2010

Interview de NBC a New York

Anglais:

But first we have a special guest with us this morning. James Roday from the
hit USA series "Psych" joins us to talk about his new season.
 
Mr. JAMES RODAY ("Psych"): What?
 
WOLFE: Got a little--a little boot camp, a little exercise in.
 
Mr. RODAY: Hootie!
 
WOLFE: Good morning.
 
LESTER HOLT, co-host:
 
Do you like Hootie? Are you a Hootie fan?
 
Mr. RODAY: Hootie!
 
WOLFE: I'm going to say yes, he likes Hootie.
 
HOLT: I'm surprised you're not out here singing. I love--by the--before we
talk about this series, I love the promos for the show and you guys--you're
singing. Is that you? That's really you, right?
 
Mr. RODAY: Dude, we do all the...
 
HOLT: Look at you.
 
Mr. RODAY: ...show. Look at that, look at the mullet.
 
HOLT: A mullet.
 
WOLFE: Is that a mullet?
 
Mr. RODAY: Bring it back!
 
HOLT: I don't think so.
 
Mr. RODAY: Hootie!
 
WOLFE: Listen, if "We Are the World" calls, you know that you'll be first on
that list to--based on that.
 
Mr. RODAY: Fourth row, eighth chair to the left.
 
WOLFE: Absolutely.
 
HOLT: Congratulations on the new season.
 
Mr. RODAY: Thank you so much. We're very, very lucky. We're just--I don't
know what happened. We struck gold with this show.
 
HOLT: Yeah.
 
WOLFE: It's a quirky kind of show. How would you describe it to someone?
Because you guys get yourself into a bunch of shenanigans, but in a fun,
interesting sort of way.
 
Mr. RODAY: You know, we don't take ourselves too seriously.
 
HOLT: Clearly.
 
Mr. RODAY: And in turn, viewers don't have to take us too seriously, and I
think that's sort of the--sort of a simpatico relationship. We have fun, they
have fun. Everyone has fun. Sometimes there's male frontal nudity, sometimes
there's not.
 
WOLFE: Well, OK. OK.
 
HOLT: How much involved--how much involved are you with the--with the story
lines?
 
Mr. RODAY: More than I have any right to be.
 
HOLT: Really?
 
Mr. RODAY: They've been--they've been so fabulous to me over there. They
let me write, they let me, you know, direct now. It's kind of ridiculous.
It's inmates running the asylum, lots of crazy people doing whatever they
want.
 
HOLT: Give us one more Hootie before we go.
 
Mr. RODAY: Hootie!
 
HOLT: There you go.
 
WOLFE: Nice.
 
HOLT: James, congratulations.
 
WOLFE: Excellent. Thanks so much for stopping by.
 
Mr. RODAY: Thanks for having me.
 
HOLT: It's great seeing you.
 
WOLFE: May I with my little gloves?
 
Mr. RODAY: Of course.
 
WOLFE: Beautiful. Thank you very much.
 
Mr. RODAY: Yeah.
 
WOLFE: You like it? (Unintelligible) "Psych," Wednesdays, 10:00 on the USA
network. Check it out. It's fun.
 
HOLT: All right.
 
WOLFE: And there was no facial hair in that picture.
 
HOLT: Yes.
 
WOLFE: But I'm glad you're sporting it.
 
HOLT: And no full frontal nudity.
 
WOLFE: None at all.
 
HOLT: Despite what he said.

© TV NBC News

Alors qu'est diffusé le soir même l'épisode spécial hommage a Twin Peaks avec scènes coupés, James Roday revient sur cette épisode qu'il a écris, sur l'hommage de Psych au Breakfast Club, ces épisodes préférés de Psych, ces séries préférés, l'histoire de certains épisodes...

Par Russ Burlingame

Anglais

[Note: The “Dual Spires” episode of Psych airs tonight at 10 p.m. on USA. The episode itself will be about seven minutes longer than the usual episode of Psych, and that time will come out of the back end, so be sure to set your DVRs to account for the extra time if you cannot watch the episode live. The extra seven minutes, including a final minute-thirty that Roday promises will be very memorable, will not air when the show goes into reruns.]
 
