Erik Tracy sat behind his laptop in Lazenby Hall Wednesday afternoon studying movies. He has been watching a lot of movies lately, and hopes the pastime will earn him a million dollars on Friday.

Tracy, a lecturer in psychology at Ohio State, is only one step away from being a contestant on one of the Netflix Million-Dollar Movie Week episodes of the television show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire.” He leaves for New York City this afternoon and will be in a pool of roughly a dozen potential competitors who won’t know until Friday if they will get to compete.

“There is no guarantee that I will be on the show,” Tracy said. “It is like over-booking a flight. They bring in more people than they actually need.”

Tracy first heard about the opportunity in June, when he and his partner, Jeff Parise, saw that the show was holding auditions.

“We watch ‘Millionaire’ every night,” Tracy said. “The auditions were right after Spring Quarter let out.”

The two travelled to Indianapolis and were ushered into a room with more than 400 other “Millionaire” hopefuls.

“They gave us two different tests,” he said. “One was the general knowledge test for regular shows, and the other was a trivia test for the Netflix trivia week.”

The tests were similar to Scantron tests, and each contained 30 questions. Tracy and Parise had 10 minutes to finish each test. While they don’t know for sure, Tracy said he believes the questions from the test were pulled from previous episodes of the show.

“I thought the general knowledge test was difficult,” said Tracy, who holds a doctorate in psychology from OSU.

Tracy never found out his grade on the tests, but knows that he didn’t receive a high enough grade on the general knowledge test to be asked onto the regular “Millionaire” program. But he did score very well on the movie trivia test. “I finished it in about five minutes,” he said.

Tracy said that one of the questions asked, “John Cusack’s female friend in a movie from the ‘80s… wrote 120 songs about her ex-boyfriend named what?”

“The answers were Joe, Rob, Mike and someone else,” Tracy said. “I thought that if she was writing songs, the name would have to rhyme with something, so I narrowed it down that way. I narrowed it to Rob and Joe, and picked Rob, but found out later it was actually Joe.”

After Tracy learned he had passed the movie test, he was asked to fill out yet another questionnaire. Then he had an interview with a producer, who decided that Tracy was one of only a few who qualified, and was asked to sign a release allowing the show to use his likeness and voice on TV.

After he completed all of his paperwork, Tracy met with a producer, who asked him to stand in a small room in front of a camera.

“He just asked different questions,” Tracy said. “I think it was mainly to see how you would play in front of the camera, to see if you would be fixated on it and couldn’t speak, or if you could talk and still be friendly.”

After his on-camera interview, Tracy was told that he had been entered into the contestant pool, where his name would stay for two years.

“Then I got the call from the studio about three weeks ago,” he said. They asked him to be on the show.

He will arrive at the studio at 7:30 Friday morning. The taping will begin Friday afternoon — five shows will be taped in all.

“Who Wants to be a Millionaire” hasn’t given many specific details to Tracy, but through research of blogs from past contestants, Tracy said he believes roughly a dozen people will be in line for their chance to compete on Friday afternoon. The producers will determine in what order they appear on the show. If the earlier contestants take a long time to finish, Tracy may never have a chance to compete. Or, he could be the first contestant up.

“I’m under no illusion that I will win a million dollars,” Tracy said. “I’d be happy to just be on the show for the experience. If I walk away with at least $5,000, it will pay for my trip to New York.”

As to when his episode would air, Tracy has been given no clues. He thinks it could air as early as November.

A producer called him last week and talked for about a half hour.

“I think she was trying to find out things that Meredith Vieira could talk with me about during the breaks,” he said.

He told them about his collection of action figures.

“I have about 700 ‘Star Wars’ figures, and maybe 100 ‘Simpsons’ figures,” he said. “So I’m hoping if they ask me something about ‘Star Wars’ I won’t get embarrassed, and will actually know the answer.”