Neil Patrick Harris Says He Tried to Emulate This Iconic TV Host on New Netflix Show “What’s in the Box? ”(Exclusive)

There’s one TV host who stands above the rest for Neil Patrick Harris.

Harris, 52, is the host of Netflix’s new game show, What’s in the Box? Although he’s hosted a variety series as well as various award shows before, including the Tony Awards and the Academy Awards, a trivia competition felt different.

The difference, he says, is that “you are presiding over people’s active futures.”

“In our case, you have eight teams of two that are on for the whole season, all six episodes, and they’re all getting to know each other and trying to win the most prizes. My job in that context is to check in on everybody, see how they’re doing, keep the stakes high, but also ask a ton of trivia questions and be the keeper of the knowledge and the revealer of the cool surprises within,” Harris says.

On What’s In the Box?, the teams work together to answer trivia questions and try to solve for the prizes in the box. Harris, as a host, is the emotional barometer for the contestants, as he gets to know their stories. To handle such a job, he looked no further than Jeff Probst, the longtime host of Survivor.

“I think there’s no better host around than Jeff Probst. Sorry, every other host, I love me some Alan Cumming, don’t get me wrong. Traitors is a gem, and he is a friend and amazing,” Harris says, but “if you watch Jeff Probst work episodes in and out for 49 seasons of Survivor, his skill is unmatched.”

Harris adds, “He is out in the field with the people color-commentating, while they’re doing unbelievable physical skills. If someone gets hurt, he knows exactly how to stop, how to handle things. Then, tribal councils, he sits there and asks legitimately impressive questions, and keys in on when people are withholding information. He’s not just reading talking points.”

“I tried to channel my inner Probst as much as I could. But ours is a lot more trivia-based for sure,” the Uncoupled star continues.

The show lets Harris and the audience get to know the contestants better and understand their stories, hopes and wishes. For Harris, it meant that he didn’t have to spend time asking basic questions, but got to watch the contestants grow and develop over time, and see what type of players they would become.

“We didn’t pick contestants and tell them to be cutthroat,” the How I Met Your Mother actor says. “We really played a dispersed season as kind of a beta test to see what would happen, because I really didn’t know.”

He continues, explaining that “there’s certain wild cards that happen very randomly where a team has to choose another team to compete against. If they win, they win what’s in the box. If they lose, they’re off for the rest of the season, they’re eliminated from the show.”

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For Harris, it’s interesting to see how these teams handle “big decisions” and “see how they process this information.” He says that “they process it in very different ways: Some people were vengeful, spiteful, and some people were apologetic. You could see people forming alliances, even though they weren’t really hanging out much outside of the show.”

“I was intrigued by how seriously they were taking it, because part of me was also feeling like it’s a game show. You’re here, and it’s very exciting, but if you win a prize and then someone takes that prize, it’s not the end of the world,” he continues. “But boy, it felt like it to them at the moment. Managing people’s emotions was unexpected for me.”

Per Netflix, What’s in the Box? tests contestants’ knowledge, interpersonal relationships, stamina and strategy as their teams work through trivia questions to reveal what’s inside huge prize boxes, varying from things, like a travel package to a musical experience and everything in between.

They also have to navigate twists, turns, reveals, surprises and cameos that will keep both the players and viewers at home on their toes.

One of the reasons Harris is excited to be a part of the show is the “binge-ability factor.” He says, “I love having a game show on a streaming service. Netflix is great, and their programming for singular events is pretty unrivaled. I love the idea that you don’t have to watch a game show and keep throwing commercials welcoming people back.”

Instead, the host, the contestants and the audience can focus on the gameplay and, more specifically, the prizes. “When you think about the scale of the prizes themselves, there are 12 boxes filled with really jaw-dropping prizes,” Harris says. “That was an edict by Netflix, too. If we’re gonna do this, let’s do it big. The set’s big, the prizes are big, their reactions to set surprises are big.”

Following along with the contestants and their journeys will be enjoyable for families and friends alike to watch together — and even try their hand at answering some of the questions themselves.

“You don’t have to have a vast knowledge of trivia to win one of the nearest number games,” Harris shares. “Because if it’s a big question about how many pennies are in circulation, you have no idea what that means. It levels the playing field in a way. I’m really excited to have people watch it.”

Although he can’t spoil all the prizes on the show, Harris has a box he would want to win. “Some of the travel experiences seemed pretty unbelievable. I think when you get to experience something as opposed to just winning something, that’s something that you might remember for the rest of your life,” he shares.

What’s In The Box? premieres Wednesday, Dec. 17 on Netflix.