www.ramblingsofatvsleeper.com/2007/12/13/hanging-out-with-the-cast-of-nbcs-chuck-part-two/Hanging out with the cast of NBC’s Chuck: Part Two
Date December 13, 2007 | Written by: Spadada
Warner Brothers kindly invited The TV sleeper to a promotional shoot for Chuck this past weekend. Since I am her eyes and ears here in Los Angeles, she invited me and I got to spend my Sunday with Zachary Levi (Chuck), Adam Baldwin (Casey), and Yvonne Strahovski (Sarah).
After getting our marching orders and introducing ourselves to each other, we bloggers head into the sound stage to watch Adam Baldwin film a promo. He is tall and handsome and standing in front of a green screen. On cue he would walk into frame, keeping his eye on the camera the whole time, and then when he got to his mark he would just stop and stare. It was chilling and very Caseyesque and pretty cool to watch. Then the director would yell, “Back to one!” and he would do it again., smiling first and breaking character to be Adam for a second. Network logos will be added to the blank space behind him and these will be the promotional spots and pop-up ads for the international market, but right now it is just Adam walking up to a camera looking very menacing. It’s interesting to watch but it starts to get kind of repetitive. Then they add props! Someone gives Adam a giant 3D white heart to hold. (Seriously.) We realize it’s hollow when he starts throwing it up in the air and laughing. Then he turns it on its side and shows it to the camera so that the two humps of the heart look like butt cheeks. We laugh, the crew laughs, Adam laughs. Our guide ushers us outside so that we don’t disrupt the shoot.
As we’re standing outside the sound stage Zac Levi strolls up. Kristi (the awesome WB exec in charge of us) introduces us to him and asks him if he has some time to chat with us. He says yes and I am shocked at how quickly our chit-chat becomes An Interview. I don’t switch gears that quickly and feel weird taking notes during such an informal conversation and I don’t want to fish around in my purse for my digital recorder so I just try to pay attention.
Zac watches Lost. He’s a big fan and wants to know what we think the island is. He says he has given up on his alternate universe theory. I say something stupid about how like the existence of God I figure it can never be known so why bother speculating. That joke hits the dirt. To deflect attention I mention that Jace from Televisionary just got to meet the cast. (I know! I am such a good facilitator.) Zac geeks out and asks if Evangeline Lily was there. Jace sadly says no. Zac laments. Jace talks about who he did meet and we all talk about the careers of the various castaways.
Zac had forgotten that Terry O’Quinn was “the guy at the end of The Rocketeer.” He is very excited by this revelation. He totally wanted to be The Rocketeer when he was a kid. I have never seen it but I say, “Is that the one with the guy with the rocket-booster backpack?” Zac says yes and excitedly describes the getup. He jokes that we should not believe the movie. In his experience with flying you need much more than a helmut fin to steer in the air.
We talk about Henry Ian Cusick. He asks if we’ve seen Hitman. I think he says good things about it but I’m not sure. (Like I said: no notes, no recorder.) I say that I don’t think I have seen “Desmond” in anything else but that I could picture him (with a haircut) as a villain in a Die Hard-type film. Zac adorably agrees. I love this moment because one of my favorite things to do is to think of the kinds of roles certain actors would be good for, the other characters I could see them embodying. After this Zach mentions an indy film he did called Shades of Ray. I make a mental note to check it out.
At some point Adam comes out and introduces himself to us. He tells Zac about the heart. We tell him we saw the butt joke. He blushes. When he leaves we talk with Zac about how great Adam is as Casey and talk turns to Chuck. Since this is the show we’ve come to promote, I decide it is appropriate to pull out my tape recorder. We talk about Chuck/Sarah and Zac asks what we think of the relationship. Someone says that the longer they stay apart the better. Zac says he knows that’s the best way to go from an entertainment standpoint. “It’s like a Ross and Rachel thing.” We bloggers disagree about how getting Jim and Pam together is affecting The Office. (If you’re wondering, I think it’s great.) Zac asks us if they are dating on the show now and everyone hilariously jumps on him and tells him to watch The Office.
