Josh Duhamel Shares How He Plans to Compromise With Son Axl on New Baby Name (Exclusive)

Josh Duhamel couldn’t be more excited about adding to his family.

The actor and his wife, Audra Mari, announced earlier this week that they were expecting their first child together, just one day after their first wedding anniversary.

“I’m very excited about it, I really am,” Duhamel told ET’s Rachel Smith in a new interview. “And so is she, so is my son. We’re very lucky and all we can hope for is a healthy baby.”

The actor already shares a 10-year-old son, Axl, with his ex-wife, Fergie, and told ET that he’s certain his boy will be a “good big brother” to the new baby. In fact, Axl’s already got a name in mind.

“Gary,” Duhamel revealed with a laugh. “Him and Audra have this thing where they like to say the word ‘Gary.’ It’s weird.”

Boy or girl (the couple aren’t announcing the baby’s sex just yet), the new addition probably won’t end up with their big brother’s first choice. But Duhamel’s proved he’s a pro at dad life, because he’s got a compromise lined up: “We’ll get a dog, we’ll name the dog Gary.”

The Shotgun Wedding star’s anniversary celebration with his wife was a bit delayed this week as Duhamel was traveling for work, but he shared that the couple took in a Minnesota Vikings game over the weekend and had some more romantic plans for their trip to New York City this week.

Next up, Duhamel is hosting a reality competition version of Buddy Games, a real-life tradition between Duhamel and his friends that spawned a 2019 comedy film of the same name.

“The truth is, I can’t even believe I’m sitting here talking to you right now about Buddy Games,” he marveled. “It started as a stupid thing my buddies and I did and the fact that I get to come here now and talk about it and share this thing with the world is truly sort of an out-of-body experience. Even my guys at home are like, ‘I can’t believe it.'”

Buddy Games brings teams of real-life friends together in a summer camp-style environment to compete in various mental and physical outdoor challenges. In addition to living through the real-life inspiration for the show, Duhamel also said he took part in the competitions as they planned the reality show, not wanting to put contestants through any challenge he wasn’t willing to undertake himself.

“There were injuries along the way,” he admitted. “I mean, Bob’s always got — we call him the ‘Bob-Father,’ the guy who kind of keeps the group together and organizes them every year — he always has a giant bottle of ibuprofen there for after the first morning, just because it does get intense.”

“But I’ll just say this about the show, honestly, is that people do stuff like this all over the world,” he continued. “And I think that’s what’s going to be really relatable about this show is that people watching at home are going to see themselves in one of these groups… The show is not about being a super ninja or being able to starve yourself off on some island somewhere or being able to do crazy, super-athletic, supernatural things — these are regular people competing in the comfort of their own group.”

Buddy Games premieres Thursday, Sept. 14 at 9 p.m. PT/ET on CBS.

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