James Roday, Dule Hill and Steve Franks – Psych

By starrymag | March 21, 2014

Q) I know you guys are really big in Twitter, but we haven’t heard much about you guys sharing about what the final day was like. Can you talk a little bit about who was the last to film and what happened the final day?

Steve: The last day of principal photography was the last day of the Nightmare on State Street episode and it was an awesome night because it was James Roday at the helm and he so bravely decided that he – early on in the process that he wanted to be directing the last night that we shot. So it was a bitter-sweet night. It was, but at the same time, it was an all-night shoot. It was this amazing night where we had so many of us dressed up as zombies and it was the culmination – it was more joyous than sad because we’d had a sort of a 1000 goodbyes up to that point. And it’s crew and actors all had their last day so it wasn’t like there were a lot of tears but it was sort of a great celebration of all the crazy things we’d done. And perhaps the craziest thing we’d done was that night. James Roday I think that probably gives you an opening to expand on, maybe.

James: It’s a bit of a blur for me because I was completely inebriated before we even started shooting. I also think it was a little easier to sort of – on the pallet that we ended with everybody in full zombie makeup and contact lenses and flesh dripping off their faces. It was just – it was all so ridiculous and a little bit surreal that it kind of – it prevent us from getting too sentimental in the moment, I think, because everybody looked like they were dead.

Dulé: And also, I mean the fact that it was 2:00 or 3:00 o’clock in the morning, I don’t know what time it was that we actually finished. We all were kind of fatigued anyway so there wasn’t too much room for emotions. And then on top of that, Steve Franks said we had said goodbye so many times people in cast, when I finished our show, we would always sing Happy Birthday but it was a guest cast for anybody. So as people were leaving for the final time, we sang a million and one Happy Birthdays and I believe we sang Once for the Show when Roday called “cut” on the last shot I believe we sang Happy Birthday to Psych. And then, if I’m not mistaken, Roday and I went into the camera truck because that was like the meeting spot after a long day of filming. So, with the camera crew, we went and had a little toast, a little more – a drink or two and that was it.

Steve: Yes, we had already said goodbye to Maggie and Tim and Corbin and Kirsten and to half of our crew that went on to start working on other things. So it was really a lot of that – a lot of the harder sort of stuff was finished and it was a celebratory 3:00 o’clock in the morning.

Dulé: And was it the green screen? Is that what we shot last, I think? And correct me if I’m wrong, we did – the last shot was a green screen shot with me screaming.

James: We had to grab a shot from the day before that we didn’t get so the final thing that was ever shot, the eight-year run of Psych, the series, was Dulé in front of a green screen screaming. That was it. That’s how we wrapped it up.

Q) What do you all hope the legacy of the show is? What do you hope that fans will take away from the eight seasons of delicious flavor you guys have provided?

Dulé: For me, I just hope that they say that it was a lot of laughs. That it was a show that they can get together with their family or friends and it was a lot of laughs and it actually strengthened relationships. Whether it was relationships that were already there, was, as I said, the family or new relationships. I know a lot of Psychos actually became friends because of the show so I hope that that would be the legacy that this – the show would leave — long-lasting, lasting relationships.

Steve: I always hope that, you know, that the show was created for a reaction to what was on television. And it seems like, to me, my goal was always to make you feel a little better about yourself and the world when you finish watching an episode of Psych than you could when you started, which you don’t often get watching an episode of Duck Dynasty or Law and Order Special Victims Unit or whatever the latest incarnation is. I always wanted to make – in a small way, make the world a tiny bit of a better place and through our silly little hour that we came on and jumped into peoples’ lives for a little time. And to me, I hope that it’s one of those things that makes people happy and continues to make them happy. And the best letters we ever get are the ones people talking about how they were down in the dumps or they were going through a tough time in their lives and this show somehow brought them together. And like Dulé said, the show, through no real intention of our own, somehow has become this thing that families watch together. We sort of thought it as a show for people our age and we found out that people much younger and people older than us really gravitated toward us. And it’s very strange when we get people who say this is a show we watch with our kids. And we think back to some of the jokes we put in and then we’ll notice. But it’s, you know, it’s one of those things that I think that I hope they – it did bring people closer together and make them feel better about everything that’s going on in their world.

James: Yes, the only thing I could add to any of that is just that I feel like the right people came together at the exact right time on the exact right network. And it kind of resulted in a show that played by its own rules. We kind of got to do whatever we wanted. Like we’re a show that took you wherever we wanted to take you from week to week and it was a rare experience where I think we were able to kind of leave it all out on the field. And we had the support of our studio and our network combined with the blessing of them maybe not even really entirely understanding what we were doing, which, I think, would often work to our advantage. And as a result, we kind of got to make a show on our own terms, which is incredibly rare and we got to do it for eight years. And that’s extraordinary.