He says he is sure it is great, but that he loved the original too much. He tried the pilot and he just couldn’t do it. Someone suggests he try again, this time starting with Season Two, but Zach says he’s a “completionist” (my new favorite word). He has to watch a piece of work from the very beginning to the very end. He wants to see everything from the opening credits to the final moment. “I want to be able to judge something for its entire experience.” (That’s probably why he enjoys hardcore serial dramas like Heroes and Lost and why he loves video games so much. They reward the completionist.) At this point someone comes up to tell him it is time to go and offers him a ride to the sound stage where the still photo shoot is taking place. Zac says he can walk (”I need the cardio”) and thus we get a few more minutes with him.
I tell him I heard from “an insider” that he likes to drive the Nerd Heard golf cart around the Warner Brothers lot. He laughs and pretends to deny it before saying, “Yes, I do.” and telling us why: “When we shoot at Warner Brothers, which is, by the way, one of the coolest things in the world… I mean, some of our sound stages housed Maltese Falcon and Casablanca. Giant! Incredible movies. Humphrey Bogart was walking around in the Buy More at one point. That’s a little ridiculous. But [the Warner lot] is a little city. So I wanted a cart. And I’m a guy, so I had to have a car. So I got a little electric cart and I loved driving that around and then the production office, mainly CeCe Destefano who is our Artistic Director, she kind of spearheaded turning it into The Nerd Herder. It’s got the decals and everything just like my car. It’s ridiculous. But one of my favorite things to do in the day is . . . I’ve got my coffee, I’ve got my glasses on, and I’m driving around, waving at Sarah Connor Chronicles and Pushing Daises. ‘Hi, everybody. [waves] How are you? Ah, Moonlight. Hello.’ It’s really fun.”
Then it’s time for him to go into the photo shoot. Like I said in Part One of this recap, Yvonne was shooting when got to the other sound stage. [And by the way, everyone turned and laughed when we walked in. They said when we came around the corner it was nuts. There was no one and suddenly there was this big group of people. Zac Levi and his entourage. Heh.] Yvonne greets Zac and the two of them take some still shots together. They ham it up, she jumps on his back, they give the camera Spy v. Spy looks. It’s very cute. Then she leaves and Zac does a solitary shoot in the driver’s seat of a classic car. As I mentioned before, there were so many adorable and hilarious shots. I am really hoping they end up on the net so that everyone can see them. Had I known the photographer was going to be so cool I would have been snapping pictures right along with her. Zac gives great face.
We have to leave at that point because “Penn is on his way.” I faux-casually turn to Kristi, “Penn Badgely?” She nods and smiles because she knows I watch Gossip Girl and as we are walking away from the sound stage we talk about what a talented actor Penn is. I tell her that I recently suffered through The Bedford Diaries because I wanted to see him in another role. She says she never watched it. We all tell her how awful it was and I say it was rightfully cancelled. Just then a golf cart drives past us with Penn Badgely on the back. He waves to Kristi. I (dumbly) wave back like he was waving to me and grin like a crazy fangirl. Kristi is happy that I got to at least glimpse the guy behind Dan Humphrey. I pull it together and remind her that The TV sleeper will gladly cover any Gossip Girl media days they might have in the future.
We go back to the stage with the green screen and wait for Zac to show up. It’s his turn to do promo spots for the international market. For awhile he is just walking into frame and being all Chuck-like just like Adam was doing earlier with Casey. Then they give him the heart. Zac kind of loves it. He spins it on his finger like a basketball. The director says, “It’s a heavy heart.” Zac: “Like the heart is actually heavy or I personally have a heavy heart?” (Heh.) Director: “The heart is heavy.” Like a mime, Zac pretends the heart is too heavy for him to hold on to. He bends at the waist and almost drops it. He tries to lift it, but he can’t. It’s hilarious. Then the director says, “Now play it like you have a heavy heart.” Zac switches gears quickly and puts on his best sad, forlorn face while he cradles the heart to his chest. “Hug the heart.” Zac gives it a big squeeze. The crew is sitting in big couches in the back of the room watching everything on a monitor and laughing. If you’ve seen the show, you know how funny this guy can be even when he is saying nothing at all. Just his eyes and his facial expressions can crack you up.
