So, How Is Travis Kelce’s Acting?

Photo: Prashant Gupta/FX

Travis Kelce has been bit by the acting bug. The Kansas City Chiefs tight end made his (non–Saturday Night Live, non-commercial, non-NFL) TV debut on Ryan Murphy’s Grotesquerie last night, playing a swaggy orderly who may or may not be a figment of Niecy Nash-Betts’s imagination. Fun! The question, of course, is: Is he any good? This is a man who has The Rock on his vision board, after all. Getting to that level of success would require some onscreen charm and the most basic ability to memorize lines.

I’m happy to report that Kelce has both. Now, I have not watched the first two episodes, but from what I could gather, this is a show in which Nash-Betts plays an alcoholic cop trying to find a serial killer with the help of a horny nun (Michaela Diamond). She meets Kelce’s character, Ed Laclan, when he lights her cigarette outside of the hospital where her husband is staying. (He’s in a coma? I think?) Here’s a clip of Kelce watching that scene on his podcast.

Obviously, he’s not Daniel Day-Lewis — if anything, this highlights how talented Nash-Betts really is — but he’s not awful. Does he have a particularly natural way of delivering his lines? No. Would this role have been better suited for someone who has acted before? Probably. Did I find that he has a certain je ne sais quoi in front of the camera that simply can’t be taught? Yes.

In the show’s quieter moments, like when he’s doing t’ai chi alone in the dark, I found that Kelce has a really great face for the screen. He’s handsome, he’s got a sweet smile and kind eyes, and he’s got a build that you don’t normally see in actors (jacked through the power of the gym alone). He has an easy charm about him that shines through an otherwise stilted line delivery. I found myself looking forward to whatever he’s going to be doing in Happy Gilmore 2, a project that might align more with his real-life demeanor.

It seems that Donna Kelce was right: There is room for improvement when it comes to her son’s acting abilities. That being said, I think Kelce is a welcome addition to the Murphy-verse. I am not joking when I say that he needs to guest on Murphy’s new cruise ship medical dramedy, Dr. Odyssey ASAP. He could play, like, a guy on his honeymoon who realizes he has an STI. America’s most famous himbo wants to be onscreen — let’s have some fun with it!