Blog@Newsarama: The Cinnamon Festival is actually mentioned in the Pilot. Was there always an intention to set an episode there, or was that originally just a throwaway line?
 
James Roday: We knew we had it. We had tried to write stories in the past that were driven by Shawn and Gus going to a Cinnamon Festival somewhere, that never panned out—so then we needed a reason to get them to this tiny little town and it was fortuitous that we’d never used it. It just felt like the right time to drop it in.
 
Blog@: Rumor has it that the Twin Peaks tribute is principally your doing. How much of the pop culture stuff is you guys versus the writers’ room? That seems to have become more and more dominant the last couple of years.
 
Roday: Well, everybody’s in on that now. Those scripts come loaded with pop culture and obscure references and everybody’s in on the fun now. I think in the very beginning it was us doing that stuff in the moment and a lot of improvisation and then once we sort of realized “Oh, my God, this can be our niche,” everybody sort of jumped on board so now there’s more of a balance.
 
Blog@: Yeah—it’s funny that you should mention your niche. I’ve noticed that it’s territory that Community is very comfortable walking in, too, and between the two of you, you’ve had almost all of The Breakfast Club on your shows.
 
Roday: Yeah, we sort of had a wish list of people that we want to have on the show that we’ve been checking names off of for the last four years. Getting the entire Breakfast Club is, I think, un-doable, but it’s still up there as one of the goals. I think that having Molly on is probably going to happen; I think with a little finesse and arm-twisting we can probably get Anthony Michael Hall to do something fun. But I think getting Emilio is going to be what keeps it from happening. He just doesn’t really act much anymore. I think he’s going to be the one that got away.
 
Blog@: Well, you can just—on the commentary tracks—claim that Estevez is the one running around in the Yin suit in these episodes.
 
Roday: [Laughs] We may have to do that.
 
Blog@: Speaking of The Breakfast Club, I felt like the John Hughes episode was a real turning point in terms of the pop culture stuff. “Dual Spires” notwithstanding, because I’ve seen a lot of interviews already where you say this is your favorite Psych episode ever, what’s your favorite theme episode that you’ve done? A lot of those have been really strong and I know that a lot of them you’ve had a hand in writing or directing.
 
Roday: True. Just for pure silliness and fun quotient, I think…back in season two we riffed on the world of the Spanish telenovela. I just had a blast on that episode and I was being silly in two languages and I’ll always look back on that experience very fondly. As far as my own, I directed two episodes that were sort of theme episodes. One was our slasher episode that was sort of a love letter to the Friday the 13th franchise, and then we did a Hitchcock homage, also. Just because I spent so much time with both of those and invested so much into both of those, I guess I would list them to round out a top three.
 
Blog@: At what point did it start to dawn on you guys that all of this was a strong point of the show? It seems like the floodgates have really opened since the John Hughes episode.
 
Roday: I think that probably was some kind of benchmark. We sort of streamlined, and made what we do a little less obtuse. We realized that we’ve become such a strange little hybrid, cult show that we can get away with paying tribute to movies that we love and genres that we love and I think that probably did sort of come together around the time that we did that John Hughes episode. I think before that, the only thing we’d done that you could say was in that arena was our American Idol sort-of send-up. But then since the Hughes episode, we’ve done several so I’d say you’re probably right on the money with that.
 
Blog@: In terms of the upcoming Twin Peaks episode, I understand that you asked for Michael Ontkean and for Madchen Amick and the two of them just couldn’t get the schedules to work. That said, there was a certain actor in the second season of Twin Peaks that could have brought a real—how do I say this?–Billy Zanian quality to Psych. Did you ever consider him?
 
Roday: [Laughs] Yeah, we did. We just have the worst luck with Billy. He actually knows what big fans we are and I’ve actually become friendly with Billy in the course of our many attempts to get him up to Vancouver. We just can’t seem to work out an episode with him being free. He would love to do the show and we would love to have him. We just can’t seem to work out the schedule but luckily there’s another whole season, so…fingers crossed.
 
Blog@: Is this next upcoming season slated to be your last or is it just all you’re guaranteed?
 
Roday: It’s all we’re guaranteed. It could be the last, or not, I suspect we won’t know that for a little while.
 
