Travis Kelce is also shocked he got cast in a Ryan Murphy show

Earlier this month, it was announced that Travis Kelce was further entrenching himself in Hollywood by joining the cast of Ryan Murphy’s latest new horror series, Grotesquerie. It’s not a particular surprise that Kelce would want to further explore acting: he’s had a dating reality show, appeared in a Tim Heidecker/Fred Armisen comedy, hosted Saturday Night Live, and recently signed on for Are You Smarter Than A Celebrity, in addition to trying his hand at executive producing. The end of his football career is on the horizon, and the dude is clearly eyeing the entertainment biz as his second career. What is a surprise is that novice actor and noted himbo Kelce would be cast alongside A-list talent like Niecy Nash-Betts, Courtney B. Vance, and Lesley Manville.

And look, Kelce is as surprised as anybody. “I was kinda blown away and kinda, like, shocked that he was willing to give me a role like this, because it is a big role on the show,” he said of showrunner Murphy in a new episode of his podcast New Heights (via People). “He seemed very confident that I’d be able to do this and he kinda injected that in me the first conversation that we had. So hopefully I don’t bomb this for him.”

Kelce called Murphy an “unbelievable writer, director, producer, all of the above, man” and said the television auteur has been “giving me kinda the direction I need and the coaching I need to portray the part that I’m in.” The athlete admitted to feeling “like an amateur,” but “I haven’t gotten fired yet so we’re doing good,” he said. “They haven’t told me to fucking kick rocks after the first week, so it’s been awesome.”

The truth is, Kelce is exactly the kind of male actor Murphy tends to gravitate towards, which is “generically handsome white guy.” (See: the meme of all his stars lined up next to each other, nearly impossible to tell apart.) Murphy has always been willing to take a chance on and up-and-comer (provided they are generically handsome), probably because he’s also able to attract the high-caliber talent of award winning stars and often manages to get them more awards. (Nash-Betts is coming off of an Emmy win for the bafflingly titled Dahmer: Monster—The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.)

Kelce couldn’t say much about Grotesquerie, which is a horror series but not under the purview of American Horror Story or its spin-offs. He did describe it as a “cool and unique show” that’s “quite a mystery” and “every scene has just been so much fun to be in.” The only clue we have to the content of the series is a teaser in which Nash ominously observes “there’s been a shift” and shares that “they sent shrinks for everyone who worked this crime scene.” Spooky! Given Murphy’s penchant for horror comedy and Kelce’s comedic chops, we’d guess that’s also a factor for the new show. But we’ll just have to wait and see when Grotesquerie premieres.