Psych ended it’s mid-season in explosive fashion last night, but PCZ is still has some interviews from our set visit last month to hold you over until Shawn and Gus return later this Fall.
Today’s interview is with Dulé Hill, who plays Shawn Spencer’s better half and partner-in-crime-solving, Burton “Gus” Guster.
Dulé Hill gave a great interview that I had to savagely edit due to length. There was lots of good stuff cut, including a bit where he talked about his many ‘Dule-isms’ — phrases that he uses in real-life, that the writers have incorporated into Gus. (Try and spot as many as you can below!) But there’s still lots of good stuff from our discussion, like Hill answering which one of the countless pseudonyms he’s been given on the show is his favorite, his “geekiness”, what shows he’d like to guest star on, and who he’d like to see as a potential love interest for Gus. Onward!
Panel: Turning back the way-back machine…how did [you] find the transition from The West Wing to this new character, which is really different than Charlie Young?
Dulé: I mean, the hardest part for me was getting used to improv’ing, going off of the dialogue, because Roday is great at doing that, and he would go all over the place. And coming from Aaron Sorkin, it was, “What is on the page is what you say.” So that—it was a shock to my system at first. I was like, “What the heck are you doing? Like, “That’s not what’s in the script,” you know. But once I realized that and kind of started to work on that, it wasn’t that difficult. It was nice to do something different. That’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to go in a completely opposite direction because I thought, with The West Wing, if I tried to do another drama…I felt that I would be let down because I realized that that was such a unique piece.
So I would say no, it wasn’t that difficult. I mean, it’s two completely different characters. The writing is completely different, and I just went with it. I’m an actor, you know, so I hope I can change characters here and there.
Panel: I like [Gus], because I’ve only been able to see one episode yet—the first one of this new season. And just, the byplay you and James have was just, like, phenomenal.
Dulé: It’s also been a work in progress, too. I think if you watch from the pilot to now, the show is—the show has grown. I think—
Panel: Gus doesn’t throw up as much.
Dulé: Gus doesn’t throw up as much. You’re right. You know, as individuals, like myself and Roday and all the actors, we’re, I guess, becoming more comfortable with our characters, and moulding them more and, you know, finding new things about them. So it’s been a work in progress, which is why I like doing series television, though, because you’re not stuck with just, “This is it.” You have—if you’re blessed to have a show that runs a long time, you can continually keep working on it. That’s what’s fun about it.
Panel: So I do have a question, because I noticed that from the end of last season and during this season with the firehouse, you rescuing Juliet, but also the tapping, it seems as if you’re becoming less of the Watson and more of an equal partner to Shawn. You’ve always been that, but you’re kind of calling it out more…
Dulé: You could be right about that. I mean that’s more of a writer’s question, but …[creator Steve Franks] had always said he had planned to do that as the show went on, that they’d be more equal partners…and he would be less of a sidekick. That was … even before I really got the role, well, he had said that. So, I mean, you’re probably right about that.
Panel: Do you feel [like] the straight man in the show? Because, I mean, you’ve got Lassiter at one end of the spectrum, you’ve got Shawn at the other end, and then when Shawn and Gus get together, often Gus plays the straight man to Shawn’s antics. But then you’ve got—like, Gus sometimes pulls on Lassiter.
Dulé: I think… it’s just a fluid machine. I mean, sometimes—we’re all just trying to make the best joke, make the joke work, so there’s no real thing about, “Hey, you’re the straight man, I’m the funny guy,” you know. It’s just like, “Look, what works?” So for—if there has to be a straight man for a bit to work, he’ll do it. You know, if Tim has to do it, or Maggie has to do it, I have to do it, we’re just trying to make people laugh.
Panel: The character of Gus is a geek. Are you a geek in real life, and what actually geeks you out?
Dulé: Am I? I think everyone has some geekdom in them, I would think.
Panel: There’s a lot of closeted ones.
Dulé: Yeah, you know. Maybe it’s video games. I’m a big Call of Duty guy. FIFA World Cup. I geek out over reggae music. You know, and like—I guess that would be it, really.
Panel: That doesn’t sound very geeky.
Dulé: Huh? Video games are geeky. Call of Duty’s not—
Panel: There are not a lot of dudes with dreads at Comic-Con.
Dulé: No, but there are probably a lot of high dudes at Comic-Con. So you see what I’m saying?
Panel: What makes Shawn and Gus work so well? What makes their relationship work so well?
Dulé: They’re like two different sides of the puzzle. You know, I think they complete each other.
…I do think they balance each other off. I think Shawn without Gus would be too far in the extreme of being wild and crazy, and I think Gus would be too far in the extreme of being closeted and just doing—going to work, going home, not doing anything. So I think they kind of both challenge each other to step outside of their comfort zones.
Panel: Now, will we ever see an episode where we see how Shawn and Gus met?
Dulé: That would be a good flashback… They’ve been friends since, I mean, very, very young. That would be a very interesting episode. A flashback.
Panel: Shawn trying to con Gus.
Dulé: You know what I mean?
Panel: Of all the nicknames that you’ve been given, which is your favorite? Which is your favorite nickname, and which one did you say, “No, no. I don’t want that.”
Dulé: I don’t say no to any of them.
Panel: No?
Dulé: Yeah, no, because they’re always pretty funny. Gus “Silly Pants” Jackson was—I’ve always liked that from Season One, because that was, like, one of the first ones he did, and he kind of did it off the top of his head. And I was like, “What? What?” I was like, “What did you call me?” You know, and, again, that, you know, puts me into the Stoney Jackson family, so why not? You know.
