Petr Kuleshov: "There are no less intellectuals"
25.06.2019
— Petr, this year Jeopardy celebrates its 25th anniversary. Recently, NTV has finished showing a series of games dedicated to the anniversary of the TV show. And frankly speaking, the final was surprising…
— Yes, it was unexpected. In terms of victory of the player who had never won in major tournaments. And this was the main intrigue of this games series: who will become the owner of the anniversary game cup. This year, the strongest of the strongest, a kind of invincible monsters such as Anatoly Wasserman, Yury Khashimov and Alexander Liber took part in the game. The latter is the leader in the number of games played and awards in the history of the TV show. In the late 90's we had the award "Order of the Scholar Cat" and Liber won so many of them that we jokingly offered him to hang them on his back.
— For 25 years of the TV show existence you have witnessed hundreds of participants. Were there any players who surprised you?
— I really can't help wondering. I often say to myself, "How do you know that?" In 25 years I have learned to answer the same question: can you remember something funny from the shooting process? By the way, there is not much fun on the set of Jeopardy!. Everything is static: people stand and answer questions. Sometimes the answer is funny and ironic... Anything can happen, but there aren't many remarkable situations. You should understand a simple thing: it's no secret that such programs are recorded in series, it means that several shows are shot at once. In one show, I ask 91 questions. About two thousand questions are asked per series. And, of course, during the shooting process, when the third game is being recorded, you do not remember who won the first one very well.
— Petr, during the game you have 91 cards in front of you?!
— Yes! But now, 25 years later, we are thinking about placing a display for the host so that he could read out questions from it.