the episodes go, we really started to get into a rhythm of finding what the show was going to be and how it works, and how I worked in the middle of it. But really, it’s just kind of about letting these people get in a bus enough and be on top of each other and see what the fuck’s going to happen.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan Teases the Big Reality Stars Appearing in His NBC Competition Show

“Best in the business.”

It’s the best parts of reality and competition, because there’s alliances, betrayal, romance, travel, there’s everything that you could want. There’s even a former Big Brother winner, so I feel like it’s going to bring in people from everywhere.
MORGAN: Former Big Brother, and then we bring in JaNa [from Love Island]. She’s so funny. She’s like, “You don’t know me? I’m America’s Sweetheart.'” And I’m like, “I don’t know! I don’t watch Love Island.” And I still haven’t seen an episode. And then Peter [Weber], the pilot, who was on The Bachelor. So we had some ringers from the world of reality television, none of which I knew. I think the people, for me, that I was really fascinated with were the people that had never been in front of a camera before. They were great. I don’t want to leave anybody out because they were all great, but Biggy, Mac, Rick, Kimberly, Ally, they all brought something to the show and would switch from one episode to the next and be like, “sneaky bad guy” to “innocent victim.” It’s all gameplay. They come off that plane, and they’re all game players, and I think that surprised me. I didn’t know everybody was so damn hip to this stuff. I suppose if you throw your name into a hat to be on a reality show, then you have some experience of how these things work. But it still shocked me how fast they were playing the game.
Destination X premieres Tuesday, May 27 at 10/9c on NBC.