IGN Catches Up with “Chuck” Cast

Source: IGN.

On a soundstage in Hollywood, Prince’s “Purple Rain” is playing as smoke fills the surrounding area, temporarily making it hard to see the statuesque, beautiful blond standing a few feet away. But then the smoke clears, and there she is, Chuck‘s Yvonne Strahovski, looking right at me with a seductive expression on her face. No, this isn’t a music video fantasy. And okay, no, she’s not really looking at me, but I was standing close enough to the photographer that it seemed like it for a moment. In fact, Strahovski is doing a photo shoot for Chuck, along with her costars Zachary Levi and Adam Baldwin.

Besides photos, the trio are also doing promo spots for the series, in anticipation of its international launch. It’s a strange and potentially tedious task — Imagine saying “You’re watching Chuck on…” over and over, except you change the name of the channel each time, because you’re doing a promo for each country the show will play in and you get the idea — yet the three all stay in good, upbeat spirits. As they move from one country to the next, Levi is asked if he speaks any Spanish (yes), Portuguese (no, but he can get through a quick promo with some phonetic help) or Greek (that would be a negative). They’re also required to do some little bits in front of a green screen, sometimes with an occasional prop – a large white heart comes into play at one point. This is so the various channels can use these as “bumpers” going in and out of commercials – you’ve seen similar ones for Chuck with Levi and Strahovski on NBC, with a white background. Levi humorously does a parody of himself in these promos for me and the handful of other visiting web journalists and bloggers that day, looking over his shoulder with a sheepish grin.

It was a Sunday in early December as this photo shoot took place, and this would be the last time the Chuck actors would see each other for awhile – not only were the holidays approaching, but production had just wrapped the week before on the initial 13 episodes of the series shot before the writers strike forced them to shut down. After he finished his duties for the day, Adam Baldwin joined us for lunch, his costars soon to join us, and he noted that among all of his recent TV series – including Firefly, The Inside and Day Break — Chuck, which NBC has picked up for a full season, “is the one that’s gone past the original order. Now we’re just hoping the writers and the producers can strike a deal and get back to work.”

I asked Baldwin why he felt this show had been the one to find success and he brought up the most beloved of his earlier series, saying “Well, it’s really contemporary and fun. Firefly was not so contemporary. It was fun and it was certainly hip the way Joss [Whedon] wrote it. Marketing is always a crapshoot, what audience you catch during the season. We launched Firefly during baseball playoffs and American Idol was new and so we sort of got lost in the mix there. And there were horses! It was a harder cell. It was a futuristic sci-fi… with horses. ‘Okay, how to I wrap my brain around that one?'” Baldwin said by comparison Chuck‘s “Got a guy, where all you have to do is suspend disbelief that he has a computer in his brain and the rest of it is his buddies at the Buy More and spies.”

The last episode of Chuck saw Baldwin’s character Casey told it was almost time to kill Chuck. Asked what would happen next and if Chuck was in real danger, Baldwin couldn’t resist joking “The show’s called Chuck so… hmm!” He did say though that what will be interesting is seeing how and why Chuck can survive the situation, and as for Casey “Does he defy orders?” Baldwin added that when it came to learning more about his character “I’m looking forward to seeing how they flesh all that out. You’re going to see a little bit of his back-story in the next episode,” referencing the first of two unaired episodes Chuck still has, which are as yet unscheduled. Baldwin said that the revelations about Casey “explains why he’s such a hard case” and that in addition “You’ll see some further explanation of Chuck and Sarah’s dynamic there with the Bryce triangle.” A recent episode showed Casey’s adoration for his now destroyed car, but when it comes to a love interest, Baldwin said he’s fairly certain “They’ll be a fleshy one” down the line.

We were then joined by Yvonne Strahovski, who sat down next to Baldwin and said that making the show was very fun, remarking “We give each other s**t all day long.” This began a back and forth between the two, as Baldwin deadpanned “She’s loathsome,” and Strahovski followed up with “I hate Adam Baldwin. He’s my punching bag.” Baldwin nodded his head and said “I am. She hits me all the time.” Strahovski said the fight scene she and Baldwin had in the second episode was “awesome” and exclaimed “I wish we could do a fight scene again!” When Baldwin said he hopes to win next time and Strahovski said “You never win,” he replied “Casey never wins… such a shame. Casey’s a feminist. He lets the girls win.”

Baldwin said that when it comes to Casey and Sarah’s relationship “I think the respect for each other is growing because they’re both taking care of Chuck together” and also because “they’re learning more about each others past.”

Asked what they do to keep the energy up during the long days on set, Baldwin and Strahovski said there are “characters we do” but Baldwin said they were “very politically incorrect. We can’t do them. They’re very embarrassing.” Strahovski also revealed “I krump”, before humorously breaking out some krumping moves for us at the lunch table. She added that on the set “There’s a lot of dancing and stuff going on” to which Baldwin replied “A lot of dancing. I just sort of stand stoically by and observe. ”

Talking about their favorite episodes, Baldwin said “Chuck Versus the Sandworm”, the Halloween episode, was one he really liked. For her part Strahovski said “I liked the truth serum one [“Chuck Versus the Truth”]. And I liked the Stanford one, the flashback [“Chuck Versus the Alma Mater”]. I always prefer when the episode has more heart, so I connect more with that stuff.” Baldwin said “I prefer when is has more comedy and action. But the heart stuff, that’s good, because you need the girl demographic. Cause girls love that stuff.” When Strahovski exclaimed “Guys like it too! Come on!”, Baldwin smiled and responded with “I’m just agitating!”

