 PCM
recently had the opportunity to participate in a conference
call with Pysch creator Steve Franks and star Dule Hill! Check
out what they had to say below! ! |
| Q:
It is what advice would you give to aspiring writers in the
business? |
| Steve
Franks: I can't believe I got the first question with Dule
Hill on the line. Don't you guys know that there is a television
star on this line? I'm very excited. Thank you very much for
that. For me, my advice is to write and to keep writing if you
want to be a writer because if you want to be an actor writing
doesn't really help you that much. For me, I was working at
Disneyland and working in college and I wrote five scripts before
I ever went out with one because the first three were terrible
and then the fourth one was less terrible. The fifth one I thought
was pretty good. The fifth one I set up and sold. For me, I
didn't know anybody in the business. I didn't have any relatives
in the business. I just knew I always wanted to do it. I knew
from the time I was in fifth grade. I was writing scripts in
fifth grade, so I just knew that I was going to be in it for
the long haul and I had to just keep working at it. For me it
was trial and error, trial and error, and trial and error.
The interesting thing about being a writer
is so many of my friends were like, "Yes, I want to write.
That's cool." I always encourage them to keep writing and
you find out who really wants to be a writer by who's still
around two years later.
|
| Q:
What can you tell us about the fall finale and where we're going
when the show comes back? |
| Steve
Franks: The fall finale is really, really fun and really
intense. The idea came about after we had the Mr. Yang episode
that ended last year. We thought how fun was it to really have
a fun, suspenseful, intense episode. Bonnie Hammer, the head
of pretty much half of the world and our NBC/USA world really
loved that episode and wanted to see us do something like that,
so we decided, "You know what? Let's do something great and
exciting." We actually shot this episode third and when we got
it back we were like, "Wow! This is really intense and is really
big and really has this unbelievable finale. It has so many
things. This is clearly not the light season kickoff. It's like
this is a season finale," so we actually shot this episode months
and months ago and we realized we've already done our season
finale, so we went on to the lighter, funnier, goofier stuff
that you've been seeing in the last few weeks.
It's really exciting and we like to do one
or two of these every half season where we do something that's
a little more intense and more exciting. In the spring we're
doing another one or in the winter. I guess it would be officially
called the winter. I call it the spring even though we don't
have a date yet for next year, but for us it's always about
building off of the core and what we can get away with in
Psych. Since we were able to get away with something more
intense with ... we sort of pushed it a little bit more in
this episode with all of the signature fun comedy that we
also get throughout this episode. Expect this to be probably
our most intense episode, a lot of fun, a slam-bang finale
and we'll follow that up in the spring with something equally
as crazy.
|
| Q:
Can you give us any kind of hints as to what we'll see in the
second half of the season? |
| Steve
Franks: Oh, my gosh. Of course I can. We're actually shooting
it right now. I finally realize my dream to do a Jaws episode,
so we're doing an episode with a shark attack. We're doing an
Outbreak episode. We've always wanted to do something fun with
that. Of course, what's more fun than a deadly virus on the
loose? What are we doing? In the spring, I call it, the winter,
we're starting off doing a military episode and we've landed
our dream guest star. That's John Cena from the World Wrestling.
We've been trying to do that since season one. We actually had
a wrestling idea. We're really excited. For me it's always been
each episode is a little movie, a little summer movie and we're
continuing that. Each episode probably couldn't be more different
than the last one and that's the way we like it until we run
out of worlds. |
| Q:
I was wondering about the The Mentalist; it's so similar to
Psych just on a more serious level. What was your initial reaction
to that? |
| Steve
Franks: Well, I think we can both probably comment on that.
For me, I guess it's the sincerest form of flattery, you know.
There's not really anything you can do about it, but we like
to take every opportunity we can to sort of play with it and
have fun with it. There will be a Mentalist reference in this
Friday's episode and probably a lot more in the winter season.
Dule? |
| Dule
Hill: I would agree with Steve. I mean it's not like that
show is taking away from our audience or we've taken away from
their audience. There's room for both of us on the air. I think
it's great there are actors out there who have work to do. There
is more television that's being made that's not a late night
talk show. I think it's a great thing. I mean on our show we
like to have a lot of fun anyway, so as long as they can take
us ribbing them every once in a while I think it's all good.
|
| Q:
From the beginning idea of Psych how has it changed to what
we, as the viewers, see? Were there a lot of things that you
had to change round character wise or anything or is it pretty
similar to the main idea? |
| Steve
Franks: For me, because I came from features, you write
a 110-page script and in that story the characters sort of go
along their arc, as they say. They go through their journey
and make the changes as the situations sort of change them.
