Actor Martin Short attends the Season 3 premiere of "Damages" at the AXA Equitable Center on January 19, 2010 in New York City.Jason Kempin/Getty Images
Martin Short will anchor the judging panel on the upcoming series Canada's Got Talent.
The Hamilton-born actor has been named as the first judge on the cross-Canada talent search, which is scheduled to launch on Citytv stations in March, 2012.
"I've been doing this a long time and I've certainly been on both sides of the table," said Short in an interview. "I've auditioned myself and I've auditioned people for movies and plays and musicals that I've produced or written. It takes a lot of nerve to get up on that stage."
In television credits, Short is best known for his offbeat character portrayals on SCTV and his cast-member duty on Saturday Night Live in 1984 and 1985. In recent years, he took a rare dramatic role on the U.S. cable series Damages and continues to appear regularly on the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother.
Short has appeared in such films as Innerspace, Three Amigos, Captain Ron and Father of the Bride. He's also appeared on Broadway and won a 1999 Tony Award for the musical Little Me.
Canada's Got Talent is being prepared for Rogers Media by Insight Productions, which currently produces the competition series Battle of the Blades for CBC.
The concept is based on the hit U.K. series Britain's Got Talent, which has been replicated on U.S. television as America's Got Talent. Contestants on the NBC version are judged by Sharon Osbourne, Canada's Howie Mandel and CNN anchor Piers Morgan, who invariably has the most withering comments. There's little chance Short will take the harsh role in the Canadian edition.
"I don't think it's in my nature to be mean," he said. "What you don't want is to become someone playing the role of the judge. You have to be honest to yourself. If someone is great and you say they're horrible, it doesn't make sense. The audience can smell a fake."
Canada's Got Talent's remaining two judges and the show's host are expected to be announced in the next few days.
And if Short could offer the showbiz hopefuls one bit of advice going into the contest?
"You just have to treat it like a business and not take it personally," said Short. "When I started off in 1972, there were massive talents up for the same parts as me, and many of them finally left the business because they couldn't stand the up-and-down element of it. You do have to have talent, but you also have to have luck and endurance."