Blog@: In spite of some really stellar reviews, the only thing I heard people complaining about with last year’s finale was that it was so dark, and it lost a lot of the humor that you associate with Psych. Is that something that you have to factor in, particularly when you’re writing an episode?
 
Roday: It’s not for me, because we have a sixteen-episode season and chances are fourteen of them are going to be down-the-middle, Psych wheelhouse kind of episodes. I believe that after four years, five years, we’ve kind of earned the right to go outside the box once or twice a season and I think our fans have shown a real appreciation for when we do it, or at least an understanding that while they may not be their favorite episodes, we’re still Psych and they still love us. They understand that it helps us reboot and charge our batteries to do something different. I feel like we’ve reached a point now where people who have watched the show and love the show know what it is. They know what we do, and they know that once or twice a season they’re going to get something that’s a little different, feels a little foreign and may not go down as smooth as the other ones. If we were doing it every week, obviously that would be a problem and that would be a different story because that’s not what people tune in for, but I think while some of those darker episodes may be a little lighter on humor, they’ve also turned out to be some of our best episodes—just because they’re different and because we manage, and have learned how to execute them. I think they’re just little event episodes that offer their own isolated treat. I would never sit someone down who didn’t know what Psych was and put the Hitchcock episode in front of them because I think it would be creating false expectations, but it is something that I would say, “Look, a couple of times this season, you definitely get this.” And that’s all the more reason, I think, to tune in because I don’t know how many other shows right now are doing things like paying tribute to Twin Peaks but my guess is not many.
 
Blog@: Well, working from home I am a great watcher of TV, and I can tell you that it’s pretty much just you and Community, and those are the only two shows I can think of on mainstream American television who are doing this kind of stuff.
 
Roday: Well, that’s the best possible compliment that we could ever get.
 
Blog@: Everyone knows you’re a great fan of The Mentalist, but other than that, what are you watching these days? Obviously most of the references on the show have to be ten or more years older in order to be iconic enough to be recognized.
 
Roday: This is true. We shoot in Vancouver so for six and a half months out of the year it’s almost like we’re out of water. We don’t have all the shows and we don’t have DVR up there and even if I wanted to I wouldn’t have the time. So it’s hard for me to invest in anything because my schedule is so off. That being said, I am an ESPN-aholic. I can watch SportsCenter on a loop like five times in a row until my girlfriend is like, “Seriously? It’s the same highlights!” It just brings me peace, I think. Any kind of game—college basketball, college football, obviously anything pro. Late night coverage of tennis tournaments in Asia. I’m a sick sportsaholic and that’s generally what’s on my TV. Then there’s stuff that I know I should be watching and I’ll either buy the DVD or have it on TiVO here in the States, that I just need to motivate. I’ve got Boardwalk Empire waiting for me if I can just get around to doing it. I did watch the pilot for The Walking Dead, which I thought showed enough promise that I’m TiVOing it. It’s not that big of an investment since it’s only six episodes, so I like my chances to make it through that one. Plus, I’m a big horror fan so that’s kind of a natural thing. I always feel like I’m not very impressive in interviews when I talk about what I watch on television.
 
Blog@: That’s alright. Speaking as a comic fan, The Walking Dead is the big thing of our year. Plus, I really just asked so you could giggle at my Mentalist joke. I remember when my wife had me pick up the DVD set, I watched the whole thing kind of going, “Isn’t this the general premise of Psych?” So when you had the episode where you called that out in an episode, I loved it.
 
Roday: We had some fun with it. We actually made four or five jokes over the course of that season and hopefully they have a sense of humor about it. I think they should because they have about fifteen times the viewership that we do so they should be feeling good about life in general. I’ve never seen the show, but I’ve spoken to enough people now who say they’ve found their sea legs and they’re doing their own thing, and there’s certainly enough of a difference now. I think it was just the idea that the premise was so similar that it gave us the opening to take a few fun, spirited jabs.
 
Blog@: So…Agent Cooper got clues from a bird in the first season of Twin Peaks, and on Psych you’ve been partners with a little boy cat, and got some clues from Ben the mouse. I was kind of wondering: What did happen to Ben after Mary died in last season’s finale? Are we going to see him in the third part of the Yin/Yang trilogy?
 