When he’s done with the prop he has to deliver lines from a teleprompter. You know, things like, “Hi, I’m Zachary Levi and you’re watching Chuck on CTV, Canada’s blah blah blah.” Or “Next up, Chuck!” It wasn’t as repetitive as it sounds because it was a real opportunity to watch him work. The director would say something like, “Less camp” or “More Bond” and Zach would change his performance accordingly. It was impressive. And I felt so happy for him when the director would laugh or give positive feedback. “That was cute,” “Perfect,” etc. Then came “How’s your Spanish?” and suddenly the stakes were raised. Zac responded (in Spanish) letting the director know he was game and everyone laughed. He then proceeded to do promos in Spanish, Portuguese (for Brazil), and Italian. He got flustered when he saw what he thought was some unknown Asian language, “Am I really supposed to say this? ‘Bem bom bean’? Is that right?” The director laughs. “It’s music. They want you to hum a tune.” I’m still confused but Zac nods like it is all clear to him now and he makes the sounds again this time in that voice we all use when playing air guitar. Classic.
And then it’s time for lunch. We leave Zac to continue his promo shoot and head over to craft services. They have a truck where you order and there’s a guy grilling chicken and pork and salmon. We get our food and our drinks and sit down at what looks to be the same kind of table we had in my junior high. Adam Baldwin joins us. He is very funny and doesn’t miss a beat when we put our recorders on the table and go into interview mode. Because there were four of us asking questions, the conversation kind of jumped around a lot and because it was noisy in the room my recorder didn’t always pick up every question or comment from the people who weren’t me or Adam so instead of trying to fill in the blanks from memory I am just going to switch to bullet points.
* Adam promises that we will get some back story on Casey after the hiatus. (They have two more episodes shot and they will air in January.)
* We’ll get to see more of Jeff and Lester.
* Someone says they thought the way they had Casey seductively wash his car was funny. Me: “Really? I thought it was kind of gross.” Adam: “He is kind of creepy.”
* We congratulate him on his first back nine order. Firefly and Day Break weren’t so lucky.
* He talks about how this was a much easier sell than horses in space.
* I tell him I saw a bunch of his former Firefly castmates at Whedon Fan Day at Fox. He says he had to work but asks me who was there. I tell him Nathan, Alan, Morena, Summer, and Ron and from Angel Amy Acker and Eliza. He jokes: “The brainwashed ones!”
* On what sets Joss apart: “He’s just so well read. He brings so much history to the quirkiest modern day situation. He has a flair for language. It’s his wordsmithery, in a soundbite.”
* Who would win in a fight, Jayne (Firefly/Serenity) or Casey? Adam thinks about it and decides Jayne. Jayne would fight dirtier.
Yvonne arrives. She introduces herself to us and greets Adam. I move to the other side of the table so that I can hear what she’s saying. Even though I saw her earlier during her photo shoot when I am sitting next to her I am stunned by how beautiful she is. It would be intimidating if she wasn’t so d**n sweet.
* Even though she had roles in Australia, she has never experienced anything like the promotion Chuck received. The billboards, the ads, etc. She says it’s very weird.
* Yvonne’s favorite episode is “Chuck vs. the Truth.”
* Adam: “Chuck vs. the Sandworm.”
* Yvonne says she likes the episodes that have more heart. Adam jokes that he prefers comedy.
* Yvonne doesn’t really watch television. She likes the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet.
* Adam: “Well there’s Chuck, of course. [laughs] So there’s Chuck… I like Entourage, Weeds, South Park, Family Guy. The Hills, I love The Hills.” We laugh because we think he is kidding but he follows it up very seriously (I think) with, “Really. Spencer’s my hero. I can’t wait to meet that guy.”
