‘Chuck’Panel at Comic Con

I know the picture’s a little blurry folks, but isn’t it worth it to know how far the cast of NBC’s new pilot Chuck is willing to go to get you to love them? Stars Zachary Levi and Joshua Gomez were not, in fact, reenacting the finer points of the Kama Sutra on stage. They were recreating their comic ninja fight from the pilot. Now that’s we’ve cleared that up, more on Chuck after the jump.

Chuck is the brainchild of writers Chris Fedak and The O.C.’s Josh Schwartz. The pilot, directed by he-of-silly-moniker McG, was reviewed back in May by our own Bob Sassone. The screening here at Comic-Con – the first in front of a large crowd – was incredibly well-received. While this may have something to do with Firefly’s Adam Baldwin in a menacing turn as NSA baddie John Casey, I’m sure the show would have gone over big anyway. It’s geek-friendly on every level.

Chuck centers around a thinly-disguised Best Buy Geek Squad (Buy More Nerd Herd) employee who has the entire contents of the NSA and CIA’s databases downloaded into his brain. It’s The Office meets Alias starring Seth Cohen with heavy 80s influences. Josh and Chris both brought up War Games and Goonies as inspirations. The show is super-stylized – almost a parody of spy flicks – while being hyper-realistic in an Office-sense. Its humor relies on the banality of our lives when we’re in that wonderful “quarter-life crisis” stage – the mid-20s, when most of us are a little on the lost side. It’s a great fantasy – that we wouldn’t have to figure out our lives if a sense of purpose were thrust upon us. In the case of Chuck, that purpose comes care of the federal government. In Reaper, which I’ll be writing about following a screening later this evening, that sense of purpose comes care of the devil. Which of these two similar shows will win out in the end? That’s for you to decide come September.

(Source)

New Pics from the Pilot

We have three new photos from the pilot episode of Chuck posted in the Gallery. Have some previews:

 

Chuck’s Secret – LAUNCHED!

Chuck’s Secret – http://www.chuckssecret.com/ – is live! Lots of goodies already there, with promises of more to come.

More Snippets from the TCA Press Tour

Laura Saltman from Access Hollywood blogged her experiences at the TCA Press Tour, including these bits from interviewing the cast of Chuck:

12:45 The day picks up at least for my crew with Adam Baldwin from “Chuck”. Apparently, he was in “Full Metal Jacket” and they have some nice boy talk. Adam and I muse on why “Daybreak” couldn’t find a loyal audience and got cancelled.

…

2:00 The energy level picks up considerable when Zachary Levi who stars in “Chuck” comes in the room. We end up chatting about the screening of “I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry” we both attended. Somehow we got on the topic of Jessica Biel’s body in the movie. He asked if he could get her phone number then realized he’d have to compete with Justin Timberlake. So forget it. Loved him. He’s full of life and the type of actor you hope becomes a success. Unless of course success changes him.

…

2:45 I’m sure fans of “What About Brian” are upset that the show was cancelled but they might enjoy Sarah Lancaster on her new show, “Chuck.”. Poor girl told me American Airlines lost her luggage two months ago and still hasn’t found it. I’m so talked out I get tongue tied at the end of our interview.

(source)

Josh Schwartz, Prince of Nerds

By Joanne Weintraub
Wednesday, Jul 18 2007, 10:38 AM

In “The O.C.’s” Seth Cohen, writer-producer Josh Schwartz gave TV one of its most beloved nerds. Now that the Fox show is history, he’s hoping lightning will strike again with the equally smart, affable, geeky hero of NBC’s “Chuck,” an electronics salesman who, in time-honored TV fashion, becomes a reluctant and decidedly nerdy spy.

“As a writer, you want to write what you know,” said Schwartz. “And (I) know many more writers who resemble Chuck than, say, Jack Bauer.”

He noted that star Zachary Levi (”Less Than Perfect”), who plays the title character, has impressive geek-boy credentials of his own.

Schwartz: “After we wrapped the pilot, we asked Zach to come in and do ADR (additionaldialogue recording). His hand was bandaged, and we were like, ‘What happened?’ (He turns in Levi’s direction.) Apparently you were playing tennis with the Wii.”

Levi, half-proudly, half-sheepishly: “Yeah, I was playing Nintendo Wii.”

Schwartz: “And put his hand through a light fixture.”

Levi: “I got 14 stitches. I put my hand through a light fixture in my living room. So I’m cool. Who can cut their hand open playing Nintendo? This guy” – Chuck’s alter ego points to himself – “right here.”

(source)

More Pics of Zac the Winner Bee

More photos of Zac winning the Singing Bee at the TCA party are posted in the Gallery.

 

Zachary Levi, Winner Bee!

