Baldwin is a protector again in ‘Chuck’

Ellen Grey with Philly.com (home of the World Series champs!) recently spoke with Adam Baldwin about working on Chuck, the secret to his casting (hint: he’s tall), and why Sarah always beats Casey:

TWENTY-EIGHT years after a teenaged Adam Baldwin made his film debut as the troubled title character in “My Bodyguard,” he’s back to guarding some geek.

The geek in question: Chuck Bartowski (Zachary Levi) of NBC’s “Chuck,” a spy drama spoof in which Baldwin plays National Security Agent John Casey, whose orders seem to be to do whatever it is to keep Chuck alive – until the government finds a replacement for the database that accidentally got downloaded into his brain.

At which point, it’ll be Casey’s job to kill him.

Unfortunately for Casey, “Chuck’s infectious,” said Baldwin in an interview this summer on the show’s Burbank, Calif., set, inside the Best Buy-like Buy More store where Chuck and Casey work together.

Like Levi himself, whom Baldwin describes as “a modern-day Dick Van Dyke,” Chuck’s “a lovable character. It would be a shame to have to do him in,” he said. “But if they give him the order, [Casey’s] a patriotic young man. He’ll follow the order.”

Given that the show’s called “Chuck,” that seems less than likely, but Baldwin, whose credits include Fox’s doomed “Firefly” (and its big-screen followup, “Serenity”), seems to take nothing for granted.

“I like television for the civility, the consistency . . . although they could cut it off at any time, it all depends on what the audience wants,” he said.

Civility probably isn’t a word that’s often applied to Baldwin’s characters, many of whom have fallen into the category of seriously scary, roles he thinks may have come to him “because I was channeling my inner demons – and I’m tall.”

In real life, or what passes for it in an interview setting, he’s dry, and maybe a bit funnier than he claims to be, recalling a memorable stint on “Angel” as “a violent role and a beautiful suit” that he didn’t get to keep, and feigning horror at “the feminization of John Casey” when it’s suggested that writers may be softening the characters.

Any inner demons were nowhere in evidence as Baldwin talked enthusiastically about “a beautiful wife and three kids [who] . . . really keep me grounded,” but, yes, he’s tall.

When he was chosen from among 4,000 young aspiring actors for the role of Ricky Linderman in “My Bodyguard,” a part for which he still receives mail from fans who say the film changed their lives, “I think I was about 6-3,” Baldwin said.

“I think I’ve put on an inch since then.”

On most shows, that would just about guarantee a decided physical advantage over whatever bad-guy-of-the-week popped in, but not on “Chuck.”

“We’ve had some really gigantic villains on this show, thugs [and] whatnot,” he said.

Ex-Giants defensive end Michael Strahan surfaced earlier this season as a bully from a sporting goods store who was menacing the employees at Buy More.

“We had [ex-NFLer] Matt Willig, who’s bigger than Strahan,” Baldwin said, playing a bodyguard in another episode. “Hell, I had to take him out with a microwave oven to the head. Guns won’t penetrate.”

“It’s funny, I said, ‘Well, the little ones, I can just shoot ’em. And the bigger ones, you’ve got to put me in a fistfight with them.’ Choreography’s the key.”

Choreography also comes in to play when Casey’s occasional disagreements with Chuck’s other protector, CIA agent Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski), turn physical.

When he fights with Strahovski, Baldwin said, “they frame her nicely and me not so much, so she wins.”