On the heels of living and breathing BASE jumping insanity at Bridge Day, we then had to finish up the pilot of MTV Sports by filming some wrap-around segments. They were basically going to be threaded throughout the show to tie all the other bits and pieces together. The initial concept for the series was to do the wrap-arounds with an athlete or celebrity in a more controlled interview environment, so basically a more traditional sit-down interview in a studio with them.

Luckily, the very first guest we got was probably the greatest athlete on the planet at the time of our shoot, Bo Jackson. I could not have been more excited, especially since Bo was at the peak of his career, playing both professional football and baseball, but thanks to Nike's “Bo Knows” campaign, he was at the height of the American pop culture ladder as well.

Bo actually wasn't even slated to be our first guest, but thanks to some brilliant casting maneuvering by Patrick Byrnes, we were able to get him for thirty minutes after he was done filming a video countdown show on another stage. Our set was simple. We had a couch and, well, it was just the couch. A couch randomly perched alone in the middle of a huge stage like Gilligan's Island, just patiently waiting for Bo and I to sit down and talk. We were also shooting the segment on 16 mm black and white film, which to me felt extremely professional, or as my friends in Pittsburgh would say, “artsie fartsie.” I wouldn't say I was nervous, but Bo was notorious for being a very serious man of very few words. The intimacy of our set aided in making my task of getting him to open up and show the lighter side of himself a rather difficult one.

Bo was running late from the other shoot, so I tried to keep myself loose and the crew entertained with some juvenile humor guaranteed to get laughs, even if the laughs were just my own. At one point I remember calling out “Bo knows? Really? Okay, I'll tell you what Bo don't know, Bo don't know Dan!” Crickets. Not as much as a snicker or even a smirk, but rather blank stares all around. Feeling a presence behind me, I turned toward the back entrance of the stage and there stood Bo Jackson, backlit by the sunlight coming in through the open door behind him.

For a long beat, everyone just looked at him, and then, like something out of a horror film, the creaking door slowly closed behind him. Patrick and others hustled over to him. I made my way over to Bo as well after I took my foot out of my mouth, which wasn't so easy considering how far I had my head up my ass.

As I approached him I remember thinking how solid he looked. Now, “solid” might seem like a silly adjective to use to describe the man, but it was true, he was like a 6'1”, 230-pound block of solid granite…with the inability to smile…at me. I introduced myself and proceeded to shake his hand. I was always taught that when you shake a man's hand, you look him in the eye and make it a firm shake, so I proudly went with that approach. Bo, in turn, squeezed my hand so hard that I may or may not have farted. Hence, the reason I offered to quickly get him out of that general vicinity because I wanted to “show him the set.”

We had less than five minutes of small talk, or in Bo's case small listen, before we started to shoot, and not one smile even came close to emanating from his face. Next thing I knew, Patrick called “action,” the cameras began to roll, and I had no other choice but to wing it and hope for the best. “How's it going, handsome?” Apparently by “wing it” I had meant “kiss up.” Bo gave me a brief quizzical stare, and at that moment I knew he was going to walk off the set. He then leaned forward and, following a surprisingly friendly smile and laugh, he said, “I'm good, man.” Boom, just like that we were off and running (Figure 13.1). The relaxed back and forth between the two of us worked perfectly. Not only was this a pretty damn cool shoot, it was one of my favorites from the series. Who knew Bo was such a personable guy? Bo “freakin'” Jackson knew, that's who.

A few minutes after we wrapped, Bo approached me and said, “That was a lot of fun. Thanks for making it easy.” Still to this day, that's one of the greatest compliments I'd ever been given, because one, it came from Bo Jackson, and two, I learned so much from it. That interview acted as my blueprint for every other celebrity interview I would do after that. Never ask them about things like controversy, legal issues, or contract disputes, only positivity from beginning to end. There were plenty of talented reporters around to ask those types of questions, and truthfully, I didn't care about the answers to them. I just attempted to treat every celebrity like they were someone I knew my entire life, and as cliché as it sounds, like I would want to be treated.

Prior to shooting, I always made it a point to tell anyone and everyone who was ever on camera with me to relax because at worst, this was going to be fun and easy. Plus, if anyone was going to be made fun of, it would be me. I was a big boy—not only could I take it, I encouraged it, and that became an extremely successful formula for me. Because as I've told many people over the years regarding how I work, I talk to the biggest stars on the planet the same way I talk to someone off the street. I'm not an expert on any one thing, but I know enough about everything to have a conversation with anyone about anything.

Just as in life, if people sense that you're being real with them on camera, they will reciprocate. It was me just being me, an average guy who wanted people to share in the joy and fun that I got from doing my job. Maybe in doing so, these celebrities got to show the viewers a side of themselves that had never been seen before.