2010

Guest star John Cena parlent de la série, des acteurs, du tournage et de l'épisode,James Roday nous parlent musique avec l'envie de voir les Chipmunks reprendre la chanson du générique, il déclare avoir regarder Glee avec Maggie, il parlent aussi de Shules, de la WWE...

by: Lisa Steinberg

Q. So were you a fan of the show? Had you seen it prior to guest starring in it?

John Cena:  Well just because of the relationship with the network I’ve seen bits and pieces, I’ve never been involved and dedicated for the seasons and everything, but really kind of saw that it was my sense of humor and definitely when I got on set I knew I would fit right in.

The show’s very well written and it’s very, those guys certainly themselves and with their personality I, I love how it’s put together and I, I wasn’t a die hard fan but have since become one. It’s, I really do like what they’re doing with the show and I’m happy that I can help kick off the new season, the new time slot but it was it was an educational experience but one that I certainly, I made some new friends andcertainly had a newfound respect for what those guys.

 
Q.  All right. Now obviously we know that you have something of an acting resume that you’ve built, you’ve been in some movies but I don’t know that James or Dule have a lot of experience with wrestling so what do you expect from them as guest hosts on Monday?

John Cena:  I’ll tell you what, Dule’s energy is second to none and James, believe it or not, whether you’re going to get him to admit this online on the phone is one of the biggest closet wrestling fans I have ever come across in my life. There are many intricate professional wrestling references in the kick off Psych episode. It’s, it was a pleasure to see and those guys paid homage to the sport and to the industry fantastic, fantastically well with their clever way of writing material.

Q.  Yeah your character, your character kind of as a super agent kind of does it all you know, whether he’s you know, being smart or you know, whether it’s you know, man of action. We didn’t get to see this side of him but I bet you he’s catnip to the ladies too. How much, how much fun was it to play a character like that?

 
John Cena:  It was really cool but at the same time to have, have a bit of a mercenary type feel. It wasn’t the Johnny-do-good sort of baddest man on the planet style. This guy, the guy that I play is a, is a true mercenary, you know, he’s very good at what he does but at the same time is certainly out to make money and knows he has to compromise some morality issues to get the job done sometimes, and I think that’s what leads up to a very interesting ending.

 
Q.  Yeah, speaking of which it kind of left it open a little bit, might we see, might we see you come back?

 

John Cena:  I would, I would certainly love to make another appearance. I’m so glad that they didn’t ending to my character and I would certainly love to come back if, let’s hope we get some good ratings for the premier episode and if we do then hopefully I’ll be seen again.

 Q.  Yeah. Is it hard to keep a straight face on the set of that show?

 John Cena:  No. They take everything in stride, those guys you know, like I said they got a great sense

of humor, they’re willing to laugh at themselves and wink at the camera and that’s, that’s really what I

like to do. So we held it together just about until they said cut and then yeah, we had a bunch of laughs, but those guys have a wonderful sense of humor.

 

Q.  Can you let me know if you and the guys are going to be getting into the ring together when they guest host on WWE?

 
John Cena:  I hope so. I, especially after learning about how, how much of a fan that James is, the duties of our host are kind of up to the host. They can, they can be as physical or as administrative as they’d like to be. I know that I’m going to be there on Monday and I’m most certainly going to be in the ring for action, so whether they want to get active or not is certainly up to them. I know either way they’ll enjoy the experience and either way it’ll be an unbelievable cross promotion. I mean those, our fans will certainly tune in to see the episode of Psych and hopefully we get some Psych fans to watch WWE.

Q.  Now I wanted to know how much of your role from The Marine did you use for this role?

 John Cena:  This was a little bit different because The Marine role was more punch you in the face and see how big the explosion can be type of thing, but this it certainly was, I think this was that kind of spin off. They wanted that kind of super badass, you know, toughest man alive, that type of, that type of stick.

But I didn’t want to give the same thing. I wanted to be able to show just a, you know, a little bit of the humor, a little bit of more, a little bit more depth just because the people who have already seen The Marine have kind of already seen that. So I tried to take what we did in that movie so that it would be relative and kind of add a little bit to it.

 Q.  Okay. The reason I asked is I was surprised to see Robert Patrick. What was it like working with him again?

 John Cena:   Yeah. It was awesome man. We, it was really, really good to see him. He’s one of my favorites. We have some good times together, it was, what a pleasure it was that he was just coincidentally he was on set at the same time and there we are in more scenes together, it was really something special.

Q.  Okay. And between Gus and Shawn, the characters on Psych, who do you think would win in the ring?

John Cena:  You know what I just, because of his kooky quirkiness I like, I like James. He’s a fun dude to be around, extremely, extremely witty and that can get you miles and miles in the WWE ring.

Q.  So did you enjoy doing the comedy, I mean and Psych is such a great show, I mean did, was it, a different step for you?

 John Cena:  Yeah. No I did have a good time doing that. I think everybody you know, we all have a sense of humor and I’m not one to take myself too seriously but I very rarely can feel that side with the nature of WWE programming, so I was really, really excited about doing it.

Q.  My question for you is for those of us who might not have seen the episode yet we love the psych outs at the end of the show if you’re not familiar with that since you’ve seen bits and pieces of the show, did you get involved with any of the psych outs at the end?

John Cena:  I don’t know which one they used because there’s the episode I have, the version I saw didn’t have it, but they’ve got some good material and whenever they show it on TV I’m sure they’ll have the extra stuff on the Web, so it’s something that you’re going to want to see, I’ll put it to you that way.

Q.  The guys have such amazing comedy duo together, what do you think it is that keep that comedy and comedic timing together with the guys since you’ve gotten to know them?

John Cena:  Certainly it’s a yin and yang, you know, Dule is very slapstick, Dule’s over the top and James is very, very witty and he’s got that dry sense of humor that just matches well.

Q.  I was wondering, we love the theme song to the show Psych and certainly you got Boys to Men to remix it up a bit, is there somebody else that you’d really love to see take a turn at the Psych theme song?

James Roday:  Yeah there’s actually a couple people I’d love to see take a turn. I think the Chipmunks should do it. I think that maybe we could, maybe we could structure like a, a holiday episode or something where the Chipmunks just come in and blast it and do their thing. And then I think David, a David Bowie cover of our theme song would probably go over pretty, pretty nicely as well.

 Q.  Yeah I was waiting for you to say like maybe you get a Pat Benatar in there because we’ve seen a psych out with Pat Benatar songs, maybe Tears for Fears reunion.

 James Roday:  Well I mean I thought, if you’re saying what would be, what if you’re asking me like what would be great for the show I could, you know I could make a list of every sort of one hit wonder that ever came out on any ‘80s compilation imaginable.

For me selfishly I would want it to be Bowie so that I could hang out with Bowie and I would actually request that he come dressed as the character from Labyrinth and I would hang out with him while he did it and then I don’t know, who doesn’t want to hear their theme song sung by the Chipmunks? Am I crazy? Am I wrong on this?

 Q.  No. That would be great, it would be a wonderful follow-up to the film.

James Roday:  Yeah. You wouldn’t be able to understand what they’re saying it would be awesome.

Q.  Just to hear it in their tiny voices would be magical.

 James Roday:  I know it’s all squeaky and we could get Theodore like a solo but nobody would know it was Theodore because they all sound the same when they sing, but we would know, I don’t know.  Tears for Fears would be great. Depeche Mode would be great. The Cure would be great, the Smiths. How about this, we beg the Smiths to finally reunite because they’ll get to sing the Psych theme song?

Q.  Well the people from the network are tuning in here too so we’ll, hopefully they’re passing the word along right now.

James Roday:  Everybody’s pens and pencils are scribbling, you can hear them.

Q.  Well the whole task is huge music fans, I’m wondering are you guys watching Glee, are you watching American Idol?

 James Roday:  You know what my girlfriend, my dear girlfriend who also works on the show with us is addicted to both of those shows. And it took me a little while but she got me on the Idol train, so now I watch that and I haven’t, I’m not fully aboard the Glee train but I have seen two or three episodes and they, they really do look like they’re just having almost as much fun as we do.

Q.  Maybe we can get them in for the next psych out or new theme song, you never know, anything for you guys.

James Roday:  Networks love to work with other networks, you know what I mean? Fox, USA done deal, it would be like a gentleman’s handshake.

Q.  I just wanted to ask, since you guys have been off the air for the winter hiatus and of course Monk has ended you guys are now kind of that flagship original series for USA or the longest running original series right now. What’s that like? Has that changed the way that you guys look at the show now?

James Roday:  I feel older and my knees feel older. You know what, it’s a testament I think to, to the sort of little engine that could mentality that we’ve had from the very beginning with the show, that we have sort of stuck around long enough to be anybody’s flagship.

 USA does such a great job sort of branding and packaging their shows and you know, they move and they sort of you got to keep up, you’ve really got to keep up with the train. And we’ve managed to sort of kind of continuously reinvent ourselves and become this sort of hybrid show that can stick around hopefully no matter what else is going on around it.

So it feels good for us, I’m not sure if it makes any difference to anyone else, but it, but it feels good to have lasted, to have lasted this long and still be standing for sure.

