CBS/Cliff LipsonOn Sunday night, Luke Bryan will host the 52nd ACM Awards for the second time with Dierks Bentley. Before that, Luke learned the craft with Blake Shelton for three years. By now, he’s feeling like an old pro.
“With each passing year, I think you get a little more savvy, a little better, and you remember when something kinda worked, and when something really worked…” the Entertainer of the Year nominee says. “It’s kinda like you wanna minimize any margin of error and make the show go off without a hitch and represent country music in the best way possible.”
As for sophomore-year emcee Dierks Bentley, he admits staring down the camera lens can be hard.
“For a couple guys like us that aren’t used to using teleprompters at all, all the sudden you get that thing out there, and if it’s not moving at the right speed, or it’s going too fast or too slow, it can definitely throw you off…” he confesses.
In the end, the two prove it’s their spontaneous senses of humor that will always see them through.
“Luke will read whatever,” Dierks accuses. “You’re definitely a Ron Burgandy type,” he says, referencing the main character of Anchorman.
“Am I a good reader?” Luke asks.
“Ah, you’re pretty good,” Dierks acquiesces. “Luke will just say anything that shows up in his mind, so I think it’s better to have Luke on a teleprompter than to have him just free-styling off his brain.”
“I feel it corrals my intellect quite frankly,” Luke counters.
“It probably keeps the lawsuits down though,” Dierks adds, getting the last word.
You can check out how Luke and Dierks do starting at 8 p.m. ET on CBS, when the 52nd ACM Awards air live from Las Vegas.
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