‘Chuck’ At the TCA Press Tour (UPDATED)

The gang from Chuck appeared at NBC’s TCA Press Tour party last night, fresh off their first table read for the season (filming began today). We’ve added photos to the Gallery and have a couple of interviews to share.

Access Hollywood video with Zachary Levi, Adam Baldwin, Yvonne Strahovski and Joshua Gomez
E!Online chats with Yvonne Strahovski

Updated 08.07.09: NBC.com has a couple of videos of the Chuck gang on the red carpet, including a special seranade for the fans. Feel the love!

PHOTOS: Everyone at the TCAs

You know what’s a good idea? When you get a slew of photos from an event and you get them tagged and ready to post? It’s a good idea to upload them before you go to Comic Con, otherwise you’ll completely forget about them. That’s right kids, hot off the cold presses, we bring you a bunch of photos of the Chuck gang at the NBC TCA Party! Preview below, full set in the Gallery.

More from the TCAs: Love Triangle, Guest Stars, Videos, Etc.

BuzzSugar has the following report (warnign: spoilers for season 2) from the TCAs:

Of all the shows affected by the writers’ strike, NBC’s Chuck took one of the hardest hits. The show was just really hitting its stride when the strike cut it short, and its final two episodes aired in a sort of bizarre Chuck sandwich. My biggest question for the show heading into season two was whether people would even really remember it exists.

But Josh Schwartz, Zachary Levi, and company are setting out to make sure we remember the show Schwartz calls “my little baby.” With a new framework for the series, and a bevy of guest stars — including Nicole Richie, who gets into a shower fight with Sarah — lined up for appearances, Chuck is looking to be back with a bang. Want to hear a little of what’s coming up for the show? To hear what Schwartz, Levi, and Yvonne Strahovski spilled at the TCA press tour, just read more.

• There will be no hesitation jumping right in to what’s been happening with Chuck since we last saw him. “Our ‘Previously On’ is Chuck being dangled out of a window by Michael Clarke Duncan, telling the story of how he got there,” Schwartz said.
• After we’re all caught up, the show will move quickly into determining Chuck’s fate. Once the new Intersect is up, Chuck won’t be so necessary anymore, and Casey will be asked to “disappear” him — a mission complicated by the fact that Casey is actually starting to like our nerdy antihero. The whole season will explore the show’s mythology a bit more, with deeper story arcs to go along with the missions and villains of the week.
• Another thing Chuck will have: romance, and not least because Chuck’s college girlfriend Jill (played by Jordana Brewster) will be back in the picture. “We had planned to bring her back at the end of last season if it hadn’t been for the strike,” Schwartz said. “It’s going to be a huge arc for us and really set the show off in a new direction.” As for Sarah’s feelings? “I love me a love triangle,” Schwartz said. “This is somebody who has a legitimate threat — she is beautiful and cool and smart and dynamic. She gets some information about what Chuck may actually do for a living, which means he can have like a real relationship with her. So it’s a real threat to the [Chuck/Sarah] romance.”
• Chuck’s also going nuts with the guest stars — not just Richie and Brewster but also John Larroquette, Tony Hale, Michael Strahan, Michael Clarke Duncan, Melinda Clarke, and Ben Savage, who plays Richie’s husband in the fourth episode. Oddly enough, I may be most excited about Strahan’s episode, if only because it will introduce us to the Mighty Jocks, the Sports Authority-esque sales team that shares strip mall space with the Buy More. But there’s also the hilarious idea of Larroquette as Roan Montgomery, legendary seducer of women, who may have had a relationship with hardened government operative General Beckman.
• Sarah’s getting a new cover job and a new cover uniform, Yvonne Strahovski told me — and while she was mum on the details (other than that she prefers the color scheme to her Weinerlicious getup), Levi said Sarah’s newly employed at a Pinkberry-esque frozen yogurt joint.
• Schwartz said there will be “11 percent more Captain Awesome,” and he’ll take his shirt off within the first seven minutes of the first episode. (Is that a threat or a promise?)

Are you ready for a Chuck with more guest stars, more story arcs, and more romance? I’m pretty sure I am. Sound off below!

Zac also talk with Access Hollywood about Chuck, the writers’ strike, and what to expect in season 2:

Notes from the TCA Panel (spoilers!)

Chuck’s TCA panel was this morning, featuring Josh Schwartz, Zachary Levi, Joshua Gomez, Sarah Lancaster and Adam Baldwin. Here’s a news round up:

From BuddyTV:

When Chuck returns, it will come back with a slew of guest stars. At the TCA press tour, creator Josh Schwartz previewed how season 2 will begin and provided some scintillating details about Nicole Richie’s guest appearance.

Schwartz said that season 2 will open with guest star Michael Clarke Duncan dangling Chuck (Zachary Levi) out a window, which segues into Chuck telling the tale of how he came to be in such a precarious predicament, providing plenty of time for exposition to catch people up. This was important because, as he described it, the show has been off the air for several years and even the fans may have forgotten what happened.

As for Richie’s character, she’s Sarah’s high school rival who will be showing up in the fourth episode as Sarah brings Chuck to her high school reunion. In addition, Richie’s character husband is played by Ben Savage, star of Boy Meets World. The episode will also feature a big fight scene in the high school’s locker room shower between Richie and Yvonne Strahovski that Schwartz promised will be quite wet.

Schwartz also mentioned season 2 will deal with the government completion of the new Intersect and Chuck’s expendability, with Casey (Adam Baldwin) put in charge of dealing with Chuck.

In terms of ratings, Schwartz also pointed out that young people are watching shows online more frequently, saying the kids going off to college don’t even bring TVs, just their laptops. He said that we live in a post-Nielsen world and “Ratings no longer necessarily reflect the success of a show.”

When asked about the fact that Schwartz’s two shows, Chuck and Gossip Girl, will be airing at the same time this Fall, he was optimistic, simply happy to have two shows on the air, though he did try everything he could to convince the networks not to do it. Zachary Levi took a joking tone about the competition, saying “People that are really into Gossip Girl will watch Gossip Girl, and the people that are really into Chuck…will leave us for Gossip Girl.” Continuing the humor, Schwartz promised a job on Gossip Girl for Levi.

Straggler Photos from the NBC TCA Party

These two were found at NBC’s Showbuzz:

Joshua Gomez with Amy Teegarden of “Friday Night Lights”

Zachary Levi

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)

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