 Q.  You have some really great guest stars in this episode and I was just wondering are there any guest stars that you’ve really wanted to get that you haven’t yet that maybe you’re looking forward to?

James Roday:  I always say David Bowie, that’s sort of like my stock answer to every question regarding who I’d like to have come on the show, who I’d like to sing our theme song, who I’d like to meet for coffee in a completely unrelated non-Psych atmosphere. He’s just the God, he’s the man and I think we could probably make really good use of him on our show.

 In addition to him there’s sort of like a, a little like mini-Psych dream that before it’s all said and done we would be able to have all five members of the Breakfast Club. We’re only, you know, we’ve only nailed two of the five, so we’ve got our work, we’ve got our work cut out for us. And I think Emilio is going to prove especially tricky but these are the kinds of goals that we’ve set on our show.

Q.  If Shawn and Gus were a wrestling duo what would their names be and what would your stage attire be?

James Roday:  Wow. That’s, it’s thought it, it’s intent, it’s thorough, it’s timely, it’s appropriate and my answer is going to be rather rudimentary.

 I’m going to go ahead and call us Black and Tan, me of course being Black and Gus being Tan. And I’m going to say that we come to the ring in our Black and Tan want to be male model attire and that we are what is known in the WWE universe as jobbers, meaning that it is our job to come in and get our asses beat by whatever tag team that they’re trying to push at the time.
There it is, there’s my estimation of Shawn and Gus as wrestlers.

Q.  That works. Now in the episode Let’s Get Harry we get to meet Shawn and Gus’ wrestling dolls. Will they be making a comeback and in real life do you own any dolls?

James Roday:  I think we sort of, I think if I remember correctly we kind of retired the dolls right then and there in the moment in the episode because we sort of had the epiphany that we were a little too old and they were actually a little creepy. So I don’t know if the dolls are making a comeback.

In real life I don’t have any dolls, but the Robert doll, the Robert doll that we used in Tuesday the 17th is floating around somewhere and I think (Steve Franks) took it and I might try and get it from him.

Q.  I’ve been rewatching and I had forgotten about the close talking scene from I think it was in season two with you and Juliet where you almost kiss.

James Roday:  Yes.

Q.  And I was wondering if we were going to get any more scenes like that. I know Abigail’s coming back and I was wondering if you were going to move forward with her or if we’d see you getting closer to Juliet?

James Roday:  Well, I can tell you that our, our dear show creator Mr. Franks has sort of ambiguously informed us that he does have, that he does have sort of definitive plans for Shawn and Juliet in season five, which we haven’t started yet.

As far as the stretch run here in season four, I think it’s a little more tangled up and there’s lots of different moving pieces and like you said Abigail’s floating around in there and we’re going to, well it’s complicated you know, it’s, it’s complicated for a little while longer.

Q.  So earlier John Cena was talking with us and he told us that you were a closet WWE wrestling fan. So I guess I want to know if John was like able to teach you any moves or anything like that for gig on Monday and if you’re ready to get in there?

James Roday:   First of all the whole point of being a closet fan of anything is that people aren’t supposed to then out you and say that you’re closet fans of stuff.

Q.  It’s out.

James Roday:  So that, so now I’m going to have to beat John’s ass, which (unintelligible) because I don’t think they’ve factored that into our very tight itinerary.

As far as moves go, you know here’s the thing, and this is my, this is my fear and I think it’s legitimate. I go into the ring on like a one off deal guest hosting Raw or whatever, I flash some stuff, and I know I have and know I’ve had since I was a kid, all of the sudden there’s a conflict of interest because Raw wants me to join the roster.

Q.  I see.

James Roday:  And I, and I have, you know, I’m obviously I have commitments to Psych. So I guess that’s the thing I’m most weary of heading into Monday is I feel like I’m going to have to pull back so that I can get out of there without a contract offer.

Q.  Right.

James Roday:  That’s where, that’s where it’s tricky for me.

Q.  Okay. So you’re not going to be get in too much.
 
James Roday:  Yeah you know what, my feel, I feel like I’m probably going to have to purposely look awkward, you know, so to try and help sell the fact that I’m just an actor and you know, these guys are crazy and I can’t do what they do. And you know I feel like I’m going to have to sort of really work hard to sell that because I think we all know that, you know, I could, I could moonlight drive anybody at any given, at any given moment...

Q.  Right.

James Roday:  ...I could starship, actually if I could starship flight someone, I could 911 someone, I could STFU (duke) show, but you know what, this isn’t about me. And I do recognize that. No the truth is quite frankly if I got in the ring and those guys even like accidentally bump me too hard my boy would disintegrate, so my feeling is that it’s probably safest for me to enjoy the action from, from a safe distance and I think Dule would probably agree with that.

Q.  Okay perfect. Have you ever just had dreams of like getting in there with like a ladder or like a table and chair match or anything like that?

James Roday:  Absolutely. Dreams because dreams are safe. You can do serious damage in dreams, you know what I mean?

But then you wake up and you realize wow. I am in my 30s now and I get aches and pains for no reason at all. Imagine what would happen to me if I took a ladder to the back.

Q.   It’s true. Good. Well I’m glad you’re keeping a...

James Roday:   Yeah. I have so much respect for these guys.

Q.  ...safe, safe distance.

James Roday:  Yeah, a safe distance and these guys are unbelievable, they’re amazing athletes and the stuff that they do to their bodies and continue to do to their bodies is beyond anything that we as, as normal earthlings can comprehend.

Q.  Did you ever go to like a live WWE show as a kid or anything like that just as a fan?

James Roday:   You know I was, I grew up in Texas and it was back, it was back when there was still regional territories before Vince had, had bought up the earth and we had world class championship wrestling, which is where the Von Erichs all got their start. Kerry ultimately actually did make it to the WWF as the Texas Tornado I believe.

So they would do local shows like in San Antonio and Dallas and I would go check those out. The WWF was some sort of unachievable, unreachable East Coast dream that could only be watched on television. But I have since been as an adult, now that it’s out there and I might as well just fess up to it...

Q.  Right, since we’re talking about it.

James Roday:  I went to the Royal Rumble a couple years ago at the Madison Square Garden and it’s just sheer, I mean it’s sports entertainment, it’s so pure, they pack so many people into those place and it’s families and it’s kids and it’s moms enjoying it with their sons and dads enjoying it with their daughters. And you know, it’s good, clean sort of escapist fun. And that’s why I’m coming out of the closet you know, because I think that’s a good thing.

Q.  I was just wondering, this has been my favorite episode since ghosts and I really like the idea of this mercenary type guy who also happens to have a past from the government that will get him in anywhere, and I’m, and the mysterious boss and all that. Do you have plans to do more with that if John is available?

James Roday:  Absolutely. That’s a no brainer, because of everything you just said, which is what an interesting, like what a truly interesting character to explore. And I mean there’s almost nowhere that you can’t go with that guy, you know.

His moral code is ambiguously pointing North but in sort of a gray way and you know, he’s got every physical tool you could possibly imagine and he can get in just about anywhere you can possibly need to get in, and he has an emotional investment in Juliet, who is one of our regulars.

So for me it’s, it’s an absolute no brainer to bring him back and because the way we left things the way that we did there are countless ways that we could do that. And we had a blast with John and I think he’s great in the episode and you know, unless he’s lying to us I would suspect that he would be up for coming back as well, so.

Q.  I think he did mention that. He did say he would be.

James Roday:  And yes is my answer to that.

Q.  Cool. What is, what was it like working in that environment that that episode presented to you?

James Roday:  Well first and foremost it was interesting because there is no military base where we shoot in Vancouver. So we managed to sort of transform an old asylum for the mentally and criminally insane into a, into a military base, and when you watch the episode like, I mean I’m sure military experts you know, will probably be cringing but I’d buy it.

So props to our production design team for that. And then you know, anytime you put on fatigues and you know, you sort of get yourself into that military mindset, especially in these our times it, you take a, you have to take a moment to reflect, I mean we’re obviously silly and we don’t take ourselves very seriously and we’re a comedy.

But you know the truth is there are, there are a lot of young men and women out there wearing those uniforms that put their lives on the line every day. So there was that, there was that element going on as well where we would just stop and look at each other and be like wow. Here we are making jokes but there are other people that don’t get to make jokes. So it was interesting.

Q.  No limits, no boundaries, what story line would you like to write or see in the show that has not been explored enough yet?

James Roday:  I would, my gut would be to go to a place that hasn’t been explored at all, and that would be, well actually okay, I have one and 1A. One is you know, we do so much singing on our show and everybody sings, it just seems like we’re way overdue for a musical, we just got to come up with a clever way to do it.

And now that Glee has sort of, you know, captured the countries sort of attention and is in everyone’s subconscious I think it’s probably the best time ever because they do it so well that I think the expectation for us would be to just, just do it okay, and I know we can pull that off.

So we should do, we should do a musical episode. Beyond that I think a dream therapy episode where Gus and, or Shawn and Gus agree to sort of participate in some sort of dream therapy experiment where they could actually go into each other’s dreams. That’s been, to me that’s no boundaries, that’s like Shawn walking around Gus’ dream world and everybody being able to see what Gus dreams about. I don’t know if we could top that.

