Hosted by NBA Champion Dwayne Wade, who is also an executive producer through his production company 559th & Prairie Entertainment, the TBS competition series The Cube is back for its second season, with the kind of edge-of-your-seat energy that you’d expect when a $250,000 jackpot is on the line. Each pair that appears on the show has nine lives to complete seven games, some of which they must tackle on their own while others include teamwork, inside an intimidating glass box. They have one chance to call on Wade to use his athletic prowess for an assist, but there’s no guarantee of a win, and the teams will eventually have to decide whether to take the money and walk away or risk everything.
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During this 1-on-1 interview with Collider, Wade talked about what made him want to become a game show host, what he did to prepare for taking on this opportunity, how unpredictable his career path has been since leaving basketball, the pressure of playing the game inside The Cube, how invested he gets in the lives of the contestants, having fun with the celebrity guests (who play for charity), and that he’d like to continue working as a host, now that he’s experienced what it can be like.

Collider: I’m such a sucker for these kinds of game shows. I’m always the first person that will be crying like a baby over some something with the contestants. I’ve interviewed LeBron James about the game show he produced, but he wasn’t the host. I’ve interviewed Steph Curry about the show that he hosted with his wife, but it wasn’t a game show. What was it about The Cube that made you want to not only produce this, but step in as the host? Had you ever thought about doing that? Did you have a secret childhood dream of being a game show host?

DWAYNE WADE: Great question. First of all, thank you for taking the time to write about the show. You know what? I don’t know if I had a childhood dream to be a host. I don’t watch a lot of TV. I never have. When I was a kid, I always watched this show in Chicago, and I don’t know if it played anywhere else, but it was called The Bozo Show. I think it was seven or eight buckets that you had to hit to get the money, and I was like, “One day, I’m gonna get on that show and I’m gonna change my family’s life.” So, my love for game shows has been there since I was a kid. I grew up in an era with all the top game shows. That was when it was poppin’. It was just something I saw, as a kid, but I never thought I would host a show. When this opportunity was presented to me for The Cube, and then I got a chance to research and watch The Cube in the UK and I got to understand what it was, I said, “Oh, yes, I definitely wanna be a part of executive producing this.” We were in a time when we were gonna be coming under the pandemic, and I wanted to to bring families together for moments of laughter. And then, they were like, “Well, can you host?” And I was like, “Why would you ask that? I’m gonna mess the show up.” But I tried it. I put my name on as executive producer, and then I said, “At the very least, if I’m a terrible host, we can replace me with somebody else. My ego is not too big to where I would not allow that to happen.”

Image via TBS

Did you look to any other hosts for inspiration? Before you started doing this, did you watch other hosts? Did you watch and pull anything from the British show, or talk to anyone that had done it?

WADE: I watched Wheel of Fortune. I watched Steve Harvey. I texted Mike Strahan. Anybody I could talk to, I was like, “Hey!” I did as much as I could, by going on YouTube and watching videos, and Instagram, and whatever I could find. I wanted to look at the best, so I did. I took the time to do that, and then I got hosting coaches. I had my own vocal coach, and then the show got me a hosting coach. I had to go training for this. This wasn’t something where I just stepped out there and was like, “Hey, guys, I’m Dwayne Wade and I know how to do this.” I had a lot of help, throughout the show, especially the first year. My producing partners, my stage managers, and the entire team helped me get from point A to point B. I had no idea what I was doing in Season 1, but for Season 2, I got a little bit more ahold of it and it allowed for the show to flow a lot better.

When you stepped away from your basketball career, did you have a plan? Did you have thoughts or ideas about what you wanted to do next or things that you wanted to try, or did you just stay open to opportunities, as they came your way?

WADE: I’m doing everything that I did not think I would do. Life is unpredictable. I had a plan. My plan was, “I’m gonna take a little time away. I’m gonna eat everything I wanna eat. I’m gonna enjoy my family and my wife. I was blessed with a baby girl through my last year, and I was like, “I’m just gonna enjoy being a dad and walking the dog.” And then, the pandemic happened and I was like, “I need a job.” I’m just very thankful to be able to be someone not to put a ceiling on where my mind can go, because it is easy to say, “I can’t do that,” and to be able to get opportunities to continue to try different things. I’m trying to do my best with all the opportunities, and this was one of them that I just put a lot of work into. I’m super excited for everyone to get a chance to experience more.