The Singing Bee should have no problem attracting an audience since everyone at the party stopped what they were doing and put their focus on the live presentation at shortly before 8:00, hosted by Joey Fatone. Two reporters joined FNL’s Scott Porter and Chuck’s Zachary Levi on stage to play the game.

Porter and a TCA member were sacked in the first round. Next, the other TCA member was out.

Levi emerged the winner because he knew the lyrics to the theme song of The Flintstones — “courtesy of Fred’s two feet” — trust me, google it. You’ll see he’s right.

“I didn’t know those words until about three years ago,” Levi later told me. “A friend told me what they were and I went online to check it out because I’m such a geek.”

(source) 

‘Chuck’ Makes A Dork A Hero

Zachary Levi, star of the upcoming NBC series Chuck, told SCI FI Wire that the show celebrates nerd culture and will appeal to those who may be “cool-challenged,” a label he willingly applies to himself.

“Dork is definitely the new cool,” Levi said in an interview at the Television Critics Association press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif., on July 17. “When I was in high school, I was, like, tucked away in a theater somewhere doing theater all the time. I wasn’t like a jock. So I am Chuck in many, many ways.

In Chuck, Levi plays an ordinary tech-support clerk at a big-box retail store who becomes involved in the world of international espionage when a former college buddy e-mails him a computer program that downloads the entire national intelligence database directly into his brain. When the destination of the e-mail is discovered, the NSA and CIA each send an operative to protect the secrets Chuck possesses at all costs. Meanwhile, he must maintain the illusion of a normal life with his sister (Sarah Lancaster) and best friend (Joshua Gomez).

“I feel that the typical audience or the general audience that watches television can relate more to a Chuck than they can to a superhero, somebody that’s really cool and really debonair and has all those powers,” Levi said. “Chuck is just a schmuck. Chuck’s a schmuck that can’t get a date. I mean, that’s really what it is. He’s a great guy who really means well, and he cares about people, and he wants to fix people’s computers to the best of his ability. But at the end of the day, he’ll pee his pants if a gun gets pulled on him.”

The character finds himself caught between two worlds, Levi added. “One is my home, regular life, and one is the espionage, spy life,” he said. “And it’s Josh and Sarah on the family life [side]. … And then that balances perfectly with the contrast of Adam Baldwin and Yvonne Strzechowski, who are two amazingly talented and good-looking NSA and CIA operatives that are constantly pulling me away from the comfort of my home life into this crazy world that I know nothing about, and I’m a fish out of water. So you get a lot of comedy in both.”

There are also hints in the pilot of a budding romance between Chuck and his CIA minder, Sarah, who finds his dorky, unassuming nature charming. “What’s interesting about Chuck and Sarah is that we’re really almost kind of the same person,” Levi said. “We’re very different in the sense that obviously she’s a spy and can kick anyone’s butt and can wield guns and drive cars and all [that] stuff, like, super cool. And I’m the polar opposite of that. But when it comes to normal life and fitting in a normal life, she’s a CIA operative. She doesn’t know what that’s about. She’s been on missions since she was 21. So I teach her a lot, and in the process there’s this really interesting dynamic. And I think that’ll play out, and that’s how our love connection may start.” Chuck premieres Sept. 24 and will air Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/PT. (NBC is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.) —Cindy White

(source)

New shows: What’s up, ‘Chuck’? Nerd power, that’s what

Nerds and geeks rejoice, we’re cool — at least in Hollywood’s eyes, and at least this season. NBC’s new show “Chuck” is just one new drama featuring an unabashedly geeky character, who’s more familiar with pi than Prada, and plays more “World of Warcraft” than tennis.

Of course, this doesn’t mean Hollywood will lay off the cliches, but based on its pilot, “Chuck” isn’t bad. It’s the story of a guy who works for the Nerd Herd (thinly disguised version of the Geek Squad) at a Best Buy-like store called Buy More. Through a weird series of events, he ends up with a computer full of spy secrets buried in his brain. A beautiful blonde spy joins him, and they’re off to save the world.

NERDS, UNITE
Likable Zachary Levi plays Chuck, and Josh Schwartz of “The O.C.” and McG (”Charlie’s Angels,” etc) are two of the producers. When asked about the nerd herd invading television, Schwartz made a perfectly logical point: “We know many more (television) writers who resemble Chuck than, say, Jack Bauer. Just saying.”

Actors Levi and Joshua Gomez, who plays his best pal, Morgan, fit the geek/nerd stereotype in some ways, too. They confessed to being regular Xbox LIVE competitors. And in one example of life imitating art, Chuck is featured in the pilot with bandaged hands from playing too much “Call of Duty.” Shortly after shooting the pilot, Levi himself ended up with a bandaged hand from an overactive session of Nintendo Wii tennis. “I got 14 stitches,” he said. “I put my hand through a light fixture in my living room. So I’m cool.”