Roday: You know what? We talked about showing Ben in the Psych office just to let everybody know that Shawn and Gus are taking care of him. Then we realized it was weird to only do it for one episode for the purposes of the trilogy. That would mean we would have to commit to Ben always being in the Psych office and living there for season six. I guess it just seemed like too big of a commitment for certain people to make. So I would tell you that Ben is good, and he’s safe, and he’s probably in Shawn’s apartment.
 
Blog@: I was thinking that would be an elegant solution, since we’ve only been there—what, like once in the whole series?
 
Roday: If we ever go back there, I think it’ll be an easier sell to throw a mouse in a cage. I like this. I like this idea—I’m stealing it from you, Russ.
 
Blog@: Hey, like I said, it was in the back of my head, but you said it first. Now, you had said in an interview someplace else that there was a baseball episode coming up. I was wondering, then, if there would be any Corbin Bernsen-inspired Major League action going on there.
 
Roday: I think there has to be, doesn’t there? It would be criminal for us to do a baseball episode and not riff on the fact that we’ve got an icon of one of the great baseball movies of all time in our cast. Yeah, I think he’ll have to end up misplaying a grounder or getting hit by a pitch or something.
 
Blog@: I think it’s much more in Shawn’s wheelhouse to squeal like a little girl with a skinned knee when he gets hit by the pitch. Henry is much more stoic and manly than Corbin was in Major League.
 
Roday: Yeah, I think we may have to twist it and figure out a way to make it happen that’s more organic than just sending up the old character, but we’ll come up with something, rest assured.
 
Blog@: So that’s a season six episode that hasn’t been shot yet, or that’s coming down the pike later this year?
 
Roday: That’s on deck for next season; I think we’ve been talking about it long enough that we just need to dig our heels in and do it because we have several baseball fans on staff and if we were to find out that next year is our last season and didn’t do it, I think we would all regret that we never did the baseball episode. So it’ll happen, and Mel Damski will probably direct it because he’s a huge baseball fan and Steve [Franks] will probably write it, because he’s a huge baseball fan and Corbin will be in it and that’s pretty sweet already.
 
Blog@: Speaking of—who is directing the “Dual Spires” episode? Is that one of yours or is one of the other directors taking that one?
 
Roday: The “Twin Peaks” episode was directed by Matt Shakman, who has done phenomenal work for us over the years. He directed said Spanish telenovela episode for us, he directed the “Nine Lives” episode with the little boy cat, he directed the Jaws episode that we did last season and he was the absolute right choice for this because it’s possible he is an even bigger Twin Peaks fanboy than I was, and I say that only because he actually purchased the actual Laura Palmer diary merchandise that was out for a bit. I did not have the Laura Palmer diary.
 
Blog@: I actually had one, and someone recently borrowed it from me and it never came back! I tell you, this is really well-timed for me in that both Psych and Twin Peaks were shows that I recently sat down and just barrelled through the whole series in a short period of time, and so I’m a much bigger fan of both than I could ever have claimed to be two years ago.
 
Roday: Then nothing will be lost on you. If that stuff is relatively fresh in your head then you should have a good time because we’re just firing them out at every turn and it’s something where casual Twin Peaks fans will probably pick up about 60% of the references and people who don’t know the show very well probably will miss most of them. But die-hard fans or people who have recently watched episodes of the show, I think are in for the best time because they’re all over the place. Going back to Shakman, I can’t say enough about what a fantastic job he did and how much care he put into shooting this properly and crafting it the way that they shot episodes on that show. It’s such a rarity when you do episodic television—at the speed that we have to move at—to have an experience like that where a guest director comes in and cares that much about this one episode he’s doing of the show, but Matt really did and I think it shows in a big way.
 
Blog@: I think it’s interesting that you say that—as I said, it’s really you and Community who are doing the pop-culture stuff, but even Community is really just molding the pop culture stuff to fit into the tone of their show, where with the Hitchcock episode and from what I’ve seen of the Twin Peaks episode it appears as though you guys are going the other way and working out camera angles and cinematic styles and stuff to adapt to the content.
 
