Psych’s James Roday and Dulé Hill, Just Having Fun

While talking with James Roday and Dulé Hill, you get the feeling they are sharing a secret joke between the two of them. It’s not a bad thing, but you do have to resist the urge to just burst out laughing.  They are just too much fun! I don’t know if Roday and Hill are more like Shaun and Gus, or if Shaun and Gus are more like Roday and Hill. The two merge almost seamlessly, and you begin to wonder how much of the show is written and how much is ad-libbed. “Unlike, I think, the majority of shows on television right now we actually have a frighteningly high amount of say in what we do with the dialog.  A lot of times it comes in great and all we have to do is say it, but any time we sort of recognize an opportunity to throw something in or add something or if we have a better name for Gus than the one that came in we just pull the trigger,” says Roday. Hill adds, “Yes.  And the names that we come up with most of the time it has to do with somebody that we know, somebody in the cast knows or somebody that one of the writers knows or a producer, something like that.  I would say pretty much eight times to of ten there is some relation to the crazy name that Gus is being called.”

The success of Psych has partly been in the wonderfully fresh comedy in their crime investigations, and the obstacles the duo sometimes overcome in their partnership/friendship. We’ve seen partners in crime before in television, but James and Dulé have brought back the humor. “You know what, I go to this movie called Without a Clue that not a lot of people saw.  It was Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley, and the idea behind the movie was that Watson was the brains of the operation and Holmes was just this very theatrical sort of charlatan that diverted people’s attention and got all the ladies.  It’s a very, very funny movie that not a lot of people have seen. But I love the fact that it was sort of rooted in the idea that these two guys absolutely, positively were dependent on one another to solve a crime, because Holmes was sort of the face of the franchise but Watson was the guy that sort of kept their feet on the ground and did a lot of the thinking.  That’s not exactly what the dynamic is on Psych, but the sort of ying yang element of it of there’s no way that either of these guys could work on their own and there’s no way that they could accomplish what they were doing without the other one is definitely sort of a big element of what we do on Psych.”

Dulé has a different source. “I guess for myself it’s not any real I guess template that I came in to with a preconceived notion about like in terms of a previous detective team.  I guess if I had to choose one I would say Cosby and Poitier in Uptown Saturday Night.  I want to say that would be the equivalence that I could think of, but besides that there’s not really anything that I’ve thought about before to say yes, this is what the template is.”

Psych is famous for its references to pop culture. Nothing is safe from a good spoof. In the season 4 premiere, we will see them have a little fun with The Mentalist. James talks about it. “No one is off limits when it comes to us, including ourselves.  We’ve made fun of our own sort of resumes on this show.  As long as they have a sense of humor over there I would think that they would be sort of flattered and get a kick out of it. Obviously, it’s not malicious in any, but it’s what we do on our show and if you’re going to go make a bigger show that’s kind of like our show and get four times as many viewers and Emmy nominations then you should expect to hear about it when our show airs.”

What we can expect from season 4 is more of what we’ve already had, but it never gets old because there’s so much more to spoof! “In terms of sort of themes for episodes you saw that we’re doing sort of an expedition Canada, catch a jewel/art thief episode, and we’re doing sort of a Shawn and Gus save an old western town and everything that comes along with that that you could imagine, including a grizzled, gray bearded James Brolin,” says James. “We’re paying tribute to the Exorcist with our exorcism episode featuring the aforementioned Ray Wise, who is just fantastic in the episode I have to say. Just really came in and knocked it out of the park. A little love letter to American Werewolf in London and werewolf movies in general featuring David Naughton, obviously, and Josh Malina. And lots of other fun stuff. I have to say I think we’re kind of storming out of our gates this year with some really good stuff. I think last year we stormed in our heads, but we were actually like trotting at a casual pace, and this year I actually think we’re storming out of the gates for real.”

I thought it was hilarious that Dulé doesn’t really get a lot of the pop-culture references. “I would say about 99.9% of them do not come from me. Maybe if there’s something in the ‘70s that might be something that I came with, but most of the ‘80s references I have no idea what I’m talking about. It’s not until after I film it that I turn around and say, “Okay, now what was that about?” ”

Mapping out the season for us, James and Dulé give a brief rundown of what we may or may not get to see. “Well there may or may not be a continuation of the story that capped off our season last year, An Evening With Mr. Yang.” Dulé: “And there may or may not be something big coming.” James: “There may or may be our biggest guest star ever appearing on the show down the stretch. And we may or may not be getting another dose of what Gus’ hair looked like in the ‘90s. How’s that?” Perfect, guys!

The Friday night lineup of Psych and Monk make for great family television. At least, it does in my house. Join me this Friday, Aug. 7, at 10/9 Central, for the season premiere of Psych on USA.

(Read the full transcript here.)