James Corden Can't Stop Gushing Over Filming Carpool Karaoke: The Series Premiere With Will Smith

Comedian previews his new Apple Music series, based on the wildly popular Late Late Show segment.

By Billy Nilles Aug 08, 2017 9:33 PMTags
Watch: James Corden Star Struck By Who on Carpool Karaoke?!

As Carpool Karaoke makes the leap from popular segment on The Late Late Show to proper series in its own right on Apple Music, James Corden has landed arguably his most famous passenger yet: Will Smith.

And as Corden told E! News' Jason Kennedy at the premiere event for Carpool Karaoke: The Series, the enormity of that is not lost at him. At all.

"Are you kidding? I'm constantly Google Earthing myself and imagining if I could tell my 12-year-old self that this is my life. His head would explode," he gushed. "Are you joking? I never even thought I'd get to meet Will Smith, let alone have emails and texts with him and stuff like that."

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While Corden won't appear in every episode of the new series--he's a bit busy with his day job, after all--he'll also appear in the season finale. And as he tells it, that episode is not to be missed. "I'm not in all of the show, I've done the first one with Will and the very last one with LeBron James. The LeBron episode, we start in an empty Staples Center and we end in the biggest ending we could think of for a series like this. And in between, there's just all of these incredible people. And what's amazing is that everybody came to it with the same attitude which is ‘This is going to be fun and we're going to try and have  great time.' It's mind-blowing when I look at the list of people that are in the show."

The remainder of the 20-episode season will pair up celebs for carpools of their own, and while some make perfect sense (Game of Thrones' stars Sophie Turner and Maisie Williams is one example), others will come from out of left field. Case in point: Billy Eichner and Metallica! Other stars involved in season one include Alicia Keys, John Legend, Ariana Grande, Seth MacFarlane, Chelsea Handler, Blake Shelton, Michael Strahan, John Cena, Jeff Gordon, and Shaquille O'Neal, among many more.

While Corden and his team had no trouble finding celebs willing to get behind the wheel, fellow executive producer Ben Winston admitted that they still felt the pressure to deliver for Apple Music, considering they're one of streaming service's first original series. "When Apple Music sits down with you and Jimmy Iovine sits with you, and he says, 'Right, we want Carpool Karaoke on Apple Music. We want 20 episodes. We're ready to back it,' on the one hand, you should go out and celebrate and have an amazing night," he said. "On the other hand, you just get so nervous at the idea that you've got to make 20 episodes and it's a huge series for Apple."

For more from Corden and Winston, be sure to check out the video above!

Who are you most looking forward to seeing take a spin in Corden's car? Sound off in the comments below!

The first episode of Carpool Karaoke: The Series is available now on Apple Music. New episodes will premiere every Tuesday.