Q.  Okay. I’m already laughing at the possibilities of what could be in Gus’ dreams, so I’m going to move on.

James Roday:  You’d get, you’d get like a giant foot locker organized like it’s a mile long like where everything is organized and color tabbed just so, and then like Halle Berry is in charge of keeping it like safe.

Q.  Absolutely. And there would be, everything would be like card cataloged.

James Roday:  Yes.

Q.  So he could totally find anything at any time and there’d be like a “No Shawn” sign somewhere.

James Roday:  And it would, it might be that all the women are Halle Berry, like there’s just Halle Berrys walking around.

Q.  That would be fun, you should write that, absolutely you should write it.

James Roday:  It’s on the, it’s sort of been in the (unintelligible) for a while, it’s just a matter of whether or not we can convince Franks to go there.

Q.  I’ve been tweeting as I’ve been hearing the interview and just kind of getting snippets and all of my followers, a lot of my followers are not only Psych fans but also New Kids on the Block fans. And so the one question that has been coming back to me over and over again I have to ask, they were wondering New Kids on the Block may be singing the theme song? This is the one question everybody’s asking me, I don’t understand it but okay.

James Roday:  NKOTB singing the theme song, maybe. I mean I guess those guys got together again recently. I mean they certainly are solid representatives of the era that we sort of have fun with the most. I think it could be fun. I, I’m open to just about anything, I mean I think Stacey Q singing our theme song is cool so it, sure.
 
Q.  So was there ever a serious thought of being, when you were a kid, of being a wrestler when you grew up?
 
James Roday:  Not a serious thought no, I watched it enough and I watched, you know I watched it religiously to know how much risk those guys are at on a nightly basis...
 
Q.  Yeah.
 
James Roday:  ...and how many injuries they suffer and you know, you watch all the documentaries and it’s, it is a very, very sort of specific journey that these guys choose to go on for our entertainment.
 
Q.  Yeah.
 
James Roday:  And I prefer to be one of the entertained.
 
Q.  Easily. So you must have, but honestly for you it, this must’ve been a real thrill to have John on this show to do this and have a chance to go on this week, this upcoming week on WWE.
 
James Roday:  You know what...
 
Q.  Is it like a dream come true?
 
James Roday:  What’s that?
 
Q.  Is it like a dream come true for you?
 
James Roday:  Well yeah, I mean it is, it is just because you know, to be able to sort of rub shoulders with these guys and get a sense of their, of their culture after being a fan for so many years is, it is, it’s a bizarre dream, childhood dream come to life.
 
And I can’t imagine a better catalyst for all of that than John, just because you know, not only is he bigger than life in the ring he’s bigger than life outside the ring. And he’s such a nice fellow - I just said fellow, don’t say, don’t write that I said fellow, he’s a nice guy, you know what I mean?
 
He’s just, he’s so genuine and he’s so grounded and he was so happy to be with us, which is why you know for us it was an absolute no brainer to go be with him.
 
And yeah, I mean he’s, I can’t you know, I don’t have enough nice things to say about the guy except that most of his pants are custom, are custom made. Because it’s impossible, it’s impossible to find stuff that has like 27” waist but also enough room in the caboose for this giant sculpted ham, ham hock buttocks, you know what I mean?
 
Q.  Yes.
 
James Roday:  He can’t just walk into the Gap and buy a pair of 1969, you know, boot cut jeans, like that’s not an option for him.
 
Q.  I was, I’m still cracking up over listening to that Chipmunk song by the way. But are there any concerns about the show moving to a new night?
 
James Roday:  You know we’re all just sort of cautiously optimistic that it’s going to be a good thing. We, we’ve been in a kind of a you know, what, what the industry would consider a tough time slot for our whole run, you know a lot of our sort of loyal fan base I would suspect are not always home Friday’s at 10:00.
 
So the idea that a lot of those fans that usually have to TIVO us and watch us you know, on Saturdays or later in the week might actually be home to watch us live I think is a good thing. And yeah that’s, we’re, that’s sort of what we’re going with and a move to Wednesday can only be good.
 
Q.  Awesome. And I had previously asked this question to John Cena as well but from you between Gus and Shawn who you think would win in the wrestling ring?
 
James Roday:  Between Shawn and Gus?
 
Q.  Yes.
 
James Roday:  I think Shawn takes that because he, he wouldn’t think twice about cheating. In the words, in the immortal words of Jesse “The Body” Ventura, “Win if you can, lose if you must but always, always cheat.” And I think while Gus would, would come in with his ideals and attempt to win a fair and square match, you know, Shawn would go to any lengths necessary to walk out of there with the victory even if it was painted.
 
Q.  My first question is how much of the stuff that you guys do on the show how much of it is real, how much of it is improv? I mean is it mostly you go by the script or you do improv?
 
James Roday:  I think the balance is, I think we started off in the beginning much heavier on the improv side. And I think as we sort of found our groove and we’ve been lucky enough to continuously sort of improve and supplement our writing staff with each season I think is a really, I think we’ve sort of come full circle now and it’s like our scripts are really, really, really solid and any improv-ing that happens is just icing. So yeah.
 
Q.  That’s amazing, and maybe you can finally settle this to us, what is the deal with the pineapple, I mean everyone always, you know we always described how that whole thing came about.

James Roday:  Really arbitrarily, which I think is the fun of it. If you, if you remember all the way back to the pilot episode there’s the scene where we’re about to leave Gus’ apartment and there’s a pineapple sitting on top of his refrigerator and I grabbed it.

Q.  Slices for the road.

James Roday:  Stuff for the road or yeah, yeah, that’s it, that’s the line. Anyway it was in and out of that cut to the very, very end and the director had lifted it and Steve went back in at the last second and put it back in there.

And then over the course of the series it sort of, it’s become the insignia for the show. So the irony is that, A, if the scene had been cut there would be no pineapple, and B, if it had been a coconut or some bananas or you know, a dragon fruit sitting on top if his refrigerator it would probably mean that we’re talking about coconuts or dragon fruit right now.

Q.  Probably yeah. And do you expect to put any more ‘80s references into the series as it goes on?

James Roday:  Always, that’s sort of, we’ve created the expectation and you know, I think our fans enjoy it and the good thing about the ‘80s is that it’s a bottomless vault of good and bad pop culture. So I think we’ll probably be able to, to keep it going for however long we’re lucky enough to be on the air.

Q.  Good, I mean I’m even dating myself so of course I love it, I remember all that stuff so it’s exciting.

James Roday:  Yeah it is, we’re keeping it alive man.

Q.  Yeah. One more thing, what’s your favorite nickname you ever came up with for Gus?

James Roday:  That’s, you know I’m just going to, I’m just going to be a traditionalist and say that Silly Pants Jackson is the one that started, started the whole ridiculous thing, it’s just my favorite just because it was the first one.

Q.  I love it and I can’t wait to hear the rest of them that you come up with this season.

James Roday:  Yeah there’ll be.

Q.  My question is we want to see you on Monday when you’re hosting on WWE, we want to see you get all into your WWE and take off your shirt and wear the spandex pants, is there any chance that’s going to happen?

James Roday:  One a scale of 1 to 10 I’m going to say the chances of that happening are between a 2 and a 3. The reason being, I think they’ve come up with, you know, we’re sort of all brainstorming about what it is exactly that we’re going to do on the show and I’m not, I can’t commit to like shirtless in ring action until I know exactly what they have in store for us.

Q.  Oh, that’s too bad.

James Roday:  It’ll be okay, it’ll be okay though.

Q.  One more quick question, when you did the telenovela episode your Spanish didn’t sound like it was great, was that on purpose or, because I know that you’re part Hispanic, do you speak fluent Spanish.

James Roday:  I was, I speak semi-fluent Spanish, enough to get by if people are speaking to me really slow, but I can tell you that for the purpose of the episode I was you know, I was speaking silly Shawn Spanish, so you know part of the comedy came from the fact that it didn’t sound great.

Although, because there weren’t any Spanish speakers on set, I was able to sneak in a few jokes in Spanish that made it simply because no one knew what I was saying.

Q.   I’m going to ask you about Extinction, you have, it’s opening next month in Manhattan right?

James Roday:  Dude that’s true, that’s awesome. Thank you for mentioning that. And it is sort of, it does come back to Psych actually. It’s a play that I did in Los Angeles opposite Michael Weston who played Adam Hornstock, Esq., in Cloudy Chance of Murder. And Amanda Detmer who played Ciaobella Masterson in Black and Time, Crime of Fashion.

And the play is moving off Broadway to the Cherry Lane Theater starting next month and Dule Hill, my generous co-star has also joined the team as a producer. So there’s Psych all over this thing and it opens on February 17 and it’s a limited engagement, it’ll run through the middle of March and possibly extend to the end of March if people are actually coming to see the play. But thank you so much for mentioning that.

Q.  No that’s awesome. Also I just got done watching the fall finale again and there was a scene where Juliet was in the office with Gus and she asks Gus how he thought Abigail and Shawn’s relationship was going and Gus responded with he didn’t know. If someone else besides Juliet would obviously would ask Shawn the same question how do you think he would answer?