I asked Strahovski if she’s finding that the fans are really responding to the relationship between Chuck and Sarah and she answered “Yeah, people love it. They want to know what’s going to happen,” though she acknowledged that it was probably best to kept them apart for now and “Keep the tension brewing.” When Baldwin asked why Sarah kissed Chuck at the end of the episode “Chuck Versus the Imported Hard Salami” she said “Why did I kiss him? It was her last dying moment. She likes him! She has a very soft spot for Chuck.”

Thanks to Sarah’s undercover job at the Weinerlicious, Strahovski often has to wear a very amusing outfit and the actress laughed, saying “You know what, when I first got that outfit I was like ‘What?!’ But it’s actually the best outfit I have, because I can actually move in it. I can kick my legs out and be flexible. Because most of my outfits are jeans or high heels and you can’t fight or move around in that stuff, so it’s a very flexible outfit.” When Baldwin asked her what kind of underwear she wears with her Weinerlicious outfit, Strahovski didn’t miss a beat, smiling as she said “Oh no, I don’t wear underwear.”

Just as Baldwin and Strahovski were discussing on-set pranks and one particular notable one Zachary Levi pulled on Joshua Gomez (“Morgan”) involving Gomez’s unoccupied on-set trailer and toilet, Levi himself arrived and joined us for lunch. Strahovski had to leave shortly after, but not before Levi and I teamed up to try to convince her that it was really in her best interest to try a corn dog – as it turns out, despite her character’s job, the Australian actress has never actually tried one. As Levi put it, in his most passionate, pleading voice, “They’re corn and dog. And deep fried!” Strahovski shook her head, asking “What more could you want?”

Levi was asked if it might be possible to update Chuck’s computer memory at some point, in order to keep him up to date and a valuable asset. Levi replied “That’s a really good question and it’s one I’ve heard asked of [Chuck creators] Josh [Schwartz] and Chris [Fedak].” Levi said he had no idea what was to come, and that he felt that if actors on a TV show are exposed ahead of time “to information, then your character is exposed to information, so from an acting standpoint it’s sometimes better to be ignorant about that kind of stuff. I don’t know. I’m just as interested to find out as you are.”

Asked if he’d like Chuck to learn some fighting skills to go along with his knowledge, Levi replied “Not yes, but hell yes. One of the most fun things about the show is all the action stuff; blowing stuff up and guns and bullets and bombs and kung fu and jumping out of buildings. So for me, absolutely, I want to do all that stuff, because that’s what I signed up for. I so badly want to do that. But they’ve already told me ‘Look, you’re not going to get a gun in your hands until Season 3… maybe.’ So I’ve got to wait patiently, and [pointing at Baldwin] watch these yahoos screw it up all the time.”

Baldwin had to leave too shortly after, though not before joking about what it might be like if an episode had Chuck and Casey switch bodies, saying that as a result we’d see “Chuck grunting.” Levi noted that Baldwin, to play Chuck, would have to babble a lot, joking “That’s basically what I’ve reduced myself to. A stammering idiot.”

Levi’s told me before about his geeky tastes, and certainly proved once more that was the case as we ate lunch and talked with him. As the conversation turned to the “What If?” idea of a Heroes / Chuck crossover — Levi is friends with Kristen Bell and loves the idea — Levi said “One of my favorite things about comic books that I’ve been so disappointed in television that they haven’t adopted more is crossovers”, before going on a long run about how much he loved Marvel Comics’ Infinity Gauntlet storyline growing up, including the main miniseries, the crossovers, and all the evil doppelgangers of the heroes readers of that storyline will recall. As Levi put it, “You had the Avengers and the Fantastic Four and Silver Surfer and all of the X-Men and Spider-Man and Silver Sable and all of the most random characters trying to beat this one dude who was ultimately going to kill everybody.”

As for what he wants for Christmas, Levi said “I just want sleep and more time to play the videogames that I own.” Levi laughed about how much he and Chuck costar (and fellow gamer) Joshua Gomez talk about videogames in interviews, remarking “I go off on a tirade about everything, to the point where I’m like I should be getting paid for this! All I do is talk about Microsoft or Nintendo product.”

Levi revealed that in fact “Josh and I have made it a point of talking to our writers about ‘Let us geek out more on that kind of stuff.’ Because we geek out on certain stuff, like Lou and I geeked out about sandwiches, which was funny, but I really want it like in the pilot where there were quite a few moments where we were riffing on things [from videogames]. Josh and I truly are gamers. We’re not actors playing them. We are ridiculous. If we didn’t have to go to work, we would be at home, not even interacting with each other in real life. We would be on head sets on Xbox Live. We were both playing BioShock at the same time one night and I was on a different level than he was and we were just sitting there talking like you would be on the phone, like two girlfriends doing their nails at home. ‘Oh yeah, blah blah blah.’ We’re on our headsets going ‘What level you on? Have you gotten to that part yet? Oh yeah, it’s so killer.’ And then I hear gunshots and I go ‘Oh! Are you there?! What are you using right now?’ That’s the kind of stuff we talk about. It’s ridiculous.”

I couldn’t resist asking what games Levi is currently playing and he replied “A very healthy regiment of Rock Band at the moment. I was digging Assassins Creed, but I kind of found it to be a little bit repetitive. It’s beautiful; a huge scope of a game with great voice acting from our dame, Kristen Bell and many others. And I really think that so much of the game is awesome, but I feel like once you start doing the missions it’s kind of the same thing over and over again. So I was playing that for a bit. I got out of that, but also because of Rock Band. I have Mass Effect in the plastic. I’m ready to bust that out and lose myself in that. Gomez, I think he played that for 48 hours without sleeping. He had a catheter bag, so it was alright.”

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We’re not quite sure when Chuck will be back, but we’re certainly hoping it’s soon…