Roday: It was five years in the making. I knew I’ve wanted to do this since the pilot, since we found out we were going to become a series. So I had a lot of stuff jotted down. Shakman and I spoke a great deal and agreed there was only one way to do this and that was to absolutely blow it out of the box, and make it a huge part of our legacy as a show. A lot of people are going to see this—David Lynch at some point might see this, and we tried to keep that in mind while we were doing it. Obviously it helped that we had seven cast members from Twin Peaks around for the whole shoot that we could ask questions and lean on as well, to make sure we were doing it right.
 
Blog@: Speaking for me, the most exciting part was that you had the Log Lady!
 
Roday: Yeah, we couldn’t do it without the Log Lady! She’s awesome. Catherine Coulson is her name and she still has the log. She even offered to bring the log with her, but as you’ll see in the episode everything is just a little bit off. We didn’t want to do anything that was a direct carbon copy of the show; we kind of wanted to put our own spin on just about everything. So we didn’t use the actual log, but we did use the Log Lady and I believe she’s credited as “The Woman With Wood.”
 
The other thing I should tell you before I forget is that this episode is airing about seven and a half minutes fatter than our usual episodes—but it’s only for the initial airing. I’m telling every interview that I do to blast that out there for people to either watch it when it airs or be sure to TiVO the initial airing because if you try to watch a rerun, it’s the normal, to-time cut, and it’s just painful and so much is gone and you don’t want to see that version—so watch the initial airing.
 
Blog@: Do you know, for those of us with standard DVR instead of TiVO, whether it’s airing during the usual timeslot with fewer commercials or whether it’s going to run long and you’ll want to play with your DVR settings?
 
Roday: It’s going to go over, so you’re going to want to add additional time to it. People need to know that they will miss seven minutes. I’ll tease this by saying that the final minute and a half of the episode is pretty special, and you do not want to miss that. Make sure that you program your DVRs accordingly and as one last, special treat, there will be a sixteen minutes-over-time director’s cut on the season five DVD. So for the big-time, die-hard Twin Peaks fans, that’s pretty good reason to get the DVD because there’s nine additional minutes of Twin Peaks gold to be seen when that box comes out. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever really set out to really sell the DVDs. You’re going to want it—it’s genius, the director’s cut. We had to take nine minutes out of that to get it down to the seven-minutes-over version, which we’re thankful that USA is allowing us to have, but in a perfect world I would have thrown the director’s cut right on the screen and it would have been sixteen minutes longer and it just would have been perfect.

© NewsRama

Suite des interviews tournage de la saison 5, James y parlent de son rôle de réalisateur, d'un film récent qu'il a aimé, des guest stars, de Twin peaks et de la série.

Version anglaise:

Psych ended it’s Summer Finale in cliffhanger-y fashion this week, but PCZ is still has one last interview from our set visit last month to hold you over until Shawn, Gus, Jules and Lassie return later this Fall.
 
James Roday is a busy dude, and the day of our set visit was no exception. Playing the lead on Psych means that Roday is practically in every scene filmed. And if that’s not enough, he also writes and produces for the show, and has directed a couple of episodes on top of that. When he wasn’t in front on the camera during our visit, Roday was prepping for his next directing gig — the very next episode to be filmed — while also working on writing this season’s Christmas episode, and managing his fantasy sports teams. Somehow he also found time to talk to us:
 
Panel: How excited are you to be directing?
 
James Roday: I always get excited about directing because it’s the thing I know the least about. It’s the – it’s where I can learn the most. It’s where I feel like I can improve the most. I get to ask lots and lots of questions, and, you know, surround myself with people that have been doing it for a lot longer than I have. And that gets me jazzed.
 
Panel: Is it fun to boss your co-stars around?
 
James Roday: You know, they run all over me man. They know that when I’m up it’s all about having a really good time. And I usually try to do something in the script for each of them that gives them an opportunity to use a different muscle, or do something that they don’t usually get to do. And this year is no exception.
 
Panel: You don’t make Dulé do it, like, 36 times just ‘cause?
 
James Roday: No man, I’m king of one take and move on. You got to make our schedule, and I always like to – I always write big, so we’ve got to move, move, move, move, move.
 
Panel: Which role do you find the most – writing, producing, acting – which role have you found the most challenging?
 