James Roday:  Well since it’s still pretty new to Shawn I think he would probably say that it’s - it’s going okay. I think the fallacy there would be that he would say that it was going okay if she had just broken up with him as well because he’s, I don’t think he would realize that that, that that means that things are rocky.

So you know, I think you know it’s a pretty semi-fluid kind of relationship that he’s just sort of going along with and, and we’ll see I mean I think he’s, he’s one of those guys that might have to have an anvil dropped on his head to be like what, we’re done, really? I thought we were doing great. So we’ll see. We’ll see and I say that as if I don’t know even though I do know. But I’ll just say that we’ll see.

Nouvelle interview téléphonique pour James Roday accompagné par l'actrice, guest star de Psych, Ally Sheedy. Tous les deux parlent de leurs épisodes préféré de Psych, de l'épisode que James a réalisé sur Yin/Yang et de l'hommage a Hitchcook, de l'arrivé de Ally, du tournage avec elle assez mouvementé par un homme, de leurs première scène, du personnage de Mr Yang, du breakfast club, de James et Maggie dans le film Gamer, James voulant jouer dans la série flight of the conchords

Q.  My first question is what are some of your favorite episodes in Psych’s four seasons?

James Roday:  I assume you’re asking me that question, Frederic?

 

Q.  Sure, well, if Ally wants to answer as well…

James Roday:  That’s a lot of pressure to put on Ally –

Ally Sheedy:  That’s okay.  I love the episodes that have Yang in them.

James Roday:  Yes.  Ally likes the Yang episodes.  I too, like the Yang episodes.  I would toss in just a random sampling of – let’s see, I’ve always been really fond of the tele-novella episode where we spoofed a Spanish soap opera that was called “Lights, Camera, Homicidio.”  I think like half of season one is very dear to me just because we were sort of flying by the seat of our pants and every week was truly a new adventure.  I look back at some of those episodes and even though they may not be the greatest episodes they’ll always have – they’ll be very near and dear to me because it was just so much love happening to get this show off the ground.

Then more recently they let me direct for the first time in season three and I’ll always remember that very fondly.  That was the “Tuesday the 17^th” episode and the first time John Landis came up to work with us on an episode called “Scary Sherry,” that also was one heck of an experience.  But mostly the episodes with Mr. Yang.

Ally Sheedy:  See why I like doing this show?  There you go.

James Roday:  Yes.

 

Q.  Okay.  Where do you get the creative inspiration for your character to be so bizarre and different?  Do you get all that from the script or is there someone in your life that you modeled the character after?

James Roday:  It’s a really great character because he kind of lives by his own set of rules and he’s Peter Pan.  He’s Puck, I don’t know real people like him.  To approach any situation first and ask questions later that’s just Shawn, and I think I’ve sort of found it along the way.  Like I said if you go back and watch early episodes and compare them to the stuff that we’re doing now I think the evolution of the character is – you can see a lot of differences.   I’ve always sort of trusted in the fact that this guy doesn’t think a whole lot before he does stuff, so I try not to think too much before I do stuff, and I think it’s worked out okay. 

  

Q.  Clearly in this episode there is a lot of Hitchcock references.  James I was wondering if there is anyone else you drew inspiration from – influences from when you were directing this episode? 

James Roday:  You know, I really do try to stay as faithful to Hitchcock as I could both aesthetically and in pacing and I just shamelessly ripped off four or five shots straight out of his films, quite frankly.  It was an homage episode and I’m a Hitchcock fan, and Andy Berman who wrote the episode with me, is a Hitchcock fan.  As much as we could get away with doing Hitchcock in a Psych episode that’s definitely what we set out to do. 

 

Q.  As a Hitchcock fan I really enjoyed it. 

James Roday:  Thanks, man.

 

Q.  No problem.  And Ally, from the season finale it looks like we may be seeing more of you.  Do you know when that might be, how long we’ll have to wait to see you again?

Ally Sheedy:  I don’t know.  I think there is a strange secretive sort of story going on here and so I’m not going to answer that unless James says I can.

James Roday:  I think it’s fair to say we have not seen the last of her and we’ll leave it at that.

  

Q.  Ally is how hard is it to be kind of menacing – this menacing character on such a hilarious show?

Ally Sheedy:  Oh, it’s not hard at all.  It’s not hard at all because everybody is so whacked out and so extreme that I feel like I’m not in the middle of some very serious true to life drama where I have to pull out all these details about how a serial killer would really behave.  I just feel like I get to sort of swing out there and wing it, and it was fun working with James as a director because I definitely had the feeling like anything I could come up with goes.  Nobody was coming up to me and saying, well, that’s really not how da, da, da, da, da.  I felt like I have total freedom with this character to go anywhere, which is the best when you’re working.

 

Q.  The episode that we’ll be seeing has kind of a little bit shocked and surprised a lot of the fans.  It’s kind of hard for them to figure out what’s going to be happening.  Is that surprise element something that you feel is important not only to this episode coming up but to the show itself?

James Roday:  I don’t want to pull the rug out from under our fans every week and slap them in the face with stuff, but this was a season finale and it was the long awaited return of Mr. Yang, and yes, we kind of wanted to load our canon with as much stuff as we could.  That’s a fun way to end a season, I think.

  

Q.  Are there any clues as to who Yin is in either of the two episodes that we have?

James Roday:  No, nothing overt.  We’re still sort of working that out ourselves, but we’ll make sure that when we do finally sort of come clean we’ll do our best not to make it one of those things where retrospectively it’s like, well, that’s not – that couldn’t have been possible.  We’ll do our best not to cheat.  I don’t think we’ve backed ourselves into any corners so far.  We’ve kept it pretty ambiguous.  We’ll just come up with something really cool and then lay it out there.

  

Q.  I guess it’s obvious now that “Mr. Yin Presents” was always kind of being formed since the first episode but how did the whole story line come together and how long have you been working on writing it, James?

James Roday:  Well, we sort of – we kind of had to ... that it would be fun to do a trilogy within the landscape of Psych.  For a while it was just me and Andy that thought that was cool and then we did the first one and it kind of went over like gangbusters.  And Ally was a huge part of our campaign to keep going because I think she did such a marvelous job with that character that it’s like how can you not want more of that?  I’ve got to give credit to Jimmi Simpson, too, who also came in and –

Ally Sheedy:  Oh my God!

James Roday:  -- and created this unbelievable sort of character that we didn’t want to see the end of yet either.  A lot of things came together to sort of give us a boost and then from there it was sort of like a no-brainer.  We started thinking about the second Yang, I think a day after the first one aired and everybody was so pumped about it.  We have not stopped thinking about it since because we still have more work to do. 

Ally Sheedy:  Thank you for saying all that, James,  –

James Roday:  It’s so true, though.

Ally Sheedy:  Thank you.  That made my day, definitely made my day.

 

Q.  I’m really excited.  I really loved the second part and it definitely leaves you on a cliffhanger, but I enjoyed the Hitchcock references and I was wondering for either of you if there was any particular movie that you wanted to reference in that or what your favorite Hitchcock movie is in general.

James Roday:  What do you think, Ally, what’s your favorite Hitchcock?

Ally Sheedy:  What’s my favorite one?  What’s the name of the Kim Novak one?

James Roday:  Vertigo.

Ally Sheedy:  See, she’s the boss in this and I can’t remember anything anymore.  Vertigo, yes, I love Vertigo, absolutely.  I didn’t frigging reference anything for that character.  I was like, whatever, you know?

James Roday:  Yes, you were just Yang-ing it in the cell there. 

Ally Sheedy:  Yes, I just, you know, yes.

James Roday:  Most of the references were happening outside.

Ally Sheedy:  Yes.

James Roday:  I personally am a huge Psycho fan.  I have always been a Psycho fan.  I’m a horror buff, which is why not only did I get

Ally Sheedy in a John Hughes tribute, I got a horror film tribute in the same Oscar telecast and I don’t think it gets better than it did last night for me.  I just think Hitchcock sort of revolutionized the idea of the chiller twist that horror films kind of attempted to be predicated on since Psycho came out.  That is the original jaw dropping twist that sort of set everything else in motion. I love that movie, and Anthony Perkins is fantastic in it and it’s shot amazingly and yes, that would be my number one.

 

Q.  Hey, James, I thought that was a pretty good Jimmy Stewart impersonation you had there.  How long did it take to perfect that, or was that one of those kind of impersonations that you have to know as an actor?

James Roday:  You know what?  I didn’t think I had a Jimmy Stewart in my canon but Andy wrote it and I gave it a shot with a full disclaimer that if it was terrible we would not be using it.  It’s a bad Jimmy Stewart impression but it’s good enough that you know who it is.  Yes, that’s what I have to say about that. 

 

Q.  Ally, what was it like having all those actors on the same stage again last night and what did you think about Fisher Steven’s win?

