Standing on the floor of a clunky, unappealing set produced by green screen graphics, Samiar Nefzi ekes out a smile as he reads news about Jessica Biel and Sarah Michelle Gellar. He looks stiff. The sophomore is reading from a script rolling on an off-screen teleprompter, running down a list of talking points relevant to entertainment news.

The talent was there, but the passion simply wasn’t.

“I liked it,” Nefzi said. “I didn’t love it.”

But now Nefzi is primed to step into a limelight directed by his own ambitions. “Samiar,” a late-night talk show hosted by Nefzi, premiers on March 31, and the production currently has a show order to record four more episodes.

“Samiar” is a show molded in the image of “The Graham Norton Show” or Chelsea Handler’s “Chelsea Lately,” shows with panel-driven chats which dissect headlines and cultural issues with cutting wit and cheeky asides. Nefzi found his muse in Handler as a young teenager, finding himself instantly intrigued by the rambunctious blonde’s attitude and fearless humor.

“I’ve idolized [Chelsea Handler],” Nefzi said. “[Handler] came out and had her own late night show and made it into her own. Basically, I looked at that and thought, ‘Why can’t we bring that to Point Park?’”

The production has been on Nefzi’s mind for several years. The sophomore broadcast reporting student has spent time on camera across several of Point Park’s U-View programming, including “Entertainment on Point” and the daytime talk show “Daybreak.” Nefzi found himself constrained by the news-centric spirit of the shows, glued to a teleprompter and subject to the script directions of writers and producers.

Finally, it was on Point Park’s “In Focus” that Nefzi found his stride. The interview-focused production became Nefzi’s first hosting and interviewing experience, allowing him more creative content control than he had been permitted on other shows.

“It wasn’t something that piqued my interest, but I did find that I liked hosting a show,” Nefzi explained.

Buoyed by a resurgent confidence in hosting and armed with his idea for a unique late night show on Point Park’s programming, Nefzi and Breana Uhl, the executive producer on “Samiar,” pitched the show to UView’s leadership. Nefzi and his crew got the green light with minor notes and have been in pre-production since January.

Now “Samiar” is set to air March 31, and Nefzi and Uhl already have the rest of their season planned out. The first episode of “Samiar” will feature a panel of three guests from across Point Park’s media – “Daybreak” co-host and USG beat writer for the Globe Alex Grubbs, the Globe’s 2016 editor-in-chief and current co-sports editor Josh Croup and United Student Government president Blaine King.

Nefzi and Uhl have actors and UView personalities lined up as guest panelists and interview subjects for the rest of the season, with a “secret” lineup of guests slated for their final episode, which will air on April 20.

The show structure of “Samiar” forces the host to organically jump between quips and humorous discussion with the panelists, ultimately allowing Nefzi to lean on his sense of humor and quick wit to drive the show, according to Uhl.

“I don’t even do much writing,” Uhl said. “I send Samiar a headline or two and he takes it and writes his jokes and sends them to me to be edited to make sure they are appropriate.”

Nefzi said he hasn’t been given a strict set of content restrictions, a testy subject for any late night writers. Nefzi’s idol, Handler, has been accused of racism and bigotry in the past, and Jimmy Fallon has more recently taken heat for his cushiony interview of Donald Trump. The medium has long been a breeding ground for easily-stirred controversy.

Both Uhl and Nefzi concede that the host’s natural sense of humor may be too strong (or as Nefzi put it, “acquired”) for a university broadcast show, but the duo still believes that they have the room to produce cutting, wry content that conforms to Nefzi’s comedic sensibilities.

“I don’t want to say it’s different from my sense of humor, but it is mellowed down,” Nefzi said.

“To some people, it’s a bit much. It is comedy, so it is subjective.”

Uhl agreed, adding that her own sense of humor adds some semblance of “balance” to the broadcast, though she cedes writing primarily to the host. The two have been close since they first met, and Uhl trusts Nefzi to naturally transcribe his unique brand of humor to the show’s audience.

“We’ve always worked extremely well together and we bounce right off each other, with work and humor,” Uhl said of Nefzi.

“He’s never failed to make me laugh.”