The Zoom waiting room disappears and there, on my screen, is a beaming Terry Crews, just home after his stint in the South of France and London. It doesn't surprise me to learn that jet lag has little impact on this man. "I have my giant water bottle. I make sure I stay hydrated. I'm ready to go."
Terry Crews is often described as a multi-hyphenate star, having found success across professional sports, acting, comedy, authorship, and television hosting. Best known for his roles in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Everybody Hates Chris, White Chicks, as well as hosting America's Got Talent, Crews has established himself as one of entertainment's most versatile personalities. This year, he has added another title to his résumé, making his Food Network debut as host of 100 Cooks: "When I was pitched this by my agent a few months back, they had me at hello. I was like, this is my thing, you know?"
"I knew I was looking for an opportunity to work with food."
With such a broad portfolio under his belt, I ask Terry how he identifies the opportunities that align with him. Unsurprisingly, his answer comes with the kind of wisdom you'd expect from a life coach.
"I write down my goals probably once a week, if not every other day. I have a huge list of things that I want to accomplish and I figure I've been doing this for probably 30 years." His reason being "there are a lot of opportunities that because you didn't actually write down what it is that you wanted, you'll miss." For Terry, an aspiration of his was to be involved in chef-centric TV, and he could hardly believe it when Food Network soon came knocking with their offer of a new concept. "I told my agent, no matter what we have to do, let's work this out. We got to make this happen because this is something I always wanted to do."
What's more, Terry is a self-proclaimed Food Network fanatic. "When I was doing Brooklyn Nine-Nine and I'm doing movies or whatever, I keep it on in my trailer because it's so positive... It doesn't leave me feeling bad. Every time I get to watch the news, I always have a sense of anxiety. You know what I mean? It makes me feel bad about the world. Never when I'm watching Food Network. It always makes me feel like I'm improving and it's a great feeling." Like many, his show of choice is Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, and admits one of the great joys of watching is trying to determine whether Guy Fieri's enthusiastic reactions are the real deal or pure showmanship.
"There's a big difference between a home cook and a chef."
100 Cooks, which is now available to stream on Discovery+, is Food Network's largest cooking competition ever, bringing together 100 home cooks from all walks of life. "We've had grandmothers, we have firefighters, we've had CIA agents on the show, all these different athletes and from every different part of the country." The contestants compete in a series of high-pressure culinary challenges and as they are gradually eliminated, the field narrows until one cook remains. The winner goes home with a life-changing cash prize of $250,000, which is obviously quite the incentive for the home cooks to partake in the show, however for Terry, there's another driving force.
"Food Network is such a goal for so many people who are involved with food because they've done so many things so well. They've created a lot of stars. I mean, when you look at Guy Fieri and Bobby Flay... There's a lot of people who are like, this is my opportunity to go from relative obscurity into a much more public-facing life."
"I don't really eat noodles until I'm in Italy. You know what I'm saying?"
I ask Terry what challenge he himself would find the most difficult, and he answers without hesitation: "Noodles... I'm not a big pasta guy, especially with working out and that whole thing. I would have been like, oh, I don't do noodles like that. And so that's another thing that I loved about the show is that it really forced a lot of people to try things they never tried before. As a home cook, you just get used to the things you do well but if you really want to be good, you got to be good at a lot of things... I would have panicked on noodles."
Instead, Terry is a self-proclaimed "barbecue guy," and despite the lack of actual grills, he reckons he would have figured out something.. "There's ways to add smoke and flavour without going outside."
"I think people would be really surprised at how many donuts I eat."
I wrap up the interview with Terry's infamous White Chicks quote: "For the lady perhaps a salad?" He smiles and nods the reply, "perhaps not." I ask him for a food that defies people's expectations of him, and I would never have guessed the answer.
"I mean, one thing that people may not expect from me is that I am a donut lover."
As our conversation comes to a close, it feels fitting that the final revelation isn't about career milestones or television success, but of Terry's love for donuts. For all the accolades, ambitions, and larger-than-life roles that have defined his career, Terry Crews remains disarmingly relatable. Beneath the action-star physique and boundless energy is a man who genuinely loves Food Network, gets excited about new challenges, and, apparently, can't resist a good old fashioned glaze.