James Roday: I think directing is definitely the most challenging, again, because it’s sort of like my newest toy that I know the least about. And at least, especially within the context of Psych, I feel like the acting is sort of second nature at this point. I mean, I don’t think there’s a whole lot left to throw at Shawn that he’s not  going to know what to do with.
 
And then the writing I just – it’s just a fun collaboration. It’s like having a putt-putt course behind your house. It’s just, you know, you just go out and mess around, and that’s fun. But the directing is something that I’ve always been very serious about. I take the opportunities very seriously. I really want to get better. I want to be able to go back and watch each episode and see that I’m moving in the right direction.
 
Panel: Do you think it’s a natural progression for an actor in a long running TV series to turn to directing?
 
James Roday: I think it depends. I mean, I think sometimes a show will run so long that it’s sort of a like a “What the hey,” situation. “Let me see if this is something I might be interested in doing,” and if you run long enough, you might get a shot. For me, it’s something that I’ve known I’ve wanted to do for a really long time. And it was just matter of getting the opportunity and making the most of it.
 
And then there are some actors that I don’t think have any interest in directing. I mean, if you ask Dulé, when is he directing, his answer is probably never. You know, he’s just not inclined. But, I grew up a cinephile, and I love movies. And I love European cinema. I love different styles. And it’s, you know, I love having my breath taken away in a movie theatre the way I love being transported when I see live theatre.
 
Panel: What was the last show that took your breath away – the last movie that took your breath away?
 
James Roday: There’s a sequence in Inception that just knocked me on my butt.
 
Panel: Which one?
 
James Roday: It was the whole sequence with Joseph Gordon-Levitt having to figure out –
 
Panel: How to get the guy –
 
James Roday: How to get them all together…And make the drop. And there was one shot in particular where he’s got them all in the elevator, he goes out the top hatch to set the charges out of the elevator. And when he goes out and he comes through you could still see into the elevator where the six of them are floating. I love it when I can’t even sort of figure out how dudes are doing stuff, you know.
 
Panel: Who are some of the guest stars you’ve really enjoyed working with on the show? Any favorites? We’ve asked everybody that question.
 
James Roday: Yeah –
 
Panel: Everyone’s giving very political answers.
 
James Roday: I’ll try to sort of cover the different eras. I mean, early – fairly early on, it was such a pleasure and a privilege to work with Tim Curry, just because I’ve been a fan since I was yay high. You know, later on… I thought Alan Ruck did a really fabulous job on our show. And again, for me, big John Hughes guy, big Ferris Bueller guy.
 
That’s one of the greatest things about this job – because the Psych landscape is what it is, I just get to pitch actors that I loved when I was a kid, and it makes total sense to have them come on the show in some capacity. Whether they’re still working or maybe you haven’t seen them for a while. It’s like – it works to bring them on Psych. And then Ally Sheedy is just awesome. She’s awesome to hang out with. She had a great take on her character from the very beginning.
 
Mel directed her first. I had her second. It’s just such a joy to watch an actor, like, do their homework and come ready to play. And, we told her – we actually told her very little and just kind of let her go. And I think she just kind of turned that into, like, a really memorable piece of our show.
 
Panel: When you’re doing the guest stars, do you make a long list at the beginning of every season, and, you know, or do you figure out which ones will go with which parts as it –
 
James Roday: We actually kind of do. We sort of – we have, like, a wish list, and then we have people that we know have expressed interest in doing the show. And then, on a role by role basis you sort of figure out where you can plug people in. John Gries, who’s doing the episode that we’re shooting right now ['One, Maybe Two, Ways Out'], has been on our wish list since, like, Season One. Because he was Lazlo Hollyfeld –
 
Panel: From Real Genius.
 
James Roday: From Real Genius.
 
And, you know, that’s probably my favorite movie of all time. And he’s also Uncle Rico for Napoleon Dynamite fans. And it was just a matter of figuring out how to use him so that he could do his thing. And we don’t want to be selfish and bring great actors on and give them nothing to do. So a lot of times it takes discipline to make sure that you put them in the right role.
 
Panel: Now, I read that there’s going to be a Twin Peaks themed episode.
 
James Roday: Hell yeah, there is man.
 
Panel: Oh, rock on.
 
