Back in December, on the second-to-last day of filming\u00a0Chuck<\/strong>, ChuckTV.net was included among a group of reporters invited to the set to talk with the cast about the finale and look back at the previous five seasons. We\u2019ll be releasing those interviews this week as we countdown to \u201cChuck vs. the Goodbye\u201d on January 27.<\/p>\n

As you’ve read and heard in interviews with the cast and crew for the past five years, the heart of the show is Zachary Levi. As the lead character, Zac has been the show’s ambassador, it’s champion, seemingly tireless in his efforts to produce and promote Chuck<\/strong>. Be sure to read his responses hearing his voice in your head; it’s extra special that way.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Q: So, the last episode. What can you tease about what you\u2019re doing here today?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Zac:<\/strong> I love the word tease. I don\u2019t know. What can I talk about?<\/p>\n

Q: Mine doesn\u2019t air until after the finale airs, so you can tell me anything.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Zac:<\/strong>\u00a0Oh, alright. Well then, I die. [note: didn’t think this needed to be clarified, but, yes, Zac was joking when he said that.] So essentially, one of the cool things, or how the arc of the season goes or specifically these last episodes, the last couple of episodes is that Sarah, in an attempt to save my life, she has to download the faulty intersect, and before we are able to get it out of her head and the damage is done, the damage is done. She\u2019s kidnapped by Quinn and then kind of reprogrammed by him. This is right, I can talk about this?<\/p>\n[publicist tells him 12 and 13 air back to back]\n

Zac:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, because this will be after Episode 12. Oh, 12 and 13 are together? Well then they\u2019ll be\u2026oh, that\u2019s right, they won\u2019t know. It\u2019s a two-hour finale. So Sarah doesn\u2019t lose her memory.<\/p>\n

Q: And take two.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Zac:<\/strong>\u00a0So, wow, alright. That got awkward. I\u2019ll just say this. Things happen where we come to the finale in such a way that it\u2019s almost a reset of sorts, where the \u2018will they, won\u2019t they\u2019 dynamic comes back into play, and particularly in the second half of the finale, Episode 13. There\u2019s a ton of homage to the pilot, to the origins of these characters and their journey together and everyone\u2019s in it, and that\u2019s awesome. It\u2019s been really emotional. Last week, particularly. Tomorrow is going to be nothing but waterworks, I\u2019m sure. But last week we shot pretty much all of the goodbye scenes, the characters saying goodbye to one another and when art is imitating life simultaneously in that moment and I\u2019m looking at my friends of five years, my family of five years, and in a scene I\u2019m having to look at them and say goodbye and I\u2019m really saying goodbye.<\/p>\n

Well, it\u2019s not forever, although I may never see Adam Baldwin again. That\u2019s not true. It\u2019s certainly not as final in\u2026it\u2019s actually not even as final in the world of Chuck<\/strong> if it were to continue. Obviously Chuck and Morgan will be best friends for the rest of their lives. Chuck and Ellie are still brother and sister, therefore Awesome is still my brother-in-law. We would all still continue to see each other in one way, shape, or form. The world that has been created and the world we live and work in has been drastically changed and drastically different. But we do say goodbyes, at least for the time being. It\u2019s gnarly. It\u2019s really, really surreal.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t feel that we were cut short, as difficult as it is to have to close the last chapter on this journey. I don\u2019t feel like we\u2019ve been shorted. I actually feel that five seasons is a good amount of time. I think that oftentimes in network television, you\u2019re left with more than you really wanted. Twenty-two episode seasons, 24 episode seasons at 7, 8, 9, 10 years can eventually go kind of like, \u201cWe get it.\u201d The sitcom you can actually stretch that out a little more, because you really just tune in for fun and jokes every week, but something like this, it\u2019s definitely story arcs and serial. How many bad guys and missions can you go on before you feel like you\u2019re repeating the same thing? So I feel like we\u2019ve gotten a really perfect amount of time together, and it\u2019s been special from day one.<\/p>\n

