LOS ANGELES : There's no escaping the Phelps fever.
US swimmer Michael Phelps who has been making his rounds on TV since he returned from the Olympic Games in Beijing, has now snagged a part on HBO's "Entourage".
Phelps, a fan of “Entourage”, was immediately written into a scene after stumbling upon the set of the show in New York and was later offered a recurring role after an impressive cameo appearance on the Emmy award-winning series.
Show creator Doug Ellin thinks that the mass hysteria surrounding Phelps is stunning. He said, “The entire street stopped. I’m not exaggerating. Like buses stopped, everything, and we did three takes and at the end of that, he had to go, because New York had stopped moving.”
“It was like being in New York City with one of the Beatles,” “Entourage” star Kevin Connolly added. “People were stopping in the streets and climbing up things to see him. They were going nuts. He's like a superstar.”
The “greatest Olympian of all-time” will also show his acting chops when he hosts NBC's long-running sketch-comedy “Saturday Night Live”.
And the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards (VMA) this Sunday will see Phelps standing on the opposite end handing out awards instead of receiving them. The VMAs will be shown on cable channel MTV Asia on Monday, September 8, at 9.30pm (Singapore time).
Phelps, 23, made the talk show rounds when he first returned to the US after the Games. He was the guest of the hour in the taping of a special episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show”, which also featured about 175 US Olympic team members.
The episode which airs September 8 in the US, is intended to welcome home the Olympians and to showcase Chicago as it bids for the 2016 Summer Olympics.
He also made an appearance on “Good Morning America” and “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”.
- CNA/sl/il