Disney/Eric McCandless
Carrie Underwoodis in the hot seat.
Still, Underwoods approval comes with a caveat as she warns the Hollywood-bound rocker: You better bring it.
If theres anyone who understands the rush that Johnson felt at that exact moment, its Underwood.
Ryan Seacrest, Luke Bryan, Carrie Underwood, and Lionel Richie on ‘American Idol’.Credit:Disney/Eric McCandless
It’s such a difference when you’re sitting at home from your couch watching it.
You’re like, ‘What?
That person was great!’
Seacrest, Underwood, Richie, and Bryan on the Empire State Building in New York City.Disney/Eric McCandless
Or, ‘Oh my gosh, that person was terrible.
I can’t believe they sent them through!'"
Underwood tells EW during a much-needed pizza lunch break with the judges and hostRyan Seacrest.
‘American Idol’.Disney/Eric McCandless
These are people’s dreams and feelings and hopes."
“Carrie is a country artist; however, first and foremost, she’s the American Idol.
So that is her title, so to speak,” Wolflick adds.
Seacrest, Richie, Underwood, and Bryan pose at the Empire State Building.Disney/Eric McCandless
Her first day, she was kind of checking out the environment," Bryan recalls.
Lionel and I, our first day on this job, we kind of learned together."
“I’m introducing her all the time: ‘Carrie Underwood, and her new album!’
‘Carrie Underwood, and her big hit!'”
Seacrest, 50, teases.
“But I do think back and I remember those early days.
But that’s the beautiful thing.”
Underwood agrees that theIdolshe auditioned for and what the show has become are worlds apart.
These days, Richie explains, the judges have taken on a more parental role toward the contestants.
“Before, it was a great TV show where you go, ‘Boy, you suck.
Go home,’ you know?
‘What the hell?’
Now, it’s, ‘Okay, the kid is, first of all, traumatized from being here.
And they’ll be back.”
“For that amount of time, it was not my song,” Underwood declares.
“And I’m not mad about it, you know what I mean?
And it makes me happy.”
“Our kids go on to be stars.
It’s not a talent show where it’s about the judges or it’s about the ha-has.
They leave out of here and go get recording contracts and they make hit records,” he says.
It’s in theAmerican Top 40countdown."
And proof of that is the Grammy winner sitting at the desk beside him.
Watch the premiere’s opening above.