In a TV show I sort of think of it as it's maybe a 110-episode
arc, so you take each episode is another minute of the movie.
The characters start in a certain place and then you expand
upon that world. We started our guys exactly where we wanted
them to. Gus had a life and Shawn had drifted a little bit out
of his world. Shawn had is life. They were sort of both looking
for something. Gus' world was too structured, his full-time
job. Shawn's life had no structure whatsoever and this opportunity
came about for these two guys to sort of rekindle their childhood
and have this great sort of fun adventure together. They've
been affecting each other every week and making each other more
complete and enriching their lives and developing and growing
up. Now it's been four years that they've been doing it and
they've undergone these great changes.
Important for us is we've expanded. Every
week we drive our network crazy because we never want to repeat
what we've done. We want to just expand and go a little bit
further, a little bit further so when we do a very intense
episode, like the one that comes Friday, we also want to do
a crazy episode a little bit crazier, just like the Spanish
Telenovela episode and the Hollywood episode.
I'm very happy with where we started. It's
fun for us; Dule, I'm sure, will talk much more eloquently
about this; to just keep expanding upon what we've done and
building on what we've done and stretching the rules just
a little bit more. Our goal is that people on Friday go, "Holy
crap. Did you see what they did on Psych Friday and they got
away with it?" That's our goal. Dule?
|
| Dule
Hill: I think you sell yourself short, Steve. I think you've
explained it very well. I mean it's a journey. As I said, I'm
only going to be repeating what Steve said. I think he nailed
it. I mean, as the show goes on you're kind of slowly, but surely,
going over this arc hopefully by the end of the series the characters
would have still maintained some of the elements of who they
were from the beginning, but they still have grown. They're
not the exact same person because nobody stays the same. Actually,
that's what keeps audiences interested. As I said, Steve, you
nailed it anyway. |
| Q:
How has both the series and the character of Gus unexpectedly
changed since the series began? |
| Steve
Franks: Dule, before we start I can tell you that one of
the great things about Dule, as we talked about the Gus/girlfriend
thing earlier, is every once in a while Dule is really great
about calling up in the best way and saying, "All right, Steve
Franks, what are you doing? Don't you think that Gus's character
should…?"
It's always in a very collaborative way and
in such a way that I'm like, "You know what? You're right.
We haven't explored that part of Gus. We haven't done that.
Gus has done this a little too much."
At the beginning of the season Dule called
and said, "Hey, when is Gus going to get a girlfriend coming
in?" So we sort of use that as a springboard to a really fun
episode that happens in the winter. I think for me it's like
I have the entire world to think about and it's always good
for me to check in with Dule or James or Maggie to sort of
see what are you looking for. They've been such a great collaborator
in terms of how we can push the character in a little further
direction.
Okay, Dule. Take it.
|
| Dule
Hill: I mean there haven't been too many things that have
been unexpected necessarily. It's weird when you use the word
unexpected because you're in the character so long that it's
always a collaborative effort when you're trying to figure out
what new places to go. I guess for myself the one thing would
be having a girlfriend coming on this year. It wasn't necessarily
unexpected because we spoke to Steve about it earlier in the
season. Also, the fact that Gus and Shawn can sing so well and
sing so much, I think that would be something from the get-go
of the show I never saw happening on the show so much.
I don't really know. It's a hard question
to answer so say what is unexpected with the character. It's
been a great journey. I've enjoyed each episode and seeing
where the character goes next in the different things that
come up. That's it.
|
| Steve
Franks: There's also something fun. We have this great built-in
device that Gus has these unbelievably odd interests that somehow
dovetail into the cases, so he has expertise in areas that are
always really fun, so Dule is always surprised to find out that
he happens to be an expert in a certain area. I remember the
first season when we did the Comic-Con episode and Dule was
like, "Gus is a comic book geek?"
I'm like, "Absolutely he is."
He's like, "Okay. I didn't see that coming."
|
| Dule
Hill: ... we're four years in and being that Gus does have
these random interests, things don't really surprise me. They're
not really as unexpected anymore, because Gus can be interested
in anything. He can be a connoisseur of anything. It doesn't
surprise me anymore. I mean, it can be anything random, the
fact that he may know some random thing that Gus may know, something
about space or something about - in the last episode that aired
he's a member of the largest on-line community to abolish the
practice of - what was that thing, Steve, taxidermy? |
| Steve
Franks: Yes |
| Dule
Hill: I mean it doesn't really surprise me anymore, but
to me it's what keeps the show funny. It's what keeps the character
interesting and lets it be an enjoyable thing to do. |
| Steve
Franks: We always think of Gus as a student of the world.
