Gina Rodriguez 'Died a Little Bit Inside' When Kevin Bacon Said He 'Loved' Her: 'Thought I Played It So Super Cool' (Exclusive)

Gina Rodriguez’s life is officially over.

The actress added a new title to her resume as she and Shaquille O’Neal joined forces to host ABC’s new game show, Good luck on the 13thand while the hosting itself is something she “never in a million years” thought she’d do, it brought her closer to the one and only Kevin Bacon than she ever imagined.

“I only met him once and I thought I played so cool,” Rodriguez, 40, tells PEOPLE of meeting the star, who is an executive producer on the game show.

“And then we shot the episode and he came out and I said, ‘I’m going to go hug this man.’ I said, ‘Now I’m going to go up to him and hug him,'” he adds.

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In a clip posted on Instagram about the game last month after Bacon, 66, stopped by, he raved about Rodriguez and O’Neal, 52, who he said were “the perfect people to host this show.”

What’s more, Bacon also said “I love Gina Rodriguez” in the clip, and she admits, “When he said he loved me, yeah, I died a little inside. Or I came alive — I came alive a little more inside.”

Now that she’s heard those magical words from a Hollywood legend, she can die happy. “I think I’m done. It’s over now,” she says.

Gina Rodriguez, Kevin Bacon, Shaquille O’Neal in “Lucky 13”.

DISNEY/Ronda Churchill

The He’s not dead yet star praises Bacon, who she says is “so great as an artist” and “so cool as a human being,” which pleasantly surprised her. She adds, “Obviously, that’s always my favorite victory, when you meet someone and you’re like, ‘Oh, thank you for understanding that you’re a human being, and everyone’s pooping.'”

“I just love it when other actors remember that, and they’re like that, and they understand that this is all a really big show and a show and a game, and human life is more important. And that’s Kevin.”

She notes that the same can be said for her co-host. “I mean, it’s the same as Shaq. They’re both such down-to-earth human beings.”

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Good luck on the 13th challenges its contestants to answer 13 true or false trivia questions, but with a tricky twist: they must correctly predict how many questions they answered correctly in order to take home the million dollar jackpot.

Rodriguez says it was “a great departure to host,” but she’s “in an era of my life just trying new things, doing things outside the box.”

“Lucky 13” is co-hosted by Shaquille O’Neal and Gina Rodriguez.

DISNEY/Ronda Churchill

It also helps that she is “obsessed with trivia.”

“When they approached me, I was playing a game and I was like, ‘This is fun. God, this is so much fun.’ And I’m not good at trivia, but I love it, so for me this is trivia for everyone,” she says of the game’s setting.

“And there’s no s— involved Danger!but when i look Danger!, I said, ‘I don’t know 90% of these questions. And that makes me feel like such an a-hole, so I’m going to stop watching this,’ she admits. “But for Good luck on the 13thlike it’s not just fun trivia that’s all over the place from pop culture to very academic, it’s more about knowing yourself.”

Gina Rodriguez in ‘Lucky 13’.

DISNEY/Ronda Churchill

The Jane the Virgin alum is keeping her fingers crossed that she and O’Neal return for more after the first season.

“I hope I will succeed Good luck on the 13th again, because it was so wonderful,” she says. “And it opened me up to things I never thought I’d ever do, which is a huge gift, because I would never have chosen to do that. And here I am doing things that are expanding my wings, giving me a set of skills that I never thought I would possess or even have the opportunity to acquire. And so it was really happy.”

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Good luck on the 13th airs Thursdays at 9pm ET on ABC and can be streamed on Hulu.

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Source: HIS Education