* When I ask Yvonne what she thinks about how they have set up the world on Chuck: the woman is the trained assassin and the lead male is the one hiding behind her for protection she says, “Well, it’s as it should be” and laughs before nodding seriously and saying that she means it. It is in this moment that I decide Yvonne is at least as cool as Sarah.
* Adam and Yvonne talk about how they need to have another fight scene. They had a lot of fun shooting the first one. Adam bemoans the fact that as Casey he never gets to win.
* Yvonne says the Weinerlicious outfit is actually great to fight in because she has so much freedom of movement. Adam makes a joke about the underwear she wears under her costume and Yvonne deadpans, “I don’t wear underwear.”
* Yvonne actually improvised the awesome stunt where Sarah jumps up onto the Weinerlicious counter in order to intimidate Lester in “Chuck vs. the Hard Salami.” She suggested it, made sure she could do it, and they shot it. We are all dumbfounded at this point and kind of in love with her. Us: “Really?” Her: “Really. If you get out your cameras I can show you.”
* She tells us that she was trained in the theatre and when asked says she didn’t have to unlearn those techniques in order to act on TV but that it’s just a different skill set.
* She talks about her accent and explains how someone from Australia learns to train their mouth to speak American. She says Americans are more confident and their inflection goes down at the end of sentences. Adam jokes that Aussie’s draw out even the shortest of words. He hilariously says “Noooooo” in an over-the-top Australian accent and brings the entire table to tears.
* Moments later Alex O’Laughlin (another Aussie!) walks in looking ruggedly gorgeous. He waves to Adam and Yvonne. Before he can come over to socialize, a publicist jumps up to let him know that we are bloggers. (Such a dirty word on a set.) He goes instead to get some lunch and Yvonne tells us that her mom and Alex’s dad actually worked together back in Australia. We all comment on how remarkable that is that they would have hit shows on at the same time, shooting on the same lot, and Yvonne agrees that it is very cool and says that he’s a great guy.
* Adam makes a dirty joke about the character Harry Tang’s wife: her first name was originally “Pu,” but Standards and Practices wouldn’t allow it. Yvonne doesn’t know enough Urban American slang to get the joke and we all laugh.
* I ask how Adam keeps his face so straight when playing Casey. His face is always so expressionless and yet the audience always knows what he is thinking. Adam says that in close-ups especially you just do less. He jokes that when he looks all seriously at the camera no one knows that he is actually thinking about his laundry.
* Adam talks about what an amazing director McG is. He loves actors and provided a lot of time for rehearsal before the pilot shoot so that they could all get to know each other. He explains his vision carefully and his shot list and provides so much reference material that when it comes to the actual shoot as an actor you have so much less to worry about.
* Zac keeps them laughing on set. If Zac loses it, Adam loses it. Yvonne says it’s the twinkle in the eye just before the smirk that makes her laugh.
* Yvonne says they “make characters” to entertain themselves/each other on set. They do voices and little bits. She and Adam both say “I know, riiiiight!” like they’re on The Hills and crack each other up.
* When it comes to the actual shooting, Adam doesn’t improvise very much. He does grunt though. He laughs when we talk about the line of dialogue that addresses it in “Chuck vs. the Crown Victoria.” He liked that.
* Adam says Josh Gomez (Morgan) and Zac improvise a lot. They go on and on and on at the end of takes and it’s hilarious.
* The cast does play pranks on each other. Yvonne tells us that Zac once left a stinky surprise in Josh Gomez’s trailor. She and Adam laugh heartily and Adam tells us that the story is off the record. Zac arrives and Adam tells him that we have been talking about the fun they have on set and Zac says, “Did you already talk about the poop?” Everyone cracks up and Adam yells, “That’s all back on the record now, guys.” Awesome.
We only got a few minutes with the three of them before Yvonne had to leave but Adam stayed a little while longer and Zac stayed for an additional hour. Unfortunately for you’ll have to come back for Part Three if you want to read those juicy bits.
Next time: What exactly is a rutebega? What would you find if you went snooping in Casey’s apartment? What does Zac have to say about Kristen Bell and a possible Heroes crossover in the future?
LOL! 