He wants to learn. He wants to learn and understand everything.
|
| Dule
Hill: He's actually a very corny renaissance man. |
| Steve
Franks: Exactly. |
| Dule
Hill: A cornball renaissance man. |
| Q:
Abigail hasn't really been present very much as Shawn's girlfriend.
Does this represent Shawn's lack of interest and ultimate attraction
to Juliet or is it something else? |
| Steve
Franks: Yes. Actually, we sort of had the idea that she's
been there, but we have her for only a certain number of episodes
and we wanted to keep her for a certain amount of time, so we
sort of spread it out over the season. It's one of those things
also, when you're on a cable budget, your guest star budget
is only so large, so we can only see her so many times. It's
one of the challenges we have making our show on the sort of
price range we do for all of the sort of big ideas that we try
to get. For us, our idea was that Shawn is very invested in
Abigail and he's trying to take this big leap to sort of do
a relationship, but production wise we had to figure out a way
to sort of keep her alive by talking about her or seeing her
and I think Shawn is doing his best to make things work for
he and Abigail. We will see her again. |
| Q:
Speaking about relationships, might we see anything for Lassiter
in the future? |
| Steve
Franks: We have not done anything in the winter, but it's
at the very top or very near the top of my list for season five,
should the season five happen, just assuming that season five
happens, because you never know in this business. But yes, I
think Lassiter with a girlfriend has endless possibilities.
|
| Q:
What were you doing or what inspired you when you came up with
the premise of Psych? |
| Steve
Franks: At the very core of it I just found TV depressing,
especially the procedural. I grew up with what they called the
light hours, the shows that were fun: Magnum PI. When I was
really little it was Rockford Files and Moonlighting and all
of those shows that were just fun to watch. I found myself looking
at TV and it was always about murder and dismemberment and looking
under a microscope at bones and flesh wounds. For me, and I
think this is also to go back to the very first question, the
best advice I could give is I wrote the show for me. I wrote
a show that I wanted to see. I'd never done a one-hour show.
I'd had a few half-hour, multi-camera live pilots, but I'd never
even attempted to write the hour-long drama or cop show. My
dad was a cop, so I'm like, "Maybe now is the time to do a cop
show." I wanted to do something that was fun and funny and revolved
around characters that also can take you into a little mystery
each week, but that you really got yourself wrapped up and loved
the characters and to create a really fun world each week that
does something that you don't see on other shows.
I'm locked in that nobody else is doing a
murdered sea lion episode and nobody else is doing an acapella
group gets involved in a drug sting. I feel really good about
what we've accomplished, but I basically wrote the show that
I've always wanted to see or that I missed from my childhood.
|
| Q:
To Dule, What did you bring into the character of Gus as opposed
to what was playing when you first heard about him? |
| Dule
Hill: It's always hard for me to go through and talk about,
I guess, the thought process of a character, the process of
creating a character, but I can make my best attempt. I think
the main thing that I brought to the character was the idea
that he wasn't just a nerd. I thought that when I first came
Gus was the reluctant sidekick. I think the main thing I brought
was the idea that he actually had a very rational thought process
for why he did certain things. Everything he did he did under
the belief that made it very cool and made him very slick. When
you really look at him and look at his actions, he's not cool
at all and he's not slick. I mean the thing I always ... the
character that he's a cool nerd. That's the thing. He's a nerd
who thinks he's cool or he's someone who thinks he's cool and
he's a nerd. That's the main thing. He's a conflict of both;
of him trying to be cool, but really being a nerd instead of
him just ... the fact that he's a nerd. If you ask Gus if he's
a nerd he's going to tell you no. He's going to say, "Women
love what I do." He's going to say, "It's a proven fact." Even
in the acapella episode is it a sign ... signing the name on
the back of a card, but that's a very corny thing to do. Do
you know what I mean?