Q) You certainly received a lot of love from fans through the fan art and videos and what have been some of your favorite either pictures or moments or things that fans have shared with you individually?

James: My favorite moments were always with our Make-a-Wish kids visits up to Vancouver on the set. It always kind of blew my mind. It was beyond humbling that anybody would choose the set of Psych to fulfill their wish. And then on top of that, they were just, you know, all of them were just the most precious, beautiful little human beings. Would come up with their families and friends and sometimes extended families and basically the smiles, the look on their faces. The fact that for one day in an otherwise kind of troubled existence where these innocent children are facing so much adversity but the struggles and the illnesses that they’re facing we got to make one of those days a little bit brighter. Just the snapshot of each of those days was always sort of the most fulfilling fan anything for me. That’s for sure.

Dulé: Yes, I mean I would definitely agree with that. I think Rode answered it for the two of us. That, by far, exceeded anything else. But it – all the fan interaction in general has been a bit of mind-blowing the fact that people really engaged us to the level that they have. I mean whether they would come to Vancouver or we’d be at the Comic Con or you run into somebody on the street, they were always pleasant and just really genuinely happy. Like the fact that what you could do would have that kind of effect on people, it’s humbling.

Steve: Yes, this amazing girl that really touched all of us. Her name was Anna. Her name is Anna King and she’s on the heart transplant list and she took herself off the heart transplant list to come to the set in Vancouver. You have to stay a certain amount of mileage between your hospital to wait for it. And the fact that they were willing to sort of take that chance and to see that how much that this show her parents said that it was so much – it was more for her health to come to our set than to be on the – off the list for three days. And this girl is such an amazing thing and James Roday ended up wearing her – she’s got these amazing – she’s got this sort of Anna King project, she calls it. It’s a heart for a king and James Roday actually wore a bracelet that she wore – that she had made during much of the last season. And those kind of things you can’t touch, you can’t beat that with anything else. It’s just been an amazing thing. I think we sometimes would have more than one Make-a-Wish coming through on each day because I don’t know. Maybe we sort of touched people in that way but we always wanted to see always wanted to be welcome and available for stuff like that.

Q) It’s funny you would say that because of what the USA Network President said when they announced that this is the final season. He said, “I don’t believe we’ve heard the last of Shawn and Gus.” And I was just wondering, is there anything to that? Is there any kind of something else in the works?

Steve: I have wondered myself what the hell that meant and I was like what are you talking about? Shouldn’t somebody inform me of all people of what the heck that means? For us, we knew at the beginning of Season 8 this was going to be the last one and as you sort of see, we sort of were winding everything down. And we had this very strange thing where we weren’t allowed to acknowledge that and I guess there’s a master plan for everything. But it’s like I never stopped wanting to make a version of this show and I’ve always kept it very much out there that I would love to make a movie above all else. And we could talk about other variations. We’re all off onto different projects. We’re all very excited what we’re doing now. But like James Roday said in the last one, it’s a magical time that came together with the right people and the right situation and we were sort of given the keys to the car and no road map. So we were able to do most everything that we wanted to do and you don’t want to give up those kind of opportunities. We loved doing the show. I think we’ve all acknowledged that at some point if there’s another, whether it’s a movie or something else, obviously, I don’t think it would be like a full-time series again. But I think most of us would jump at that and we would be really excited to sort of get back in this world. Because I don’t think I’m ever going to have as much fun doing anything else as I’ve had doing this. I have no idea what the hell that meant but I’ll take it.

Dulé: Yes, I think we’re all hoping that it, echoing what Steve Franks said, I think we’re all hoping that we’ll do some type of film or something. Because we just enjoy working with each other and we enjoyed the fans and there are always stories there to tell within the Psych world. We hope that there is something more behind our series finale on March 26.

Q) What is the thing you miss most or you will miss most from making the show?

Dulé: For me, it’s the camaraderie. I mean I really enjoyed working with everybody. I mean there are very few times where you just enjoy going to work and you could spend 13, 14 hours a day with people and not get sick of them. I mean I laughed every day that I showed up. No matter what was going on in my life, it was always a place where it was an emotional relief and having a good time and I’d look forward to going to work. I’m going to miss seeing obviously, the cast like Rode and Tim and Maggie. I’m, you know, and the times that, you know, Steve Franks would come and any of the writers from L.A. and – but the crew too. I really loved working with the crew. We had such a wonderful time there and we just laughed every day and all day. And that’s what I’m going to miss the most.

