PSYCH: Dule Hill & James Roday Talk Guest Stars, Homage Episodes, & Twitter

In anticipation of the October 12th premiere of the sixth season of Psych, stars James Roday and Dule Hill recently spoke with media and bloggers about the what we can expect from the season.

One thing we know we can expect is a lot of guest stars. The list for season 6 includes William Shatner, Danny Glover, Kristy Swanson, Cory Feldman, John Rhys-Davies, Joey McIntyre, Jason Priestley, Molly Ringwald, WWE Superstar “The Miz” and Malcolm McDowell.

With all these guest stars, is there an initiation ritual?

Dule Hill says “We don’t have initiation rituals. We do have, I guess, send-off rituals.”

“Whenever a guest star has wrapped, we always send them off with a Happy Birthday song by the Psych cast and crew, which I’ve got to say, we sing pretty well.” Co-star James Roday adds “It’s the one song everybody knows and we’ve been able to really start playing with some unorthodox harmonies and crescendos. I think the cast – I think the guest cast get down with it. There’s always that initial sort of moment of, “But wait a minute it’s not my birthday.” But then they get it.”

More on the Halloween episode and guest stars?

Roday answers, “Halloween is the vampire episode. And I think it’s airing the week of Halloween.” As for guests, “Kristy Swanson, the original Buffy, and Corey Feldman, one of the Frog Brothers from The Lost Boys, and Tom Lenk, a regular on Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV Series. Yes, we went Double Buffy.” Hill chimes in “And Blacula makes a guest appearance also.” Roday finishes, “Guest appearances, Blacula and the Vampire Lestat.”

On working with William Shatner?

“Unbelievable“, emphasizes Roday. “The man is – I mean he’s an icon obviously but watching him work was an honor in and of itself. I mean he’s a machine. He was totally invested. He had – and I say this – this is not me editorializing or exaggerating, he had the heaviest load that we’ve ever given a guest star on our show. He pretty much drives the entire episode. He had the same schedule as Dule and I. And it was just remarkable. I mean not only did he know everything, he had questions, he had thoughts, he had concerns. You know, he was modulating his performance and he just – he really, really wanted to knock the role out of the park.” “It was humbling and it was a real honor just to watch him work and pick his brain and be around him.”

On William Shatner’s character portraying Juliet‘s father?

According to Roday “we had some fun there because it’s kind of like, you know you can’t snow the snowman, you can’t con the King of Con, so he kind of had the ability to see right through Shawn and that made things really interesting.” “And then Shawn of course sort of fired back by seeing through him and calling him on all of his BS. So we had sort of an interesting game of one-upsman-ship and a little bit of a chess match going on, with the common thread of course being that they both do care very much about Juliet.”

Indiana Jones episode and working with John Rhys-Davies?

Roday says “that episode came out really well, and it’s also the third installment of the episodes involving the Despereaux character, played by Cary Elwes. And for my money, it’s the best of the trilogy for sure — a lot of fun. And yes, John Rhys-Davies was a blast man. We didn’t get to work with him a ton but, you know, he came in and he was, you know, kind of bigger than life and sort of what you would imagine. And he was a real sweetheart.” Dule adds that he was a “Fun guy to work with. Full of energy.”

Joey McIntyre episode?

According to Roday “That was our Superhero episode. There’s like a vigilante superhero like combing the streets of Santa Barbara, cleaning them up one bad guy at a time. And it may or may not be Joey, we don’t know.”

Season 6 pop culture references?

“There’s a visual reference in our vampire episode,” says Roday, “where we’re in a very strange vampire bar and we approach the bar and the bartender has his back to us and when he turns around to face us there’s a music queue and the actual casting of the bartender that comes together to create what I feel is a pretty delicious ’80s visual reference.”

Themed episode you really want to do but haven’t yet?

Dule says that “Steve Franks has talked about it for a couple of seasons now and it hasn’t actually happened yet, but I hope that in Season 7 we can actually make the musical episode happen.” Roday agrees, “I think that’s kind of the pinnacle of theme episodes that we’ve yet to do. So that’s the big apple that hopefully we’ll be able to slice up and feed to all of our fans.”

More about the episode directed by Jennifer Lynch this season?

Roday offers that “it was an episode that Andy Berman and I wrote knowing that Jennifer was directing it.” “It’s just a strange little episode that kind of shows you some parts of Santa Barbara that you’re not used to seeing, and some characters that you’re not used to seeing. But it’s all still very much in the spirit of our show. It’s not a big – I wouldn’t call it a, “Big dark departure episode .along the lines of the Yangs or anything like that. But just a little left of center.”

Will Season 6 end with a cliffhanger?

According to Roday, “Yes, there’s – that is fair to say. There is a shocking ending that I hope our fans will not soon forget.”

More special renditions of theme song this season?

Roday shares that “Our Shining episode will feature a brand new, completely different rendition of the theme song,” while his co-star Hill informs that “we do get a re-run. We get a re-run of the Boyz II Men a cappella version, since (Quarterblack) is returning.”

Gus’s nicknames this season and seasons past?

Hill confesses that “they come and go, I kind of forget about them until they air.” Roday recalls one from this season, “the only one I can remember is because I just finished watching the cut for Shining yesterday and we do Eddie Adams from Torrance, which I believe is a Boogie Nights reference.”

Hill does have a favorite nickname for Gus, though, the first one. According to him, “my favorite is always the original, I’m guess I’m a big fan of the original ones Gus (Sillypants) Jackson; one, because it made Gus a Jackson, you know, and I’m a big fan of the Jackson’s so; and then it also caught me off guard when Roday first did it and I was like, “What did this cat just call me? Did you just call me (Sillypants)?” But that’s my favorite.”

Will Gus find love?

Hill is vague in his reply. “I think we’ll have to see what happens in Season 7, but in Season 6 he makes a valiant effort to attain that. He goes for it. You know, you can’t blame Gus for trying in Season 6, he’s actually put his – throwing his hat into the ring and he’s out there, you know, really trying to make it happen. But we’ll see what happens going into Season 7, maybe he’ll get past the one-episode love interest then.”

Any fallout from Lassiter learning that Shawn and Juliet are a couple?

“You know,” says Roday, “it’s a little touch and go out of the gates, but Lassiter himself finds love this season and I think that kind of helped cushion the blow. And you know, it’s pretty much back to business down the stretch.”

More development in Henry and Shawn’s relationship this season?

Per Roday, “I think it’s less relationship driven and more just Henry driven, in terms of where he is, and where he is in his life, and what he wants, and stuff like that. The season finale addresses some of that stuff. But you know they are kind of – he’s still at the police station and they’re forced to sort of work with one another on a daily basis so that’s still happening. But then you know, I think we take it a little further with Henry towards the end of the season.”

Any chance of James joining @DuleHill on Twitter?

According to him “I’m not anti-Twitter, I just, I’m warming myself up. I’m just doing some pre-Tweeting loosening up exercises, making sure that my diet is in order. I just want to be in the best possible shape when I take this exciting journey into the Twitosphere.”

Psych returns Wednesday, October 12 on USA Network at 10:00/9:00 Central.