James Roday: Steve and I have been talking about doing that since the first season, actually. And it took a while, I think, for us to a) build up our confidence to actually go for it, and b) establish enough of a sort of cult audience that we knew that the people that watched our show would also appreciate a show that’s riffing on Twin Peaks. But I kind of feel like the planets have aligned themselves.
 
A very, very dear friend of mine is Dana Ashbrook, aka Bobby Briggs. And he’s sort of been instrumental in helping some of the pieces fall in place. And I think there’s going to be some really, really happy Twin Peaks fans. Because I think we’re going to hit a home run, and I think there’s going to be a lot of faces that they’re going to be really excited about seeing.
 
Panel: Yeah. Is the episode going to open with a body wrapped in plastic?
 
James Roday: It may.
 
Panel: So Shawn’s sort of matured slowly throughout the five seasons. How does that go with the progression of the show? Like, the darker themes that we’ve been seeing throughout all the crises?
 
James Roday: I think they kind of run parallel. I mean, I think it’s inevitable that Shawn has to mature as he gets older, just so that he can stay endearing. And then there’s this other road where, like, we want to keep challenging ourselves. We don’t want to get complacent. Actors want to do things that they haven’t done yet. Stylistically wanting to do things that we haven’t done yet. So, conceptually they’re very similar in that you want to keep, sort of, moving forward.
 
I don’t know, maybe there’s a little bit of a marriage between Shawn getting – growing up and themes being darker. Like in ‘Mr. Yin Presents’, for example, where his own mortality hits him, or he almost loses someone he cares about and he gets a wake up call. But for the most part I think it’s all just let’s not look back, you know. Let’s keep feeling like we’re relevant, and that we belong on the air. And we’re delivering the goods, you know.
 
Panel: When you filmed the pilot did you project, or did you just hope for what you’ve got?
 
James Roday: I was so wasted and burned out on bad television experiences that I had zero hope. I just assumed that – I thought I was the kiss of death. You know, I thought – I warned everybody, like, I’m the last person that you want to get this role, because we’re doomed. Luckily, we had Dulé on the same show, who’s only known mad success, who sort of balanced out my curse.
 
But, no, it never ceases to amaze me looking back, like, where we started, and the fact that we’re still here. And what a blessing it is to be with these people that I love so dearly every day. I think that our crew – there’s been so little turnover. With the exception of a few faces, it’s, like, we’ve all been together from the very beginning. It’s pretty special.
 
Panel: Now, I have a question. I mean, it seems like last season there was more of a focus on Shawn’s, again, on his growth. But this season it seems as if there’s a little bit more of a return to the comedy. Because last season seemed a little dark, but the first three episodes of this season seemed just a little bit lighter. There’s more … between you and Gus, more back and forth, more Abbott and Costello…
 
James Roday: You know, it’s weird. It’s, like, some kind of mandate comes down from [creator and executive producer Steve Franks] every year, just because I think he feels like he’s supposed to have one. And it never holds. Like, this year it was supposed to be, “You know, we’re ratcheting up our  cases. This is going to be the year of the cool, twisty, well constructed mystery.” We’re on episode nine and I feel like you’re probably way more on base than with the fact that we’re doing funnier stuff again.
 
It’s such a hybrid show, and it’s such a moving target that – especially on the writing staff. We never really know, like, what the bullseye is. We’re just throwing tons, and tons, and tons of darts, which is the greatest part of our job is that we have that many darts to throw. But yeah, this year was supposed to be, “All right man we’re going to Mamet-ize this thing, you know – knock people out of their socks. Show comedy writers to write mystery.”
 
It’s, like, no we can’t. What are you talking about? So you didn’t change one person in this room – how are the cases going to get 300% better? But I think you’re right, I think we’re just having – a lot of these episodes that we’ve done really reminded me of stuff we did at the beginning of the series, you know – sort of throw backs to just Shawn and Gus acting a fool.
 
Panel: How do you balance the comedy and drama when you’re writing?
 
James Roday: When I write, I feel like it’s an opportunity to push the envelope, I won’t lie. I feel like I get a little more latitude than some of the other writers when I write. And as a result, I kind of feel an obligation to sort of go as far outside of our comfort zone as we can. Which is why a lot of my stuff tends to be a little darker than the norm.
 