Steve: I actually probably have a list too long to go on but I think what I’m – besides all the things that Dulé mentioned I think being on the set, the action of having a script start out, I’m going to miss being on the van scouting locations. Because we were always doing some sort of crazy new world and the day we start prep, it never feels like we’ll be able to pull off whatever world we’re trying to dive in that day. But perhaps the most of all, I’m going to miss the Blendz milk chocolate mocha that I would get every morning before going down to the set. And because you don’t have it in the United States and I’m just urging the Blendz Company to please expand South and particularly into California, Southern California so that’s a plea for that. I’m going to miss the Oda Momay and Joey’s on Barrard. It has this sort of great Szechuan sauce that’s really fantastic so I think between the Blendz and the Oda Momay, those two are going to be – it’s going to be hard to beat. And also the camaraderie and the relationships but mostly the Blendz, the then Oda Moma, then the camaraderie and then the scouting.

James: Actually, everything that Dulé said for sure. I mean if I got a little more specific on it, I would just focus in on the laughter. For eight years, there was at least one moment a day where I laughed so hard that it became unpleasant and that’s a tough thing to find in life and with any kind of consistency. But we made each other laugh to the point of vomiting sometimes and we did it with a wonderful group of people that we had affection for. And, in some cases, I truly do believe that laughter is the best medicine and we had the best medicine for eight years. And now, it’s back to popping pills which that’s what everybody has. That’s what everybody does.

Q) The show was big remakes and cult classics. We explained the Twin Peaks references and all The Breakfast Club members that we saw on the show. So they wanted to know if there was one that you wish you could have done before the show ended?

Steve: I don’t think there’s one. I think there’s like ten of them.

James: I think since you brought up – since you did bring up The Breakfast Club thing, it’s less of a world and I would have loved to complete that set. I can finally just say it out loud now and stop being sly about it. I feel like Emilio’s the one that got away from us and it wasn’t for lack of trying. We really did come at it from every angle we could think of but we just couldn’t make it happen. And that’s a hole I wish we could have filled.

Steve: Yes and to me, story-wise, at the beginning of every year, I would come in with like 16 to 25 different arenas that I wanted to play in. And the one that was on the list every year and we never cracked it and we wasted so much time trying was time travel. And I was really bummed we never cracked it because we could never come up with a satisfying time travel story without actually having Shawn or Gus travel through time, which we were sure the network was going to balk at. They let us get away with a lot but having Gus suddenly come up and being in the Road Warrior, that we could never connect the dots on that. So that would be – that was one that we could never make happen and, you know, it was never going to happen. But that was sort of the big one that we left on the table.

Dulé: And I’m not one to say why we couldn’t do a Boogie Nights remake.

James: I teased it, man. I teased like three times in a row. I couldn’t get any slack – get any – no love on the Boogie Nights episode.

Steve: Sometimes it gets late in the day and you’re doing what you call a punch on the script and something seems really funny. And the minute you see it on TV and then someone says, “I watch your show with my children,” and you think back to that day when something was really funny and then you’d shake your head a little bit and you just hope that nobody was paying attention.

Q) I think for me and for a lot of fans, Gus and Shawn’s friendship was the heart of the show. Can each of you kind of pick a Shawn and Gus moment that stands out in your memory?

Dulé: I think for me it always goes back to American Duos when we got to dress up as Roland Orzabal and Michael Jackson and a shot. I mean one, because it was surreal anyway being there on stage, singing that song. John Lennon had – we had people in the audience who were – they were directed to scream at us so they were screaming as if we were rock stars. And then John Landis was in the wings or behind the monitor directing us. But then what’s really interesting is that that’s actually something that started off camera that made its way to screen. I remember at the end of the season before that, Roday and I were just a late night. We were joking around, doing shouts as if Michael Jackson, Roland Orzabal did it and then it made it, you know, they – it became an episode. I mean that always just stuck out in mind. That stuck out for me and that’s what also when like Psych really found its legs in terms of we can go anywhere. I believe that was Season 2, the season premiere of Season 2 and you just kind of realize like, “Well this is going to be a really funny show. We have – I mean if we’ve done this, we can do anything.”