Q: Can you talk about saying goodbye to locations as well, like the last day at Buy More? What was that like?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Zac:\u00a0<\/strong>Our sets are just as much a character as any of the actual characters, particularly the Buy More, our apartments, our apartment complex, and Castle. We\u2019ve wrapped everything except for Castle, really, and that\u2019s tomorrow. The Buy More was really an emotional time. We shot our last scenes there and everyone was cognizant of it and aware of it. There was about twelve of us, including Yvonne and Josh and I, Vik and Scott were still there, and some crew and Robbie. We were just in a circle, standing in the middle of a kind of dimly-lit Buy More, because everyone was wrapping out and the lights were down. We were standing around in a circle, reminiscing about the show, reminiscing specifically about the Buy More and the memories we\u2019ve had there and the pilot Buy More, which is very, very different from the Buy More over the rest of the seasons.<\/p>\n

Specifically with the pilot, the characters that have come through, like CS Lee, Harry Tang, Emmitt, Tony Hale, it\u2019s crazy the amount of guest stars that we\u2019ve had, not just through the Buy More, but through all of our sets and all of our story lines and all of our worlds. On the pilot, McG yelling for me and Josh, having just barely met each other, but I brought my Xbox and World of Warcraft that had just come out, the original, and I had hooked it up to a flat screen in our store and we were sitting there playing between takes and constantly McG going, \u201cGuys, I need you. Come on.\u201d That pilot was really just a magical time and it\u2019s crazy to think that it\u2019s been five years since we did that and at the same time, like any memory like that, it seems like it was yesterday and it seems like a lifetime ago.<\/p>\n

Q: A lot of the bloggers are giving you guys credit for making the nerd popular. How do you feel about that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Zac:<\/strong>\u00a0Great. Obviously, with the nerd machine and everything that I\u2019m passionate about or try to be passionate about, nerd is a really operative word in my life and I\u2019ve talked about it in plenty of other interviews, so I won\u2019t go over that stuff, but I definitely feel like, as I\u2019ve said before, being a nerd just means you\u2019re passionate about something. The word is a defining thing in your life and therefore, we\u2019re all nerds because we\u2019re all passionate about something and I love that people are able to embrace that.<\/p>\n

Q: What was it like working with Scott Bakula as Chuck’s dad?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Zac:<\/strong>\u00a0Such a, just an excellent human being, great actor, great man. I love that the people who have played my parents in the show have both kind of been that. Linda\u2019s like a mom on set; Scott was like a dad on set. He and I have I felt in a lot of the conversations we had over our time together, had a lot in common. He imparted a lot of wisdom to me. His journey on \u2018Quantum Leap\u2019 was similar to mine here in that it was all day, every day, go go go, crazy hours, but a great family. He was so supportive of me from day one, just an excellent guy. I wish Tony Hale never left. He was just so funny and such an incredible human being. I\u2019ll take John Laroquette any day. Arnold Vosloo, loved Arnold Vosloo. Oh gosh, who else? There\u2019s been so many. Jordana Brewster. I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

Q: Was there anything that you had hoped to do as Chuck that you didn\u2019t get the chance to do?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Zac:<\/strong>\u00a0Great question. Not that the other ones haven\u2019t been, by the way. I\u2019m not judging. One of the things that I really hoped I\u2019d get the opportunity to do on the show, and I thought I would when we started it, ever since I was a kid, I\u2019d do voices and dialects and characters and stuff and I thought, \u201cOh my gosh, this is great. I get to play this spy who\u2019s constantly going undercover and stuff. I\u2019ll get to do that.\u201d And I didn\u2019t really. Very seldom did I get to do anything that was much of a departure from my character. This last season, or Season 4 and this last season I was looking for every opportunity I could when they couldn\u2019t cut it out and I would do a voice or something.<\/p>\n

Q: You did a British accent in one episode.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Zac:<\/strong>\u00a0I did. That was last season. Actually, I\u2019ve gotten to do it a couple of times. In the 3D episode we did with Dominic, we were in some club and he was saying that I was his drummer and I did some random line there. Then last year, the episode where we went to a vineyard in France, and again, for only a second, but I commit to a character and to like own that for a whole episode would have been fun. And only once did I get to do some kind of cool prosthetics, which I think was in the season finale of I think 3, Season 3, where I was an old Russian guy. Of course, if you look at my hands, there\u2019s no prosthetics on my hands, so it\u2019s all wrinkly, then young man hands.<\/p>\n