I would say that would be
the main thing that I brought to the character, but as I said,
I'm realizing as I get older the more and more I do interviews
on ... process I don't really enjoy talking about the process
of the character because it's more of an organic thing. It
just happens through the actions. It happens as you're living
the character out. As you go along through the seasons you
just create it. You don't really necessarily put it into words
or put specific pinpoints into; at least I don't anyway; the
development of the character. That would be my answer.
|
| Q:
Plus it's such genius writing that you don't have to, right? |
| Dule
Hill: Overall. I mean the show is a hit show anyway. I know
when me and Steve first met, when we first sat down that was
the only thing I could really remember is I didn't want to be
playing a straight nerd for five years or six years on television. |
| Steve
Franks: We don't ever think of that as a bad term. We sort
of think of this as a more fully realized human being, as a
person who understands it and wants to understand the world.
What Dule says is the most true is everything that Gus does
is so much thought out that it's too thought out. He analyzes
everything in his life to the point of his own demise. I think
it's a fun, fun character to write.
We've been so lucky this year to really be
able to write for all of the characters on the show. It's
not just we have to figure out another Shawn episode. I'm
doing an episode in the spring called "A Very Juliet" episode
and it was just so great to spend an entire episode just thinking
about Maggie's character and bringing a really, really fun
case right into the middle of the episode.
|
| Q:
In casting Psych what was the one thing that James and Dule
did that made you realize they were your Shawn and Gus? |
| Steve
Franks: We looked at so many people for Shawn. We cast Shawn
first. James came in and it was funny when James came in. James
is really funny because he grows a beard in the off season.
He's really shy and really quiet. This guy came in all really
super quiet with this kind of thickish beard. We're like, "Who
is this guy?" Then he starts talking and it was like, "Oh, my
gosh. That might be him." Then James came in a second time.
We had a certain number of people we called back and James came
in the second time and it was like, "Oh, my God. That is him."
James is such a good guy that he came in
when we were bringing in all of the Guses. I don't know a
ton about this business because, like I said, this is the
first TV show I've done, but I don't think that the lead of
a show ever does that. He was there for casting for all of
the Guses and would read with every single person who came
in to read for the part. Dule came in for a meeting and it
was like, "Wow. This is kind of exactly what we were looking
for." They had like an instant chemistry. They were kind of
friends right from the start.
The only thing I knew going into the show
is that you hear horror stories about actors who are difficult
and stay in their trailer all day or won't come out until
the other actor comes out. The only thing I knew coming in
was I wanted everybody on our set to be there, to really want
to be there and to be cool. We have a no a-hole policy on
our show. James and Dule were really good people right from
the start. I liked them and I said, "You know what? I can
spend five to eight years hanging out with these guys." So
the chemistry was first and foremost before those guys ever
read a word together; in fact, the first time Dule came in
it was just for a meeting at the end of the day. We ended
up just running the scenes right then and it was great. There
is a whole casting process where you have to bring the people
into the network to read; well, we sort of tipped the scales
a little bit. We had Dule and James read together at Dule's
house. James drove to Dule's house and they sort of were more
practiced than the others. It was just great from the start.
Those guys were friends from the start.
It was just really lucky. I can't stress enough
how much of a miracle it is that a TV show ever gets made,
ever becomes good, ever stays good and ever stays fresh. All
of those things happening and for us to be coming here to
the end of our fourth season, we've been incredibly lucky
and we've had so much fun along the way. The fact that we
went to Comic-Con this year and we filled a room with 4,200
seats and the fans were insanely great and for us to have
that kind of following this far in it's been magical and great.
We just feel so fortunate and lucky to be part of it.
Dule, I talked about you coming in. You came
in for that meeting that first day and that you guys just
had a chemistry together and how we ended up sort of tipping
the scales by having you guys work together and how James
came out to your house to work on it. I guess the question
is talk a little bit about when you first met James and how
you knew it was right.
|
| Dule
Hill: It was interesting because when I first read with
James, being that I came from West Wing, which was a very strict
... show in terms of staying to what's on the script and what's
written, when I first read with James he's a great actor and
his impropositions are unbelievable, so when we first started
reading together he was all over the place. My first impression
was it was a shock to my system at first, but from the get-go
I thought that he was an amazing actor. I thought he was brilliant.
I thought that we kind of tapped into something special. There
was some kind of back and forth that was going on that I thought
people would enjoy to see. Even for myself it was a blast to
do, as much as I loved doing my last show and I loved working
that way, this was something fresh and new for me. I thought
it could be great. I thought we could have a really good time.
Also, when James came to the house and we
got a chance just to talk for a while, I respected him as
an individual. I started to realize that he was someone who
wasn't too caught up in all of the trappings of Hollywood.
He was really just about doing the work, having a good time
and having a blast. I could relate to that. I think that is
what helped us form a chemistry right there from the beginning.
I hope that I added a little something to what was said.
|
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