“Nerd” and “geek” aren’t the vocabulary choices of Levi, however. “I would say the cool-challenged, maybe,” he said. “Or the jock-challenged.”

GAEL’S GRADE: Based on the pilot, I give “Chuck” a solid B.

‘THE OFFICE’ II?
The producers also hope to derive humor from Chuck’s work setting and his nerdy co-workers, mentioning “The Office” as an inspiration. “Everybody wants to take Chuck down at work,” Schwartz said. “It’s almost as scary as when he goes out into the field and has to do spy work.

SCIENCE-FICTION ROCK BLOCK
“Chuck” will lead into “Heroes” on Mondays, followed by another show with sci-fi elements, “Journeyman.” Obviously NBC is hoping that the crowd that has made “Heroes” a hit will find a connection in the other shows. “I think guys (who are) like Chuck like ‘Heroes,’ ” said Schwartz.

(source)

More from TCA: Zac is ‘Singing Bee’ Champ

The sounds of Sepinwall

Posted by Alan Sepinwall July 18, 2007 12:45AM

I’ve been blessed/cursed with one of the ultimate dichotomies of man: I dearly love to sing, and yet the proper key and me have always been two ships passing in the night. So when I heard an NBC publicist floating around looking for a critic or two to compete in a scaled-down version of “The Singing Bee” at NBC’s non-party party, I couldn’t resist signing up.

So midway through the non-party party, after I had chatted with a bunch of the second bananas from “The Office” and asked some follow-up questions of one of the “Friday Night Lights” actors, I was called over to meet the competition — including “Chuck” star Zachary Levi, “Friday Night Lights” star Scott Porter (he plays paralyzed QB Jason Street) and Us Weekly writer Jeffrey Epstein — the producers and host Joey Fatone for an impromptu briefing on the game, and after a few minutes, the non-party party ground to a halt so we could play.

Fatone called us up on stage one by one, introduced the Bee Girls (you can find photographic evidence of this moment at NBC’s own press tour blog; I’m the second guy from the left), then launched into the show’s first round, where the first two contestants to successfully finish the line of a song move on to the next round. The first song was “Roxanne,” specifically the first verse, leaving off at “Walk the streets for money…” Jeffrey didn’t get it. Porter, who seemed confident and had been talking trash beforehand, came close with “I don’t care if it’s wrong or if it’s right.” Finally, it was my turn, and in the loudest, most tone-deaf voice I could muster, I belted out, “You don’t care if it’s wrong or if it’s right!” Point to Sepinwall, and I advanced to round two, followed by Levi.

Then came my downfall: the round where we had to sing the complete chorus to a popular song. There was some jostling between me and Levi about who should go first, but Fatone insisted it had to be me, and since he was in ‘N Sync, who was I to argue? The song was “Like a Virgin.” Now, if you want me to recite Quentin Tarantino’s opening monologue from “Reservoir Dogs” about “Like a Virgin,” I can do that in my sleep. But the actual song wasn’t one of my favorites from the Madonna catalog (of that period, I prefer “Get Into the Groove”), and I didn’t feel confident.

I tried to fake it, swaying to a verse I knew almost no lyrics to. Then the music dropped out, and I bleated, “Like a virgin! Touched for the very first time! Like a viiiiiiirgin…”

…the crowd was with me. Zachary Levi was with me. Joey Fatone was with me, and the man used to work with Timberlake…

“Feel your heart beat, next to–”

BZZZT!!! Thank you for playing, it was “When your heart beats, next to mine.” D’oh!

I exited the stage graciously and watched Levi proceed to own the game like a singing machine, getting the lyrics to seven or eight songs in a row correct. I consoled myself with the knowledge that I had no chance against him; even if I had gotten “Virgin” right, I would have tripped up sooner or later and there was no way he would have.

Reaction from the crowd was mixed. The NBC publicists all loved it, but they’re publicists, and their word is therefore shaky. Some of the critics patted me on the back, saying I did the best I could (implied: with the voice God gave me), while a few others rolled their eyes and either suggested that I had done poorly or that I had sacrificed too much of my dignity by participating.

Even the response from the NBC talent was mixed. I’ve been friendly Kate Flannery, who plays Meredith the office lush on “The Office,” for a while, but when I bumped into her after the show, she cringed and said she was sorry, but she couldn’t lie: it was bad. Keith Olbermann said that he had been begging the waiters, the NBC publicists, and anyone who would listen to please stop all the caterwauling (though he was unclear whether he was referring specifically to me or the whole endeavor; I choose to think the latter). But Fatone, Levi and a few producers of NBC shows commended me on my bravery, if not my pipes. So I’ve got that going for me. Which is nice.

Great White Way, here I come!

(source)

 

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