Ally Sheedy:  Oh, that was – well first of all, that movie The Cove is an incredible documentary.  It really, really is.  It’s not a – I’ve never seen a documentary quite like that one just because of the particular people who were involved in it.  It was thrilling.  There was Fisher, who I’ve known forever, up there for a documentary.  It’s just – I can’t really describe the feeling but there is something about it where you kind of feel like you’re proud of the person even though there is no reason for you to feel proud of them, kind of.  It was great to see everybody.  It’s really, really nice actually to see everyone.  The only person I’m really in touch with regularly is Judd, so it was just nice to check in and see everyone is doing so great. 

 

Q.  Well I super, super loved this episode.  I’m a huge Hitchcock fan and I was just counting every Hitchcock reference and I’ve got to go back and see it a third time to keep counting because –

Ally Sheedy:  Oh, that’s great.

 

Q.  -- it’s fabulous.  My first question is for Mr. James Roday.  I know that Hitchcock loved to kind of do most of his directing in preproduction in the fact that he kind of knew how he would be directing before the first day of shooting.  Did you approach it this way, the same way that Hitchcock approached it?

James Roday:  No.  Hitchcock, God love him, he’s one of the great masters of all time, but he did used to stick to that whole idea that the entire movie was in his head before he stepped on set for the first day and that never once in his entire career did anything ever change.  That’s like the most impossible thing in the world for me to believe if for no other reason than something must have fallen over at some point or exploded or something. 

We’re a TV show on a seven day schedule so it’s like you want to make people laugh, come in with a plan.  Ha, ha that’s very funny.  You learn very quickly that if you can get two or three or maybe four of the things right or at least close to what you had in your head over the course of a seven day shoot then you’ve succeeded.  That’s a lot to be happy about.  The same goes for this episode.  I sort of chose my battles and I picked the things that I really, really, really wanted to look like the way that they were storyboarded or the way that they were conceived and everything else you’re just rolling with the punches and collaborating like crazy and hoping that other people will step up and make you look good because you simply haven’t had time to think about some stuff as much as others.

For this episode the Hitchcock stuff was obviously very important.  We wanted to service that as best as we could and it was a lot.  It was a very ambitious episode.  Andy and I had sort of looked at each other several times and we were like, gosh, why did we think we could do this?  It’s a game and you’ve kind of got to be ready for anything at any time and that’s the fun of it also.  

 

Q.  Tell me about the conversation, somebody had to have come to you and said, hey, do you want to play a serial killer?  I mean, who gets to play a serial killer for fun.

Ally Sheedy:  Right?  Exactly.  That was my reaction.  No.  I heard okay, so there is a show called Psych and they want you to do a character called Mr. Yang, and could you take a look at the script?  I read it.  I didn’t know how on earth anybody had me in mind for that part either, not a clue.  But as soon as I read it, I thought, okay.  This is going to be really, really, really fun so absolutely and jump in.  That’s how it went.

 

Q.  And you were creepy good in it, creepy good. 

Q.  James, since the show likes to reference the 80s so much, what was it like for you working opposite Ally?

James Roday:  It kind of goes back to that last question, I’ve been a huge Ally Sheedy fan for a long time and she’s been on our board of people that absolutely must come on the show since the very beginning.  It’s surreal.  It really is.  You grow up and you have dreams of doing this for a living and you have people that inspired you and then you get lucky enough to do it and one day you’re sitting across from them and it’s crazy, but it’s also – it’s unbelievable.  All you can do is – you just kind of want to capture these moments in little time capsules because –

Ally Sheedy:  It’s so cool.  James, what’s really funny is when we were sitting in the car for the first scene in the first episode, I was sitting there and was just okay, ready, jump off the cliff here and just do my thing; but I was also thinking please let me do a good job for him.  You don’t know what goes on, on the other side, too.  It’s like both of us, you know?

James Roday:  Yes, I haven’t been nervous many times on our show, I have to be honest, but I had the butterflies going with Ally.

Ally Sheedy:  Aw, you know, I did not know.  Cool.

 

Q.  Ally, what’s the best part about playing Mr. Yang?

Ally Sheedy:  Everything.  Everything about Mr. Yang is fun for me, everything.  When I read this one and – I wish somebody could read what I read for the first one.  Mr. Yang is on a bungee cord like banging off walls.  You know what I mean?  I read that and then I gave it to my kid to read and I said, “I don’t have a clue how they’re going to do this.”  She thought it was just hilarious.  I also said to Rebecca, “I’ve done a lot of stuff in my career as you know, my darling girl, but I have never been on a bungee cord.” 

 

Q.  Great.

James Roday:  Ally was a very, very good sport. 

Ally Sheedy:  It was fun.  It was really fun.  It was craziness.

 

Q.  Cool.  I have one more quick thing for James.  I want to know how different is it to direct something you wrote as opposed to the other one that Steve Franks wrote and you directed?

James Roday:  I actually wrote the other one with Steve as well.  I would say this one was a little different in that in terms of the writing it was actually -- the first one was much closer to me from a writing standpoint in that it was a slasher episode and I’m sort of the slasher aficionado on the staff.  There was a lot of responsibility to make sure that we were making a slasher film even though we were doing an episode of Psych. 

This time Andy did a lot of heavy lifting and I was able to sort of focus way more on the aesthetics and making sure that it looked good.  There was still a difference I think.  Also, just the first time around I was mostly dealing with our core cast and this time around I was actually getting to direct Ally Sheedy.  That was just the other big difference.

 

Q.  Excellent.

James Roday:  By direct I mean popping in to the cell after each take and giving her a big thumbs up with a sh..-eating grin on my face --

Ally Sheedy:  Oh, listen to this.

James Roday:   ... and then going back behind the monitor.

Ally Sheedy:  Oh my God. 

 

Q.  Okay, I guess my first question is, ... in the past that your goal here is to get David Bowie on the show at some point, so have you started to think a little bit about season four?  Is your little quest to get David Bowie any closer?

James Roday:  It’s a long shot, man.  He’s always in some exotic place and he’s tough to track down.  I feel like our best shot was probably on “American Duos” when Landis, who is friends with him, sort of reached out almost made it happen.  We’re going to keep trying, but I have to be realistic.  I want you all to be realistic with me.  There is a less than 30% chance it’s going to happen, but we’re going to keep trying.

 

Q.  Well I’m going to keep holding out hope.

James Roday:  All right.

 

Q.  My next question is for Ally.  This is just to satisfy the Breakfast Club geek inside of me, and that is if you could bring anybody from the Breakfast Club over to Psych for an episode, maybe you could take them down as Mr. Yang, who would it be?

Ally Sheedy:  Do you mean a character or an actor? 

 

Q.  Actor.

Ally Sheedy:  Take one of the actors down? 

 

Q.  Who do you want to take down?

Ally Sheedy:  Oh, I don’t know that I should be answering this question.  I don’t want to get – let’s just say I have an idea but I’m going to be in big trouble if I say it.  I’m not quite sure how I’m taking ... down. 

 

Q.  Let’s just say work with, that’s much more feasible.

Ally Sheedy:  No, no.  I know.  I know.  One of my favorite people in the world is Judd, but he already did an episode of Psych.  I guess my personal soft spot love is for Judd, so there you go.

James Roday:  So we can bring Judd back and then she can take him down and there you go.

Ally Sheedy:  Okay.

  

Q.  My first question is, Ally, how did you prepare for this role for Mr. Yang?

Ally Sheedy:  I just told myself not to get – just to not plan anything ahead of time.  It was so funny and wacky so I decided to completely dispense with the creepy dark, very serious and brooding serial killer thing and just like I thought the whole thing was hysterically funny.  I thought that whole monologue in the car in the first one was hysterically funny.  So I decided I was going to do that and if somebody thinks it should be not funny then they’ll come and tell me.

 

Q.  Oh you were fantastic, though.  You had me on the edge of my seat.

Ally Sheedy:  Oh good.  Thanks.  It was really, really fun.

 

Q.  James, what was it like doing a more dramatic episode of Psych.  Usually you guys are more comedic and funny.  What was it like doing such a dramatic episode?

James Roday:  We as the cast dig those.  We don’t get to do them very often.  As much as we love our show and as lucky as we are to do it and still be doing it, any time we can mix things up it’s fun for us because we get to work different muscles and even if it’s just for a week it’s fun to mix things up.  Once or twice a year we know that we’ll have these episodes coming up and everybody gets pumped and everybody gets a little extra sleep.  We don’t go out as much and we recognize it as an opportunity to do something that we don’t always get to do. 

  

Q.  James, the question for you is first of all, this episode is extremely Shawn focused and kind of features a little more dramatic pivotal moments for his character.  Do you think this in any way will change the tone of the series next season?

James Roday:  No, I don’t think it’s going to change the tone.  I think it’s another sort of feather in the cap of Shawn’s growth.  Obviously I’m not getting younger; the character is not getting younger.  None of us are getting younger so we have to start addressing that.  This is a pretty good jumping off point, I think going into season five of just like wow, everybody sort of needs to check in with themselves and recognize that you can’t be a kid forever and maybe that should start informing our behavior a little bit.                           

We’re still going to be plenty silly.  This is just a character beat for him more than anything.  He’s mortal even though he likes to think sometimes that he isn’t.  This is sort of just a wake-up call.  It’s good.  You’ve got to do that kind of stuff once you get this deep into the series so that you feel like you’re going somewhere.

