CRAIG MELVIN EMBRACES NEW CHALLENGE: LEAVES NBC TO HOST EXCITING NEW SHOW 💖

By Michaela Gordoni

TODAY’s Craig Melvin just dropped his own podcast show.

“Every morning, we get to interview really fascinating people from all walks of life under the bright lights of Studio 1A,” Melvin said of the podcast, “Glass Half Full.” “But for this podcast, we went for a change of scenery for conversations, conversations that are longer, more relaxed and often pretty surprising.”

Some of Melvin’s guests will include Jim Gaffigan, Roy Wood Jr., Regina Hall and Carmelo Anthony. His first two episodes feature conversations with Shonda Rhimes and Shaquille O’Neal. They came out on Tuesday, TV Insider reported.

In Shaq’s episode, the basketball star reflected on how his parents’ family values motivated him and his past mistakes and lessons that he’s learned.

“We have a lot in common, collectively, but then you get to a point where you forget that the camera’s on,” Melvin said of his celebrity guests. “It’s like you’re just having a conversation with a friend.”

Related: NBC’s Craig Melvin: ‘I’ve Always Believed in the Power of Prayer’

“I think we live in a time where everything’s like this,” he said, snapping his fingers. “I think the pendulum’s starting to swing. There’s a real audience for people who want to connect through storytelling, through laughter, through tears. And this is the perfect medium for that.”

He loves the more relaxed nature of his podcast compared to the environment on the TODAY show.

“These really interesting people. They’ll say something, and if we were on the show, I couldn’t follow up, because we’ve got to hit the commercial break,” Melvin said. “Here in my basement we can talk about that for five, 10 minutes. You say something funny or weird, we can really go there.””

He revealed that he was hesitant to launch a podcast.

“God knows, we don’t need another podcast in the world,” he said. “But when someone approached me, I was like, ‘You know, actually, I enjoy having the four or five-minute conversations we get to have live on the show. It would be nice to be able to spend 40, 45 minutes talking to someone, digging deeper.”

Melvin added, “peel[ing] back the layers and [figuring] out what makes someone tick, what makes them successful” is “one of the most fascinating parts of the job.”

He got the title for the show from his optimistic outlook of the world.

“At the end we decided to land on how I view the world, how I view my life,” he said. “There’s a lot of bad that happens. There are a lot of terrible things that we have to talk about every day. But one of the things that I’ve discovered over the last decade or so is that there’s a lot of good out there.”

The podcasts are available on YouTube, Spotify and typical podcast outlets.