As you started doing these things that were unexpected and that you didn’t think you would do, or were even necessarily on your radar, has that changed the perception of what you feel like you can actually do?

WADE: Yeah, but that’s also tricky because then you start thinking you can do too much and you realize you ain’t as good as you think So, I’m trying to put it in perspective. I have a lot going on. My family has a lot going on. I’m really at this time where I’m like, “There’s not much space for anything else, and I’m just gonna be terrible at the next thing, so I wanna be good at these things first.” I told my wife, one day, I was like, “I think I may be into acting now.” And she was like, “Really?!” The next day, I was like, “Yo, forget I ever said that. I don’t know what was going through my mind.” You think you can do what ends up being too much, and I don’t wanna put too much on my plate.

Image via TBS

You were a top athlete who knew what you were capable of, in that regard. Does the confidence in one field translate to confidence in another field? When you’re at the top of your game in one profession, can you translate that into another gig?

WADE: I’m sure some can. For me, and this is a personal thing, it wasn’t immediate. Just think about how long it took you to be great at a respective sport. I started playing basketball at five years old, but I didn’t get great until I was about 28. That’s a long window. You’ve gotta pay your respect to how much time it takes to be great at anything. But also, once you get in it, you realize, “Okay, I do have what it takes to be pretty good at this and to reach my full potential,” just like I did, in the respective sport that I played. I have a different thing in my hand now, which is this microphone, and it feels totally different. I came in as very humble, and I came in as a student, really telling everybody around me, “Hey, guys, I do not know what I’m doing. But I’m gonna try my hardest and I’m gonna try to be the best host I can be.” With a lot of help from everybody, with Season 2, I felt a lot of people pull away a little bit and allow me to just be my natural self, which was fun.

What’s new and different about Season 2? What are you most looking forward to with this new season? Were there things that, after doing the first season, you knew you could shake up or change with the second season?

WADE: The great thing about this show and each episode is that the contestants make it new and exciting. The format is the same. You still get to play seven games, and you still get nine lives, and you still get a chance to ask the host to go in. We did add a wrinkle this year, once you get to a certain level of money, where you get the opportunity to add something else. We try to add these special little things. We looked for contestants that we felt were gonna really bring some great stories, great energy, and great drama to this season. I think the contestants make it.

What’s it like to actually be in The Cube? Does it ever feel claustrophobic, when you’re in there and you’re trying to help someone out and they’re looking at you?

WADE: It does.

What’s that experience like?

WADE: It is not your money. When you step in there and it’s like, “Hey, Dwayne, you’ve gotta throw this ball into that bucket, and you’ve got one chance to make it, and you’ve been standing out here for three, four, five or six hours, and it’s for $50,000 or $100,000,” the walls close in, in The Cube, you can’t breathe the same, and your confidence is a little shaken. I think a lot of athletes will look at this show and be like, “It’s easy!” And we love that because that makes people watch it. But if you get in there, you will realize, “I can’t make a mistake when I’m in here, ever, or I’m losing lives?” In basketball you get a chance to make mistakes, you get turnovers, you can go 12 to 34, and it doesn’t matter. You can still score 30 and have a good game. It’s different inside The Cube. It’s very challenging.

Image via TBS

Do you feel guilty when it doesn’t work out, or do you try to remind yourself that the contestant made the decision for you to go in for them?

WADE: I’ve definitely tried that, but you feel bad. I walk out with my head down, every time. I try to walk out with my head up because I’m on TV, but they’re like, “Hey, you’re the professional athlete who has all these accolades. You do this.” I get a chance to play these games. The contestants don’t. No one gets a chance to come in and warm up. I’m the only one that gets the chance to do it, so I know the strengths and the weaknesses of certain games. I should make it, but I don’t, every time, which sucks.

In the first season, The Cube was not defeated, but people went home with money. They actually made sensible decisions to stop before they lost it all, and some people took home a decent amount of money. Are you surprised at how often people are sensible and actually stop and take the money home without risking it all and losing everything?

