{alltv} Aron Ralston of '127 Hours' fame on 'Minute to Win It'

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

{alltv} Aron Ralston of '127 Hours' fame on 'Minute to Win It'

Aron Ralston sawed his own arm off. Is anything a challenge after that? Ralston, who was portrayed by James Franco in the Oscar-nominated "127 Hours," was invited to play NBC's game show "Minute To Win It," airing Wednesday. Challenge accepted.

"I don't know if you remember, but back when I was in middle school there was this show called 'Double Dare'," Ralston tells EW. "This was about as close as I would come to living out my fantasy of being on 'Double Dare.'"

Even working with only one hand, Ralston had a successful run on the celebrity episode. "It was just everything that I would have hoped it would be, and I did really well too, which was a bonus," he says. He played for the Wilderness Workshop. "They work to preserve wild pristine country, especially in central Colorado, that is under a variety of threats such as oil and gas drilling. It's trying to keep our wilderness as it is."

Ralston was dedicated enough to cashing in for the Workshop that he practiced the games in advance. "I got to preview their blueprints online and set up my own little home-versions of them, which is the same thing they do for contestants that are playing for themselves and not for charity," he says. "I was able to figure out that there are a few games that aren't worth my time practicing because they are impossible, there are a few games that aren't worth practicing because I got them on my first try, and then there were the games in the middle. So I was traveling and in hotel rooms around the country and in Canada, setting up games, and calling up the housekeeping and having them send up, like, nine water glasses."

Next stop? The Oscars. Ralston will be in attendance, hoping James Franco wins for playing him. How will they celebrate? "At the party afterwards. It'll just be a little more exciting than it would be otherwise, I guess. We don't have any plans to go to Disney World or anything. I guess it'll give me something else to rehearse when I end playing James in the biopic of his life. James likes that meta stuff."