  

Q.  It was extremely surreal watching it for me and I’m sure it was even more surreal for you.  What was the experience like just kind of having – being surrounded by your past?

Ally Sheedy:  Wait, you mean doing the show?

 

Q.  I meant on the Oscars when –

Ally Sheedy:  Oh, the Oscars.  Oh it was great.  Really I haven’t seen most of those people for quite a while.  It’s bizarre because every time we see each other it’s sort of like not a lot of time has passed.  I share this crazy experience with those four people and nobody else in the world.  It’s weird.  We just share a lot so there is a lot of unspoken stuff that goes on.

 

Q.  James, how do you think the fans are going to react to the finale and some of the choices that were made by the characters?

James Roday:  I hope they dig it.  There is not a lot of build up to it and I think our publicity guys have done a really good j ob of sort of getting everybody’s anticipation up and like I said I think we’ll get away with it partially because it’s a finale and everybody gets a few months off to sort of process and water cooler talk and you don’t have to sort of adjust yourself to come right back next week and watch us save a sea mammal of some sort. 

I think the fact that it’s the end of the season buys us a little bit of latitude and the fact that it’s a little darker and a little scarier and the stakes are pretty high is fun I hope for fans.  It’s a nice sort of curve ball that we don’t throw very often.  Also, I think it’s a treat to watch good actors doing good work on a show that you’re a fan of.  I think that’s what Ally and Jimmi and the rest of the cast sort of delivered in spades in this episode.  They certainly all made me look good.

 

Q.  Ally, can you share with us any funny stories about your time on the set of Psych? 

Ally Sheedy:  Oh my gosh, do you have like all day?  It was the whole thing was really funny, but I have to say it’s very difficult to work with Jimmi and not break because he is so friggin’ funny.  I just basically decided if I started laughing it actually would work and as soon as I did that then it wasn’t difficult.  Do you know what I mean?  I wasn’t thinking like, don’t laugh because it’s impossible.  Besides I think I would find him funny. 

On this one there was an entire contraption set up which was a metal cord that was pulling me backwards so a certain part of the scene was just about the cord for me because I just didn’t know when I was going to get pulled backwards, which kind of made it work even better. 

James Roday:  Yes, you did.

Ally Sheedy:  I didn’t know when it was going to go back.

James Roday:  Yes, that played every time. 

Ally Sheedy:  Yes, I didn’t.  That was completely human response.  The guys were behind the wall and they were going to pull it like when they felt like it was the right time so I never knew when it was going to happen.

  

Q.  This question is for James actually.  In this episode you’re acting and directing.  I was just wondering what’s the biggest challenge for you for doing both at the same time in a scene?

James Roday:  The acting part is more challenging because I just don’t want to think about it.  I think I might have gotten marginally better from my first time out when I wasn’t thinking about it at all and my set of eyes on the set, Andy Berman, had to keep running up to me going everything is great except for you.  You need to go again.

This time I think I was a little more aware of it, but truthfully there are so many things that you’re sort of in charge of and there are so many questions that you have to answer after any given take from the director’s perspective that that’s kind of all you’re thinking about, at least me anyway.  I’m just lucky that on the acting side I’m playing a character that I’ve played for many, many years, that certainly helps.  Staying in the moment as an actor is definitely the biggest challenge while you’re directing. 

 

Q.  All right.  And, Ally, well, and James also if you’d like.  Considering all the remakes that they’re doing in Hollywood now if they were to do a Breakfast Club reboot who do you think they should cast in the roles.

Ally Sheedy:  Well that will never happen, by the way, ever, never, never.

 

Q.  Well, we wouldn’t allow it.

Ally Sheedy:  Wow.  Who should be in it?  Well …

James Roday:  Hypothetically I would protest.  I would stand outside of the studio with a sign to prevents actors from going in and

Ally Sheedy:  I think – you know who I think is great who would be so – I think she would be great is either Allison Ormali’s character.  I love that actress in Up in the Air, the young one, Anna Kendrick, she’s great so she can do anything.  That’s what I think.

 

Q.  James, my question is for you first.  I was pretty surprised when I was watching the movie Gamer and you and Maggie Lawson popped up together on screen.  How did that come about?

James Roday:  Oh man.  We’re buddies with the filmmakers.  I’ve known Mark and Brian for a while and they just called and said, “Hey do you guys want to come to New Mexico for a day and do some silly stuff?”  We were on our way across country to visit Maggie’s family anyway so we just made a quick pit stop and did that silly stuff.

 

Q.  Was the mustache your idea or theirs?

James Roday:  The mustache is always my idea, man.  Any time I can exploit that thing I do because it’s serious and it’s real. 

 

Q.  Ally, was it tough when you first played the character to come into the show with this really tight knit ensemble cast or did they make you feel welcome from the get-go?

Ally Sheedy:  They made me feel welcome and it was not difficult because this is just a whacked character.  You could drop this character anywhere and I don’t think that she particularly pays any attention to what’s going on around her.  She lives inside this crazy ass mind.  I felt really welcome and I didn’t feel like an intruder at all.  I felt like the killer has shown up. 

James Roday:  We were ready to cater to Ally’s every whim and need the first time she came.  She was shooting in the middle of a rain storm in a drive-in movie theater and the trailers were way far away and she showed up and was just like, “I’m not going back.  I’m not going back to the trailer.”

Ally Sheedy:  No, no.  No way, it was fun there.  How surreal was that?  We were in a drive-in movie theater in the middle of the night with that crazy man who was worried about his car, you know the entire time.  I just thought this is just nuts.

James Roday:  She was awesome.  We just all got to hang out with Ally Sheedy for a night.  That’s pretty much how it worked out. 

Ally Sheedy You’re so funny.

Ally Sheedy:  James, that guy was obsessed with the belt buckle, the whole night that he was going to get a scratch on that car.  I felt like, so don’t give your car to a movie set.

James Roday:  Exactly.  Why, was he there?

Ally Sheedy:  He didn’t want a scratch on his car.  It was like, he had to have read the script like you get thrown on the car and it’s – he kept coming up to me and he was like, “Don’t scratch the car.”

James Roday:  Dude, are you kidding?  I’m a serial killer.  Why do think you even think you can reach me right now.  Why do think you can reach me right now, I’m a serial killer.  I don’t even understand what you’re saying to me.

Ally Sheedy:  Oh my God.  Oh my God, yes –

 

Q.  Hey James, what do you do on the time off during the summer?  Do you get a chance to sit down and write more?  I know you’ve dabbled in film writing some.  Do you get a chance to work on that at all?

James Roday:  Yes.  I’ve always got some ball in the air.  I’ve got to do it while I’m young I guess.  This hiatus I actually spent doing a play.  We started in Los Angeles and we’re now wrapping up the run that we’re doing here in New York City so that’s been awesome and different and totally gratifying.  That’s pretty much gobbled up all of this hiatus. 

You’ve got to keep writing to get better so any time somebody asks me advice – writing advice – I don’t know why they would ask me, but when they do I just say always be writing.  There is always stuff on the burners.

 

Q.  Then Ally, James has this commercial where he and other actors state something about themselves that people might not know.  For instance, James says, “I am Mexican.”  So what would you say that maybe people wouldn’t know about you on a commercial like that or a PSA.

Ally Sheedy:  I’m actually a man. 

James Roday:  Gee, nobody knows that, but now everybody knows that.  Don’t even know what to say because that’s so unbelievably startling and profound you don’t even know how to respond.

 

Q.  Your character Allison Reynolds on Breakfast Club –

Ally Sheedy:  Yes.

 

Q.  -- seemed a little off.  Do you think she hadn’t become friends with those kids during detention she may have gone off – lost the wheels and become Mr. Yang?

Ally Sheedy:  Oh my goodness.  Isn’t that funny?  Well, I think she has that day with them but I don’t think it means that her wheels don’t come off.  I think things sort of go back to the way they were after that.  That’s what I think at the end of the Breakfast Club day it’s the way it was before.

I have my own ideas in my head about what happens with Allison but I do think the wheels definitely come off at a certain point, yes.

 

Q.  James, you’ve already had Ally and Judd as you guys have mentioned.  When is the next Breakfast Club member showing up?

James Roday:  Good question, man.  It would be quite a feat to get all five of them.  You know what?  I’m not just saying this because Ally is on the phone, Ally was always sort of a – like she was kind of number one and then Judd was number two and then there was like a three-way tie with lots of love for the other ones.  I kind of feel like I’ve already – for me anyway, I got the top two on the list.  It would be great to get all of them.  I don’t even think Emilio really acts anymore, does he?

Ally Sheedy:  No, he’s directing.

James Roday:  Yes.

Ally Sheedy:  Molly is doing a TV show, but Michael, I bet Michael would do the show, and he’s really funny.

James Roday:  He’s awesome.  I’ve actually hung out with him and he used to be on the network, so I think we could make that

Ally Sheedy:  Yes, he’s great.

 

Q.  Well, this is for both of you, but James, first.  They always ask you who you’d like to see guest star on the show and I’d like to ask both of you the opposite, which show would either of you like to be on and what type of character would you want to play?