Q: You just really took care of your hands.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Zac:\u00a0<\/strong>Just creams, hand creams and gloves every night.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Q: Can you talk a little about directing your last Chuck episode and tease what viewers can expect?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Zac:<\/strong>\u00a0Oh yeah, it\u2019s this Friday. [note: this interview took place a few days before “Chuck vs. the Hack Off” aired in December 2011.] I really enjoyed it. I always enjoy it. It\u2019s a weird kind of love-hate thing, because it\u2019s really hard. It\u2019s only the third episode of television I\u2019ve ever directed, so I still have a lot to learn and a long ways to go as a director, but I feel like I was the most learned and applied that knowledge in this episode. Obviously, the more times you do it, hopefully the better you do it.<\/p>\n

I feel like the storyline was a lot of fun. I tried to extrapolate as much comedy as I could out of it, because, at the heart of it, I really see this show as an action-comedy and I try to apply that in the episodes I direct. Really fun stuff. A lot of scenes with characters you wouldn\u2019t normally see together in situations you wouldn\u2019t think they would be in together. Good heart, fun story, plenty of nudity. And that was the thing, when I read this script, I said, \u201cHow the hell am I supposed to do this?\u201d I know we hadn\u2019t done it on the show before, I haven\u2019t really seen this done on television before, well, I mean I have, but it\u2019s on HBO.<\/p>\n

Game of Thrones<\/strong> is not really throwing blur boxes on their stuff, and thank God for that. God, it\u2019s such a great show. I can\u2019t wait for it to come back. But a fun challenge. Bo Garrett was totally game and totally awesome and fun. That\u2019s one of the things that I\u2019ve really been stoked about. In the episodes that I\u2019ve been able to direct, I\u2019ve gotten some really good guest stars. In the first season, or rather the third season, my first episode with Cedric Yarborough and Dietrich Bader, those guys were fantastic. Last season, obviously, with Linda Hamilton and Timothy Dalton, and then this season with Bo and Carrie Ann Moss.<\/p>\n

When Carrie Ann did her first episode with the show, Josh and I were total just fan boyed out. \u201cShe’s standing over there, she\u2019s standing over there, she\u2019s standing over there. She\u2019s turning, she\u2019s turning.\u201d So, that was really cool and she\u2019s awesome. It\u2019s weird, when you\u2019re acting in scenes with other actors and you have to direct them, that fine line of\u2026because as an actor, you don\u2019t particularly care when another actors comes up to you and says, \u201cMaybe you should do the line like this.\u201d You say, \u201cOh really? Thanks a lot. I appreciate that. Thanks for the note.\u201d You\u2019re hoping that they are taking it through\u2026that they\u2019re seeing you with the hat of director on for that moment. But everyone has always been super cool and very kind and helpful in the process, so I hope everybody digs it.<\/p>\n

Q: So post-Chuck, are you looking to direct more or are you going back\u2026?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Zac:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019d love to man. I hope that people can see the cast of the show and see the talent that the people possess, even people like Vik, for example. He doesn\u2019t get as much screen time. Josh has gotten more now, thank God, because he\u2019s been brought into the fold of the spy life. But I\u2019d love to go and direct some fun comedy stuff with Josh and Vik or anybody in the cast. They are all very near and dear to my heart and very talented people.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d love to direct more. I don\u2019t know if I\u2019d really want to go and direct television so much. Hear me out on that. Television directing is a very interesting job. It\u2019s a writers\u2019 medium, so you end up being a traffic cop, of sorts. You are taking what they want and you go and apply that to the actors, and then the actors say, \u201cWell, I don\u2019t know how I feel about that.\u201d And then you take that and bring it back to the writers and you are this go-between, especially as this younger guy going and jumping onto the eighth season of CSI<\/strong>, where it\u2019s a very well-oiled machine; they know what they\u2019re doing. I would imagine that I would walk onto that set and they\u2019d say, \u201cWho\u2019s hop-along? Who\u2019s this guy? We get it. We know the show. We know our characters.\u201d So, to me, that\u2019s not an incredibly enticing thing. Although, who knows? I\u2019d love to go and direct a pilot. With a pilot, you really get that creative influence and you get a chance to put your vision into it.<\/p>\n

The two-episode Chuck<\/strong> series finale airs Friday, January 27 at 8\/7c on NBC.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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