As a longtime “Jeopardy!” fan who took the show’s eligibility test multiple times before acceptance, UT alumnus Davey Morrison (playwriting and screenwriting, ‘20) finally made his debut as a “Jeopardy!” contestant in the July 24 episode. The Daily Texan spoke with the actor, educator and writer about how he won two “Jeopardy!” games for a total earnings of $31,512 despite his little trivia experience.
The Daily Texan: How did your film experience prepare you for screen testing and trying out for the show?
Davey Morrison: There are people who are much better at trivia than I am — people who do (trivia) much more seriously and regularly than I do, but some of them seemed to freeze up during the taping day that day. … Being on a film set and in front of cameras is stressful. It was stressful for me walking out to play the first game … I don’t think I’ve felt my heart beat in my chest like that in a long time. But, being used to being on set and being in front of cameras alleviated that part of the stress. It was still stressful thinking about 10 million people watching me not knowing the answers to things on TV, but I was a lot less nervous being in front of cameras than I might have been if it wasn’t something I did for a living.
DT: Are there any ways that all of your experience with education prepared you for that kind of cramming?
DM: I’ve learned different memorization tricks as an actor. … I’ve also worked doing voiceover for this educational company over the last decade, reading social studies and science articles for students all around the country. So pretty much every day I’m reading articles about U.S. history and these things, all of which are not my best subject. … Ever since I was a kid I’ve loved reading and watching movies. If you know a lot about one thing, then you probably know a little about most things. If you’ve seen a million movies or read a million books, then you’ve seen links from history and from the whole rest of the world at least referenced.
DT: How did you get interested in “Jeopardy!” initially?
DM: My family watched “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune” together at dinner time sometimes when I was a kid. I really got into it when I was in high school when Ken Jennings had his run as a contestant and broke the record by a lot. He won 74 games … I was living in Utah at the time, and he was living in Utah at the time. So, it was a big national and local story. (My mom and I) would watch (it) together every day.