WADE: No, I wanted more people to stop. We have conversations, and in those conversations, as a host, it’s my job to listen, and I have to listen to their wants. A lot of them have reasons why they’re on this show and reasons why they need this money. I talk to them about certain levels of money, where they’ll say, “Hey, if I can get to $20,000, I’ll stop.” Once we get to $50,000 and they wanna keep going, I’m like, “But we just had a conversation.” That’s the part of hosting that you gotta do a good job with. You’ve gotta know when to push because you know a team can actually beat the game, or you know that they have enough lives, or the game coming up is just too hard and they don’t have enough lives. I want people to take the money home with them. One thing that was so good about this season is that the U.S. has seen the game now because it was here last season. You can see that the contestants are a lot smarter at the games and they play to their strengths, so we get some big winners.

You have some well-known contestants this season. Whose idea was it for Shaquille O’Neal to take on The Cube in a solo attempt? Was that his idea? Did nobody else want to compete with him?

WADE: I don’t know. It’s always hard with everyone’s schedules, when you’re trying to get celebrities. And we’re in a certain location and not going to them. We got a chance to get Shaq, right before he took off for his 50th birthday. We were so lucky to even be able to get him. He came in and didn’t know any of the rules. I was like, “Bro, let’s just have fun, in front of a live audience,” and he was game for that. You’ll get a chance to see Shaq on the show, and he’s hilarious. He’s one of one. There’s only one of him. I was thankful, as his little brother, to be able to be on the other side of it and for him to have to listen to me, for once.

Image via TBS

I love your wife. You obviously know how awesome she is. And I love that Gabrielle Union and La La Anthony came onto the show to win money for charity. Did you give her any advice, before she did the episode? Were you surprised at how she did?

WADE: She was trying to get some insider information about how to beat games, and I would not give her anything. I gave her nothing. La La Anthony is one of the hardest working women in entertainment, and she was actually shooting a movie in Atlanta. She came over and we actually had to say very, very late that day. We stayed until three in the morning because we had to make sure we finished with La La. That day was so special. We all just had a good time. We’re all friends. We like to crack jokes on each other and have fun. Ultimately, it was for them to get some money to give back to the charities of their choice. We just had some fun in front of the world, and it’s a great episode for the show.

You really are spending time with real people. You’re really getting glimpses into their lives. These are people looking to enrich their lives. Are you surprised at how invested you’ve gotten in all of that? What have you taken from the experiences of spending time with all these people, from all these different backgrounds?

WADE: After the first episode of Season 1, I was so invested in the contestants that were on the other side of me. No one told me I was gonna get a little teary-eyed. It was the episode where the husband started crying because of what this meant for his community and how it was gonna change lives, and no one told me that I was gonna be over there, about to cry myself. I was like, “Wait a minute, this is supposed to be fun. We’re supposed to be giving away money. No one told me that I was gonna wanna go to the back and have a therapy session.” You definitely get into the family’s stories. This season, one of the cool stories that we had is a story that’s viral. It was the story about the Thanksgiving invite, where the young man texted the grandmother, and how their relationship has continued, and we had them on the show. It was great because I’ve followed that story since it first came out, and I had them across from me as contestants. That brings a different energy out. We just had some great storylines this year and some great contestants came out. It brought the best out of me, and it was great.

What other TV and/or film plans do you have? What are you looking to do and hoping to do, in this medium? Have you learned things from doing this show, that have really made you want to expand in that area?

WADE: You know what? I have. I like hosting. I enjoy it. If I post any clips from my dad at Thanksgiving, you will understand why. He had a microphone, and he did not put it down. There’s just something about us Wades, when we get a microphone. I also really, genuinely care about people. I ask questions. I wanna know about your story. I’m very interested because everyone lives a different life and has different experiences. That’s a part of what makes a good host, someone who’s very curious and very interested. And so, I do wanna expand on this. This is my first time stepping my toe into it, but I hope to do more. I definitely wanna continue. And hopefully we get that nod for the third season.

The Cube airs on Sunday nights on TBS.