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NY Comic Con 2009: Chuck vs. The Press Room

Before Chuck creators Josh Schwartz, Chris Fedak and the sublimely stunning Yvonne Strahovski headed down to the Comic Con floor to do their panel in front of a room teeming with fans, they spent a few minutes in a much smaller room with a handful of reporters hyping the show and the upcoming episodes. With good reason, based on the flashy trailer for the rest of the season that they presented. It looks pretty much awesome. Even Capt. Awesome will be duly impressed. Lots of guns, girls, spy games and a really awkward situation between Big Mike and Morgan. I'm pretty psyched. While we only had a few minutes with the trio before they were whisked away, here's the intel we were able to ascertain.

Did bad retail experiences inspire the Buy More?
Josh Schwartz: You have to tell some Disney World stories.
Chris Fedak: I worked at Disney World in high school, and even after I graduated. That was kind of the ultimate in "wear a crazy uniform and do a crazy job." My job was [selling] those glow-in-the-dark necklaces wearing an outfit of a schoolboy from the turn of the century [with] some strange knickers and tights.
Josh: What does that have to do with selling glow-in-the-dark necklaces? Was that a big thing at turn of the century schools?
Chris: [Smirks] Actually it was my own clothes I wore. It was a fantastic job in a weird way, not working at a McDonalds, but I don't have any crazy stories aside from that whenever a celebrity came in, they made a point of not letting me serve them.

Was there a cockney accent involved?
Chris: I tried to be a method actor when I was out there, but they were like, "oh no, no. Don't be scaring the children." From my perspective I thought they were there to see me. It was a colorful place to work and I think we draw from all those old jobs. The Buy More is kind of a home for our show.
Josh: We talked earlier that we didn't want to make it depressing. It is bright and color and fun and there's Guitar Hero and Playstation readily available for anyone who wants to work there. The yogurt gig [at the Orange Orange] has been rough on you [points to Yvonne] because you hate yogurt.
Yvonne: The one thing i don't like in the world is yogurt. It makes me gag. And I'm in a yogurt store now.
Chris: So when we made you do all that slow motion... eating it over and over again...
Yvonne: Yeah. I know. It was frozen so it wasn't as bad as just the yogurt. It just stinks. I don't know how people can eat it.
Josh: Who knew that the Weiner-licious was the height of glamor?
Yvonne: I've tried to eat yogurt. I want to like it, but I don't. It just stinks.

Would they consider a new restaurant for season 3?
[This causes a lot of speculation in the room about what kind of fast food joint it should be...] Josh: If we can get Quiznos to pay for it, we'll do it. We're facing dire economic times in the television biz.

Yvonne, what was it like seeing yourself in 3-D?
Josh: Did you reach out and touch yourself?
Yvonne: No! It was good. It was weird at first. The whole process was a little weird. It took a little longer than filming a regular episode because the cameras were so complex and made funny noises while we were shooting. But it was fun, and a good episode.

How can you top it?
Chris: Smell-o-vision.
Josh: 4-D.

Maybe a musical episode?
Josh: [The cast] did that commercial inside the Super Bowl with everyone singing "Feelin' Alright." You saw the whole cast high kickin' it up there. [Adam] Baldwin was even dancing.
Yvonne: Baldwin was having a great time.
Josh: You think maybe that this would be an episode.
Yvonne: I think we should do Chuck goes to Paris.
Josh: We've talked about Chuck goes to Paris. It will be Chuck lands. There will be a shot of the Eiffel Tower and you guys will be green screened and then the rest will be in parking garages and basements.
Chris: With the notion that Chuck the whole time will be [complaining], "I've been in Paris and only been in garages and alleys."

Will Casey get more of a backstory... or maybe a bromance? Josh: He and Chuck... there's some sexual tension there.[Laughs] I think Casey is going to be faced with some moral dilemmas. We always talk about Casey's evolving humanity and I think that will be really tested as we near the end of the season.
Chris: Becoming an actual human.
Josh: A real person.
Chris: We don't have a specific backstory, but there are a lot of Casey-centric episodes.

Will there be more Sarah backstory then?
Josh: No. We're done with her. [Laughs]

What was it like filming episodes about Sarah's past?
Yvonne: I love those episodes because it is all about me.
Josh: She's only kind of kidding.
Yvonne: Me in the flashback with the bad hair and the braces? I love doing all that stuff. It is so much fun.
Josh: We talked about if we had to cast another actress, or if she wanted to play it...
Yvonne: Did you really? I didn't know that.
Josh: Of course, you've got to. But then we saw her and were like, she's committed.
Yvonne: We should do more ugly Sarah.
Josh: Because that's what the audience wants. They want more of [people like] me on television.

Are there ever too many Buy More centric subplots?
Josh: It's a reality of the show that we can't have Sarah and Chuck in every scene of the show. The Buy More is the place you go so you can actually make 43 minute episodes. We knew that we needed those stories to work on their own, independent of what Chuck was doing. I think our favorite episodes are the ones where everything comes together. Like Christmas, when they are all held hostage in the Buy More. But you can only take the Buy More hostage so many times.
Chris: Seven.
Josh: So we always say that Morgan, in a way, is the Chuck of Buy More. That's Fedak's line, I'm taking.
Chris: I was going to say...
Josh: Some stuff about Big Mike is going to come out and make it uncomfortable for someone else at the Buy More. We're always trying to shape those characters and learn more about them.
Chris: I think the money part of our show is our actors and our characters. I love action and when we come up with some crazy ideas, but so often you come back to the message boards and what people are talking about and it is the character arcs and what their favorite characters are doing. I was excited about Chuck vs. the Gravitron where we actually shot inside a Gravitron. I was like, 'we're going to do this! It will be so fantastic!' It is one of my favorite scenes and then people talked about the character stuff.

Will we be getting more Anna any time soon?
Josh: In a few weeks she actually has a very significant episode coming up.

Any chance C.S. Lee (Harry Tang) will make a return appearance?
Josh: We keep waiting for Dexter to make him his next victim, but unfortunately he's survived. Tony Hale has come in in that kind of a role and he's been amazing. It was let's keep him around for two episodes... three episodes and now he's with us for the whole rest of the season... and beyond.

Any crazy stunts to keep an eye out for?
Chris: We're always asking them to do wacky stunts.
Yvonne: I always get injured.
Josh: That's your own fault though... drinking on the job.
Yvonne: You weren't supposed to talk about it. I've had a few bumps and bruises. I had one a couple of weeks ago. It wasn't a stunt, it was coming out of a trap door.
Josh: She was coming out of her trailer. [Laughs]

Are you excited for the rest of the season of Chuck? Sound off below.

3 Comments

February 16, 2009 9:45 AM
chowie
Reply

Great questions! Better than the questions from the actual panel itself (of the "May I have your autograph?" variety). Looking forward to a new ep tonight!

February 16, 2009 2:48 PM
Christi
Reply

Great interview, especially with time constraints. I missed the singing superbowl ad...I'll have to check youtube. Yay for new Chuck episode tonight!!

February 16, 2009 8:19 PM
t
Reply

haha, was Yvonne serious when she mentioned Adam Baldwin having fun doing the singing ad? Adam dancing was priceless. I've seen one too many and it never fails to make me laugh when I see Adam. Come to think of it he did look like he was having a great time. Twould have been out of this world if he was at the middle,and Captain Awesome and Ellie were missing, Adam's dancing prowess was quite enough to keep me laughing. I love interview like these, there are just these questions that keeps us surprising like Yvonne hating yogurt, Chris working at Disney. I love Chuck and I really hope they'd be back for next season. And I really can't wait for tonights episode.

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