Ally Sheedy:  Hm.  James, go ahead.

James Roday:  I’m going to sort of cheat my way out of this and say I was ready to do just about anything on Flight of the Concords until it got – but now they’re done so my dream is out.  My candle is no longer burning.  I would have literally – I think those guys are genius and I would have rode by on a bicycle and just the back of my head being featured.  I thought that’s how much fun they were having on that show.

 

Q.  Fair enough.  And Ally, what other show would you – that’s on currently that you’d like to guest star on and what other type of character would you like to try?

Ally Sheedy:  I like extreme characters these days that are just fun.  I’d love to play some kind of – The Good Wife films in New York and it’s a cool show and I was thinking I’d love to play one of those horrible Washington hostesses.  Somebody who is just really awful in every single way on that show, someone really mean.  That would be fun.

 

Q.  Well thank you both for your time and I haven’t had a chance to see the finale yet, but I’m really looking forward to it. 

James Roday:  Well, make sure you get that answer to the producers of The Good Wife.

Ally Sheedy:  Oh, we’ll send it to them. Or I’ll play Carolyn Maloney, how about that?  That would be fun, too.

Pendant l'été 2010, James Roday et Steve Franks ont parler de l'avenir Shules, des guest stars de la nouvelle saison, de l'épisode avec les futur Shawn et Gus, de Lassiter et Gus, les surnoms de Gus, l'épisode Twin Peaks.

by: Jamie Steinberg

Q) How will the Juliet-Shawn relationship change now that Henry is in the police station?

Steve Franks: Henry being in a police station is – it’s changing Shawn in a lot of different ways that don’t necessarily directly affect his relationship with Juliet but Henry is there to sort of push Shawn to be the copy he’s always wanted to. Shawn then is force to up his game a little bit so it’s like the most direct forcing of Shawn to sort of grow up that we’ve done. And, you know, we’ve always said that the Shawn and Juliet development is all about Shawn being ready for Juliet and we think he’s getting really close. So there’s going to be movement in all those directions this year. And I know we’ve dog paddled around it for quite a while but we’re going to stop the dog paddling and actually start floating slowly with the current.

James Roday: He also starts using deodorant this year. Isn’t that right?

Steve Franks: Well, that’s the season finale.James throws in an Axe body spray reference. We’ve never scripted one but they seem to pop in. So I think Shawn is actually sort of always had good, healthy hygiene.

Q) James, we know a little bit about a co-star that’s going to be coming on as a guest. Is there anyone else you can give away as maybe some guest stars?

James Roday: Let me sort of roll film in my head quickly. We kicked it off with Jean Smart and John Michael Higgins who were both lovely and very funny and fit I thought well into the landscape of our show. We worked with a lot of wonderfully, physically adept Asian Canadians in our Kung Fu premier. We have Freddy Prinze Jr. rolling through. We’ve got Carl Weather and Bill Devane teaming up for what I think might be one of the funniest episodes we’ve done in a while. They were both fantastic and they just killed it in a good way. When I say killed it, I mean they slayed it like you would slay a dragon – a sleeping dragon; let’s be honest. One Peter McNichol can slay live dragons.

Steve Franks: Well, first of all, you’re forgetting Brad Rader.

James Roday: I’m forgetting Brad – how could I forget Brad Rader, my dear friend from college.

Steve Franks: Brad Rader’s been trying to get on the show for five years and finally succeeded. We have Adam Rodriguez.

James Roday: Adam Rodriguez is awesome and cool and looks great in the leather jacket. Right now we’ve got Nester Carbonell up here who is just as sculpted in person as he probably appeared on Lost. He’s timeless and his face is sweet and his hair is sweet and he’s a very sweet man as well. So I guess we’re the lucky ones right now because we’ve got him.

Q) Tell a little bit about what the actors on the show continue to bring to the table, year after year.

Steve Franks: I can’t think of anybody else who’s better for the part than James except for Crispin Glover. I think that would have been an interesting choices James don’t you think.

James Roday: I think that’s fair. I think that’s fair. I think Christopher Lee would have been fair too, but unavailable.

Steve Franks: You know, we had Chris Lee come in and he just – he wanted to do all his own stunts and it was just weird. It wasn’t – for us, you know, we went on a search. I’ve talked about this a little bit before but I didn’t really know much about making a television program when it started but I knew that I liked to work with good people. And so for me it was like we wanted to find somebody that was, you know, we wanted – you know, there’s this whole offer only thing and I wanted to sit down and talk with the person and know the person and realize what I was getting into for the next five years. And, you know, James came in and re-defined the character for me. It wasn’t so much finding what I was looking for in such a big and great way. And but my first level was do I like this guy. Do I like this person and as decent as a human being as you can find out there, and just, I don’t know, you know it’s been like a great partnership this whole time to, you know – all – you know, I invite James into the writing room. We wrote together in the first season. He’s directed episodes. It’s like we sort of have, you know, gone hand in hand. I mean literally sometimes hand in hand through the set and, you know, it freaks out the crew sometimes but it’s a good solidarity thing. I feel so, you know, so lucky that you know we saw a lot of people that I always thought these words were, you know pretty straight forward how to say them. And then I found out that there were very few people that pulled it off the way that at least I imagined at the time when I wrote it. And James not only pulled it off, you know, exactly how I wanted it. He added what I didn’t think I knew that I wanted at the time.

James: I think it’s pretty solid and it’s touching and the truth is in India, men walk around holding hands all the time. It doesn’t mean anything. You know, it’s just – it’s fellowship and, you know, they’re not really allowed to touch women, you know, in public so, you know, they touch each other and it’s fine. And nobody thinks anything weird about it. And that was sort of our inspiration to walk the set hand in hand. We didn’t just – we just wanted to let you know that there was like a back story to it.

Q) James, you mentioned a minute ago the episode with Carl Weathers and William Devane. That sounds like it’s going to be just completely hilarious and wonderful. What is their interaction going to be exactly with Shawn and Gus?

James Roday: They teach us how to get the most out of our sexual performance. No. The truth is they sort of – they’re a team. We’re a team. We in a very unlikely series of events have to end up sort becoming a foursome, as opposed to two twosomes in order to solve a heinous crime that affected one of Santa Barbara’s most respected pillars of society whom they have a history with and everybody is fond of. And it basically just, you know, without being like really on the nose, it’s kind of like this, you know, this glimpse into Shawn and Gus’s fairly distant future and we just had a – we just had a blast with those guys. They each brought their own little thing to the roles and the script was very funny.I’ve got to give my boy Todd Harvan a shout. He wrote a very funny script and these guys came in and knocked it out of the park.

Q) What can you tell us about maybe some of the storylines going on this season with Gus and Lassiter?

Steve Franks: They’re actually doing absolutely nothing the whole season. They’re just kind of there. The great thing is there’s probably one of my favorite Lassiter episodes happens early. I think we’re airing it second and it’s Lassiter and Gus actually team up on a certain case and it’s a – I don’t know if this is giving away too much. It’s our tap-dancing episode where you get to see Dule actually do the thing that he was first famous for. Dule actually starts taking a tap class and Lassiter, because of his – because he’s been going to a therapist and has been trying to find some ways to manage his anger ends up tagging along and it starts to open up Lassiter’s head a little bit. The two of them end up teaming up on a case and Shawn becomes insanely jealous of course and he’s been sort of putting down Juliet. So we team up Lassiter and Gus and it’s really fun to see those two guys together and see what the other half of our two teams do when they’re – and how they treat each other. So I think that’s our – that’s sort of our sort of tent pole moment for Lassiter and Gus in the first half. Otherwise, other than that, it’s you know, Gus wants a girlfriend. He needs a girlfriend. I don’t know if he’s getting one right away but he’s certainly going to have a date as a ready – and not too far off. And Lassiter’s just sort of dealing with, you know, we start the season off where with Juliet taking a short leave after being hung off the building in the end episode. Lassiter is sort of taking over himself and he gets a little chance to be free as a cop and we’ll see how that positively and negatively affects him.

Q) What’s the craziest thing you’ve done so far this year? Anything similar to the Spanish soap opera?

James Roday: I think what we’re trying to sort of play the idea that Yin kind of affected everybody. You kind of want to play up so that the gravity of what that experience was the fact that we live in Santa Barbara and that it was pretty heavy stuff and so they can kind of inform, you know, everybody’s little journey as we head towards finishing it which will also be this season. I think we’re trying to drop as many kind of – as many sort of (temples) as we can for why Shawn is sort of reevaluating his life and how he lives it and if he needs to sort of make some changes. And the Yin thing is sort of a catalyst for that, as well as for Juliet, and you know and for Gus, you know, too. You know, one of my favorite moments of the series is at the very end of the end when Gus is on the phone and it’s, you know, it’s that sort of short from way up above where he looks really small and he’s on the phone and he just realized wow, Gus the pharmaceutical salesman has really come a long way. I’ll be he didn’t have this in his head, you know, four years ago. I think it’s sort of – it’s affected everybody as much as it can on a silly, breezy, irreverent comedy who dunit. And as far as craziness, this season so far – let’s see. I just participated fully in a Kung Fu battle. Steve directed a premier and I just, you know, I went at it with some highly trained marshal artists, in the marshal art’s studio and, you know, and I got my butt kicked but it was fun. I actually did it myself as opposed to giggling with Steve and watching my stuntmen do it. So that was just – that was the closest thing to crazy. And you know what, I don’t get that crazy anymore man.