James: Wow, gosh man. There are so many for me. It’s hard to choose one but I’ll give you sort of a dichotomy that I think has covered. It can only be one. It can only be Juan. At least I have a land bear. For me it was always the sort of dichotomy of this friendship where on the one hand, they would die for one another but in any given episode, one would leave the other one alone facing the perils of death and run as quickly as he possibly could in the opposite direction. I think those two elements is what made that friendship so special because you had both. Like you had, you know, all right, I’m going to – we’re going to sit here and argue over which one of us wants to get poisoned first so that the other one doesn’t have to watch, you know, the other one die. But in the same friendship, you know, you hear a loud noise, take off running, you know, you’re on your own, man. And it works. Like it always worked both sides of that. But I do think, you know, just to sort of put a finer point on it, like that conversation in the final yin-yang episode where we’re both tied up and, you know, Robocop is about to stick us. And we literally take the time to bicker over who wants to die first because neither of us want to see the other one go does sort of tell you everything you need to know about these two.

Steve: And since those two guys hit on sort of the essential moments, to me, it was the moment that I’d wanted to write from the beginning. And it’s the moment where the guys actually finally have a fist fight and it’s Indiana Shawn episode when Shawn is really – when Gus realizes that Shawn has stolen this dagger. And it, you know, for me, it was – I was always working towards I want these guys to fight each other at some point. And to me, that was – it was the encapsulation, again, of what James Roday says about this sort of the set because their fight is the most ridiculous thing that you’ve ever seen and it was so fun to shoot. And it was, you know, you could watch 25 seconds of that and know everything you need to know about the eight years of the show.

James: Gus brought a program to a knife fight.

Dulé: You want to bumble with the D, huh?

Q) Can you tell us what you have coming up? You said you have other projects.

Dulé: I’m here in New York. I’m out doing a show here on Broadway right now and I think I’ll be doing it for a few more months. And we will see what comes next.

James: Yes and I’m actually writing something. I’m actually writing something but once again, like the end of Psych, I’m not allowed to announce yet so I don’t know why but I can’t.

Steve: Yes, I’m kind of in the same boat. I’ve written something that I’m not allowed to announce although when I am allowed to announce it, I feel like it’s going to be a little anti-climactic, to be honest. And then, I’ve made my first film last year, the same year that we finished Psych, which was kind of a – it was sort of a big year of things that I had been working on for a really long time ending at the same time. And I’m out there trying to sell the film and hopefully find a home for the movie so that people can see it. I think Psych fans, especially the ones that are 17 or older, will enjoy it and, Dulé may or may not appear briefly but memorably in the film. I don’t know. I can’t remember. It was a while back when we shot. And that’s sort of consuming a lot of my time these days. Independent film making is a grind for sure and the only thing harder than getting the movie made is getting somebody to care about it once it’s finished. So that’s where a lot of my energy is these days.

Q) Did any of you take anything specifically from the set that you’ve kept as mementos besides, of course, the memories and videos and all the wonderful merchandise that we’re getting to enjoy?

Dulé: I said I may or may not have taken my Burton Guster name plate from the Psych office. I may or may not have taken the newspaper article from Spelling Bee that was up in the Psych office. And I may or may not have taken a piece of the rim from the destroyed Blueberry. I may or may not have taken those things.

James: I wanted only one thing and it actually applies to a question from earlier. I wanted the dagger that they fought over in the Indiana Shawn episode and it ended up being sent to me. Unfortunately, they didn’t send me the one that had the key carved out of it so I actually have this very dangerous sharp rusty dagger that’s now in my house somewhere. But it’s spectacular. It was one of the only things that I really wanted to keep from the set but I was very, very happy to keep it.

Steve: I did take my name plate. It was the one that matched Gus’. They sat on our desks for all eight years. It kind of sort of represented the whole sort of Psych side of the show. And then the only other thing that I had always planned on taking, which I somehow managed to botch and I don’t know how. All I know is that I don’t have it, is the original Winky cutout, the frog whose eyes popped out when you squeezed him. I tagged him. I knew he was still there. I focused in. I was myopic that last week and I somehow managed to not come back to America with him so that’s a bummer, huh?

James: Yes, I think someone swiped that.

Steve: Yes, I think that’s what happened but I’m not – my heart is filled with so much love. I’m not going to sit here and start making accusations and pointing fingers now. I won’t do it.

James: Well, I know I don’t have it but I know our last day — and this is a bonus tidbit for everybody on here — out last day in the Psych office that we shot was – is in the episode that comes next week, The Nightmare on State Street, which is, hands-down, the craziest thing we’ve done on the show. And the Psych office is boarded up and overrun with zombies and there were a lot of people in there as the thing basically was completely demolished. So I have a feeling that Winky kind of walked away on that day.

 

*CONFERENCE CALL*