Host Sara Haines is finally opening up about “The Chase.”
On Friday, she talked with Too Fab about coming back to host the game show for a third season. This season experienced quite a shake-up, with Ken Jennings leaving the show after two seasons and Mark Labett leaving the show after one. In his place, three new trivia gurus have joined the team: Buzzy Cohen, Victoria Groce, and Brandon Blackwell. “Jeopardy!” greats Brad Rutter and James Holzhauer also stayed on for a third season.
Haines talked about the best part of the show and the big changes that were made to season 3.
Sara Haines Reveals What She Loves Most About Hosting ‘The Chase’
Because “The Chase” got started during the COVID-19 pandemic, Haines told Too Fab that this is the first season where she can really interact with the contestants. She had especially high praise for the three new Chasers.
“I think the best part of these people, beyond their quizzing credentials, it’s their personalities,” Haines said. “They kind of came in this year as the newbies and after Day 1, you would have thought they were there the whole time.”
Although it seems like Haines has little interaction with them on the show as she stays on the floor below with the contestants, it seems like they get to spend much more time together behind the scenes.
“We were able to be on the same floor, all our dressing rooms, so it literally felt like a dorm and every morning,” she explained. “Whether somebody was going to be on the game that day or not, you got to talk with them, pass them, joke around, there were inside jokes, notes left on each other’s door.”
“It truly felt like college again,” she joked.
Sara Haines Explains That She Found Her ‘Sara Touch’ To The Game Show
Although every host brings their own personality to a game show, Haines revealed that she feels like she has finally found her footing on the show’s third season.
“I think now that we are in season 3, kind of finding my own ‘Sara touch’ to it all because it took a while initially to learn my role while kind of walking and chewing gum at the same time,” she explained. “And then along the way, it was kind of loosening up enough to say, ‘Can I do more on my own? Can I go off the rails a little?'”
Haines said that she was never really limited in how she wanted to perform, but it took her two seasons before she really felt comfortable with her role between the contestants and the Chasers.
“They were never really holding me back but I think before I can make something my own, I want to learn how it’s done first, and then I’ll break the mold,” she added. “So it took me a season or two to really get some elbow room and say I’m going to make this my own now.”
How Would Sara Perform On ‘The Chase’?
Although Sara Haines doesn’t have to answer the tough trivia questions on “The Chase,” she has been able to answer quite a few of the multiple-choice questions correctly in the past. Haines told Too Fab that she prefers games like Cranium or Taboo, but she said that she does excel in a few areas.
“Definitely current events because my first job, being on ‘The View,’ would absolutely demand if I was carrying my weight at that table, that I know everything going on,” she said. “I love movies, not old movies but comedies. You need a quote from ‘The Hangover,’ ‘Bridesmaids,’ ‘Girls Trip,’ you name it, I’m your girl. So name that quote would be a great category for me.”
She also noticed that she tends to do better at questions involving social media and memes, which have tripped up some Chasers on the show. “I’m like, ‘Are you too busy studying that you didn’t go on Instagram today?'” she joked.
However, she revealed that geography is definitely her weakest area, saying, “Like, some of the places they find for this game, you would think it wasn’t a finite globe. Like, when did that country pop up?”
She recalled, “There was once a $3 bill somewhere, with a woman on a whale and someone answered it right. Seriously, where did you read that?! The knowledge is just endless.” As Too Fab pointed out, The Cook Islands has a three-dollar bill that features an image of a woman riding a shark.
New episodes of “The Chase” are released on Tuesday at 9 PM EST on ABC. They are also available to stream the next day on Hulu.