But, this year I’m doing a Christmas episode that isn’t dark at all. But it’s still pretty left of centre in that we’re doing some pretty bizarre stuff that we’ve never seen on the show before. So I think it’s less of a balance between comedy and drama, and more of a focus on let’s do stuff that we haven’t done when I write.
 
Panel: What can fans expect from the Christmas episode this year?
 
James Roday: It’s A Wonderful Life is the template, but only in the sense that Shawn gets to peek at what life would be like if he wasn’t a part of it. But we – obviously, we never do anything truly supernatural on our show, so we had to find a different way in.
 
Which I think will allow for a lot more fun. It’s about his – I don’t know, it’s about as risky as I think you can get comedy-wise for our show on cable. It’s a pretty big swing. And I’m sure there are going to be some people that don’t love it, but I think there will be just as many people who are like, “I can’t believe they did that. That’s awesome.”
 
Panel: Now the character of Shawn is pretty geeky. And I asked Dulé this same question that I’m going to ask you. What are you geeky about?
 
James Roday: Fantasy sports. It’s my only true vice, and it’s a big one. There is no day in the calendar year where I’m not competing, because I go straight from football, to basketball, to baseball, and they cover the whole calendar year. And it’s multiple leagues for each sport, and it’s not just friendly leagues. I play at, like, a national, sort of, high-stakes level now. I’ve gone as far as someone can go as a fantasy sportsman.
 
And, you know, everything is sort of handled online. And it’s just it’s my peaceful place. I can lock myself in a room for an hour and a half and fiddle with my squads, and it just brings me – it’s like you can just feel it’s cascading over me, and the stress just drips away for an hour. That is – and then movies. I’m a geek about movies – horror movies probably the most.
 
Panel: So when you sneak off the set and you’re on your computer you might actually be trading –
 
James Roday: On set I always make sure I have some sort of script template up. My trailer – all bets are off.
 
Panel: Your favorite horror movie?
 
James Roday: That’s a constantly sort of moving, changing thing. There’s so many different types of horror, you know.
 
Panel: 1970s slasher film — Have you seen Let the Right One In?
 
James Roday: It was my film of, like, the last three years probably. I’ve no doubt that [they] probably butchered that remake, so I probably won’t even go.
 
Panel: Why do they even need it?
 
James Roday: Yeah, the thing about the Let the Right One In, it’s just an amazing movie. I mean, it has genre elements, which I’m sure is what helped it sell in the United States, but the fact is it looks like a Bergman film. It’s like if Fanny and Alexander were vampires. And it’s just beautiful to watch, and those two kids were amazing together. I saw it three times in theatres – loved that movie. The subtitles. Loved that movie.
 
Rosemary’s Baby holds up – psychological, sort of, paranoia-type horror. American Werewolf in London holds up as a homerun for trying to marry the very sort of tricky horror and comedy sort of hybrid. The first Texas Chainsaw Massacre is pretty awesome. The Shining – awesome. Remake of The Thing – John Carpenter did it with Kurt Russell – awesome. I think they’re doing another one of those too.
 
And then I can just – I can watch the slasher franchises all day just because it’s mindless. And you get to root for the bad guy.
 
Panel: Is there a guest star that you would actually want to see on Psych that hasn’t been on before?
 
James Roday: I have a couple. If we could ever figure out a way to get Val Kilmer on this show I think that would be fantastic. I think David Bowie would be awesome. I’ve been fighting the good fight to get Billy Zane on this show for a while now. We just can’t seem to get on the same page. He almost did two episodes this season, and we couldn’t work out scheduling conflicts. He was almost John Michael Higgins, if you can imagine how different that would have been.
 
Panel: I think that Cybill Shepherd does a really awesome job as Shawn’s mom. Do you know at all if she’s planning to come back this season?
 
James Roday: We have plans to bring her back. It’s tricky with her because, you know, we don’t own her the way we own the rest of the cast. So we can only get her if she’s available. But we do have plans to bring her back. Because, you know, we’re wrapping up Yin Yang this year. She was sort of a pretty big part of that. So we kind of want to bring back everybody that it’s affected.

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