Steve Franks: James, I just watched you racing against Adam Rodriguez in Henry’s supped up truck and that is so – I saw the cut last night. And it is so funny. You know, we have a Fast and the Furious episode coming up. That scene when you guys hit the broadside, oh my God. That’s probably coming up fourth or fifth this year. Boy, that’s really funny. And Matt to add to that, the – James – shooting James with our team of Kung Fu stunt guys was one of the great singular pleasures of my life. It was really, really fun and so funny. And yeah. They worked out an entire routine and James ran through the whole thing himself and he’s swinging on punching bags and picking up weapons and it’s just – we shot Kung Fu stuff over two days and we had one afternoon where there were actually five memorable sight gags that all could make our main titles and it was just one of the best times ever and I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard as all the silly, great falls and all the things that we did jumping into fences and – I can’t wait for people to see the premiere.

Q) How do you guys kind of prepare guest stars to fit into kind of the lunacy of the show?

Steve Franks: We sedate them heavily and then we sort of – it’s like a mentoring candidate sort of thing. We have a hypnotist come in and that way we’re pulling the strings. We’re calling shots. No, you know, we send them episodes. You know, we lucked into a lot of our guest stars actually being familiar with the show; whether they watch it or their kids watch it. So a lot of times, you know, we just get lucky and they sort of get it and if we really want somebody who has no idea who we are and what our show is, you know, we’ll send them like a nice sampling of what we’ve done over the years so that they, you know, they come up with some idea of what they’re in store for. And then our set’s pretty much been the same for four years now. So, you know, they get there and after about half a day, they sort of get like oh, wow, it’s really loose. These guys like to have fun. They mess with each other. Everybody’s incredibly self-deprecating. It’s pretty easy to fit in. And, you know, they get comfortable pretty quickly.

Q) James, are you going to be able to revisit the WWE event because I know you didn’t make it this past year. Are you going to do another one maybe?

James Roday: I’ve been sort of in contact with those guys and you know they’ve said absolutely, let’s make it happen. And I’ve said absolutely, let’s make it happen. So hopefully yes. It would be great fun for me and a childhood dream come true. So, you know, fingers crossed. Maybe it’ll shake down later this year.

Q) Tim Omundson said last year that he has the hardest job on the show above all the cast members because he’s not even allowed to crack a smile when Roday does something silly, when Dule does something silly. Do you agree with him or is he inflating his importance or how hard his job is and do you target him to make him laugh?

James Roday: It depends on what time of day it is and how many shots we have left quite frankly. Tim’s job is difficult because he does always have to keep a straight face. It’s supplemented by the fact that he’s not very good at keeping a straight face. So it does make him an easy – it does make him an easy target but it’s gotten to the point now where it’s sort of like, you know, if you walk by and see a baby holding a Kit Kat and you come away with the Kit Kat like oh, wow. You know what I mean – like who’s really impressed. Like you took a Kit Kat from a child whose basic motor skills are just starting to develop. That’s kind of what it’s become, you know, making Tim bust up in the middle of a take. It’s just not as satisfying as it used to be and it’s actually gotten a little sad if I’m being honest.

Steve Franks: And just as a matter of clarification, I don’t think it’s a good idea to give a Kit Kat to a toddler; especially like a really young baby because I mean they don’t have teeth. It’s kind of a crispy cracker in the middle of those. The baby probably wouldn’t even know what it was inside. You know, it probably would be less interested and probably would be just kind of sucking on the paper.

Q) Any good, inspired Gus nicknames that pop into your head from this season?

James Roday: We just knocked out Imhotep - "He who cometh in peace."

Steve Franks: That was pretty funny.

James Roday: I tend to sort of let them go after we do them so that I can be surprised by them again when I hear them when they air but I can tell you that we’ve done, you know, we’ve done at least one in every episode so far and there will be some winners. There’ll be some tens – there’ll be some nines and there might be one four. But we haven’t done the four yet.

Q) Steve, when he started whipping out the Gus nicknames, your response was like, "What the hell’s he doing" or "That’s great?"

Steve Franks: I think the first one was in the Speaking Out, Forever Hold Your Peace; the second episode we shot. And I think even in the Hotel Room and this was my – God, I can’t even remember but it was scripted as something else and I was kind of like what the heck was that but it was actually kind of appropriate to the setting. And then it was really funny. And we didn’t catch on until God the middle of – or the end of the first season that it was something that we should actually use to mine territory. We have one or two bits that tend to sort of float to the top each year. We call them floaters. No we don’t. "Gus, don’t be half of a black forest ham" is my favorite. Which when I go up and direct it with him, when I’m writing an episode, I read – I turn around my side which is the day’s script and just sit there and just start jotting them down and sometimes we have like twelve or fifteen to choose from which is going to my favorite which is "Don’t Be Exactly a Half of a Black Forest Ham."

Q) One favorite Shawn and Gus moment of all is when Shawn went boneless. Was that scripted or was that just made up?

James Roday: That was a Steve Franks special. Don’t go boneless and then you said to figure out what don’t go boneless meant and my take on it was just, you know, what kids do when they don’t want to leave someplace or they don’t want to do something and they just go completely limp. I figured it was some version of that since Steve does have children of his own and it just looks really funny when a grown man does it. So the fact that boneless is nothing more different than striking a pose. I have to tell you that overhead shot of him being drugged down the hallway after going boneless is one of my favorite moments of this show and of television altogether.

Steve Franks: And what really struck me as funny about it is the fact that when Gus says don’t you dare go boneless, it’s a term that Shawn immediately would know and has utilized in his life.

Q) What is it that keeps both you and Dule’s performances great and the writing so great?

James Roday: Well. I mean I don’t know. We cut – we cut our own drugs. I mean we do that ourselves. I think it’s one of those planets aligned – a great group got together with great material and people actually watched it – situations where everyone from, you know, from you know the writer’s room through our execs into Vancouver where we shoot recognizes what a rare opportunity it is to be a part of an experience like this and does not want to let go. I think that’s what sort of motivates us to, you know, to come in every day as if it’s still the first season and you know just keep that sort of Kung Fu death grip that we have on this show because we realize this could be as good as it gets for all of us. I think it’s you know – it’s such a collaborative process; especially on our show that, you know, it effects the writers too. I mean they see how much fun we have. They want us to have fun. They get to come up and Steve is sort of an unprecedented show runner in that he allows – there’s so much autonomy. You know, writers get to come up and produce their own episodes. I mean it’s an opportunity that, you know, you’re just not going to find and again I think they recognize that as well. You know, our staff with few exceptions are incredibly experienced and have come, you know, have long, impressive resumes. And all of them will tell you like they’ve never worked on a show like this before. They’ve never been able to just, you know, pull an idea out of the deep recesses of their anus and have the show runners say yeah man. Go give it a shot. And then get to come up and produce it and watch it happen. I mean it’s a really special thing that we have going on here; aside from the fact that in terms of just the personalities, a lot of people hate each other.

Q) What 80's reference are both of you looking forward to this season?

Steve Franks: I think I know exactly which one we are. We are going to bring on the living embodiment of an 80s reference. Actually we’re shooting it this week. And we’re actually going to have Curt Smith from Tears for Fears not only mentioned on the show as he has been numerous times. He’s actually going to be on the show as himself and rerecording the theme song which I think is the one I’m looking forward the most. James.

James Roday: Ditto. Ditto. Echo and put it in the box.

Steve Franks: My other favorite ones are you’ll see multiple, multiple Karate Kid references in the Kung Fu episode. Some that will slide by 99% of the audience. Actually not multiple, multiple. Maybe just a handful. But my favorite reference is one that James added from Karate Kid Two during the big finale fight scene.

James Roday: We also pay homage to Carl Weathers in his episode very subtly and very quickly. If you’re not paying attention, you might miss it. He’s in the scene though. That’s your hint.

Q) James, I read in past interviews that you’re a big Twin Peaks fan. Will we ever see a Twin Peaks inspired episode of Psych?

James Roday: You know what, we’ve had a Twin Peaks episode on sort of simmering like a sauce – like a fine Italian sauce. Which is actually not completely dissimilar to Steven Izone sauces that we decided to go ahead and move onto the front burner this season and it’s happening. So there you have it my man. Esoteric.

Steve Franks: And the answer to your question, it is episode twelve. We’re shooting it twelfth this year. I don’t know where it will air but James is co-writing it with Bill Callahan. Unless something terrible happens in the development of it and we just decide to do a swimming pool episode.

James Roday; Well, I have these terribly high expectations for our Twin Peaks episode and I will do everything I can to deliver something that will be both gratifying for diehard fans, casual fans and even people who are completely unfamiliar with the series, we promise to deliver a good mystery and an episode with plenty of laughs so that they don’t feel left out.