Fancast Interview: The Mole’s Jon Kelley

The Mole is one part intrigue and one part physically demanding hellhole, and a new episode will attack your TV tonight on NBC. Fancast caught up with Jon Kelley, the host of The Mole, and he clued us in on the best strategy he thinks a contestant should have, the one thing he’d like to change about The Mole, and the biggest celebrity fan of The Mole: Jimmy Fallon. Don’t miss tonight’s season premiere, but first catch previews on Fancast.

What’s a piece of advice you have for a potential future contestant of The Mole?
Study the game, learn all you can, watch all the episodes. Figure out all the different approaches you see on the show. Watch what’s successful and then forget all of it. Once you get into the game, it changes immediately. That’s the beauty of this game. No mater what your game plan is coming in, I can promise you it will be blown up probably in the first half hour. But also learn to be observant, have a great memory, pay attention to detail, learn to be charismatic and very sleuth-like and learn to be a chameleon. I think that would help as well.

What would you do as a contestant?
I would just try to step back from it and observe and be very astute, watching the people play but not get too caught up in it. Because the beauty of the game is that even though the Mole is the saboteur and hired to jack things up for everyone, other players will throw missions to bring eyes on them to confused everybody else.

What’s the worst thing a contestant can do?
Let the game control them because its easy to emotionally get involved and then all of a sudden you get sidetracked and you’re worried about the wrong thing. The worst thing is loose control. Then everybody else has an advantage over you. Keep cool but also be very conniving.

What celebrity contestant would you love to have on the show and why?
They did a couple of celebrity editions. Corbin Bernstein who became very meticulous and obsessive on everything, but it always worked against him. Another celebrity who would be cool on the show is Jimmy Fallon. I ran into him last week and congratulated him on taking over for Conan O’Brien. He’s like “Yeah, man are you still at Extra?” And I said, “No, I’m hosting a show coming up called The Mole.” Jimmy went nuts! He said, “My wife and I have seen The Mole, we love the show!” and he hugged me and said “I can’t wait! You’ve gotta come on my show and promote it!” I told him he’d be the first guy I’d come to. So I’d say Jimmy because he’s excited. But as far as other celebs, I think Denzel Washington would be great. We’d get all the female viewers because he’s the handsome guy, and also I think he’s just such a smart guy. I mean he’s just brilliant. Also George Clooney would be funny, and Will Smith, and then I’d bring Halle Barry on for the looks and Eva Mendez. I want to get all five or six of those people on next season!

What’s the one rule you’d change on the show and why?
I’d like to say the game is unique and set up perfectly the way it is, but if I could change something it would be the rule against the host participating in the missions. I’d wanna go over the waterfall, I’d wanna be head and shoulders in these missions but they put the reigns on me! They wouldn’t let me do most of the fun ones. I did sneak one in but don’t tell anyone yet!

More on These Topics: Jimmy Fallon | Jon Kelley | The Mole