Panel: So how long have you tapped for?
Dulé: Since I was three.
Panel: Did your mother sign you up? Your father?
Dulé: My mother was a ballerina. She was teaching at a dance school, and my older brother and my cousins were all going, so I went to just go and be a part of—you know, I was following the crowd. I did jazz tap, and ballet. And then the older I got, I just kept going more and more towards tap.
… And once, I think at the age of 10, is when I got The Tap Dance Kid. Once I had a chance to work with Harold Nicholas, that was it. I was hooked on tap after that.
Panel: Have you had a favorite guest star on the show so far?
Dulé: A favorite guest star? It’s probably who was up last. I mean, every week, we have such wonderful people. Let me try to think. I mean, obviously, Phylicia Rashad, I mean, that was great. That was great. And—there’s so many people. Having Carl Weathers up here was cool, too. You know, everybody. I mean, like I said, every epi—we’ve been really blessed on this show to have such wonderful guest actors come through. You know, I mean, every week, there’s somebody who’s exciting. George Takei was cool when he came.
And if you think about it over the five years, it’s like, wow, we’ve had a lot of people. You know, and we—like, our first season, before we really got on the air, it was hard to get people, you know, to come up. They were like, “What? No, I’m not coming up.” So it’s getting a lot easier now. So that’s one of the joys of being on the air for so long. But we’re thankful every time somebody comes up. We’re thankful it happened. And everyone comes out and likes to play. They like to have fun. They always say, “This is, like, the best week I’ve had in a long time on the set.” So, you know.
Panel: Now, if you could guest star in any show, what would you want to guest star on?
Dulé: On any show right now? Probably Modern Family because I like it so much. And I wouldn’t mind being a vampire. So my thing would be Modern Family, being a vampire on True Blood or something like that, and then being able to go tap on Glee. Bring some friends, and tap on Glee.
Panel: Oh, yeah. That would be awesome.
Dulé: Yeah, those would be, like, the three, you know. But I’d only want to do Glee if I could tap. Otherwise, if I couldn’t tap with my friends, then I wouldn’t want to do it.
Panel: So who else would you like to have as a love interest, even if it’s temporary?
Dulé: Yeah, it’s always temporary. You know, I haven’t really thought about it, to be honest with you. I mean, I always say somebody like Halle Berry, but that’ll never happen. You know what I mean? Lisa Bonet? That’d be cool. I don’t know, just anybody. Anybody’s good for Gus.
Panel: What about the ad-libbing on the show between you and James? Like, just—does it ever kind of get out of hand? Like, we were just watching that scene downstairs where you guys were like, “Doctor? Doctor?”
Dulé: I don’t think it ever—I mean, if it does get out of hand, then, you know, Steve, Chris, or Kelly will cut it. So, they give us free reign to kind of just see where it goes, and they make it work in the end. And you have to be willing to try stuff. You have to be willing to fail. So sometimes, I guess, I would say it gets out of hand. But if you don’t, then you don’t find the stuff that works, also, you know. But I think at this point, we have a pretty good barometer of, like, now, of where—you know, where we should—what space we should be in.
Panel: Is there like—are there things in the scripts that are like homework? Like, in the scene we just watched, the Spies Like Us, and—I know that scene because I’ve seen that movie. But if you hadn’t, I’d assume you’d want to go back and watch that scene so you could do that. It seems like the show’s riddled with tons of pop culture references that you have to sort of absorb if you didn’t know them.
Dulé: The funny thing is, I have not seen that movie, and I have no idea what the scene is. I mean, because a lot of times, things move so fast on the show, I don’t—you know, and it’s all these little pieces in there that—for me, anyway, to keep up would be just too much. A lot of times, I just ask.
Panel: So you don’t go to YouTube and look up the—
Dulé: Sometimes I will. Sometimes I will, but there’s always so many—like, in the script, there’s probably like, I don’t know, 10 or 15 references. It’s like, ah, [come on]. So I just ask the writer, “Okay, what is this about?” Or ask Roday, like, “Okay, what is this? Oh, okay.” So—okay, okay. Cool. And then go with it.
There’s a lot of movies. And I’m kind of fine with that. I mean, it’s between—between Roday, and Steve Franks, and, like, Andy Berman who are just very much like movie people, I’m very fine with not seeing all the movies.
Panel: Maggie made a comment about Juliet and Gus pretty much, on average, once per season, really bonding over something, whether it’s like the geekiness of Comic-Con and [in ‘Shawn Takes A Shot In The Dark, where the two help solve Shawn’s disappearance]… So how do you feel, like, as sort of Gus being the partner, and then Juliet being the love interest, and how did they connect, in your mind, relationship-wise?
Dulé: Relationship-wise?
Panel: I mean, they’re beyond tolerating each other. They obviously—
Dulé: No, I think—I mean, he likes Juliet. I mean, Gus likes Juliet. I mean, I think he thinks if it were to ever happen, it would be a good thing for Shawn. He also thinks that maybe he’s—he probably doesn’t force the issue at all because maybe he thinks that Shawn may not really be ready to handle—
Panel: He’ll screw it up.
Dulé: To be who he needs to be for Juliet. You know, I think whenever Shawn gets to a place where he’s ready, I think Gus will support it. But he likes Juliet. I think he likes Juliet a lot. Now, if Shawn wanted to date Lassiter, that would be a problem.
[Hopefully it goes without saying, but PCZ is grateful for the chance to be part of the set visit. We’re also thankful for the transcribed interviews and photos from the set, as well the opportunity to hang out with a group of cool writers from some great outlets. Thanks for a great day, guys.]