Geekery and Tomfoolery: COD4, Celebrity Guest Stars, and Nerding Out with Zach, Josh, and Chris.

If you want to read about the upcoming season of Chuck, you can do so in the comprehensive and awesome post Ms. Muse will be writing, I’m sure. This is not that post. This post is about geek shit, because that’s how we roll. What’s great is, apparently, that’s also how the cast of Chuck rolls. We’ll start with Zach, Josh, And Chris. I was fortunate enough to get to roundtable with Zach, Josh, Chris, Josh, Yvonne and Adam and ask them truly banal questions ranging the gamut from actor-geekery such as ‘do you audition with an accent?’ to the more important things like “COD4 or COD:WaW?”. I also brought up, apparently for the first time in an official setting, the question that certainly burns in our little fan girl minds: What about Y?



EC: So, in Chuck’s room, there’s a massive amount of geekery on display. The Y: The Last Man poster, did you have anything to do [with that]?

Zach: It’s so weird. I had done a film that I had gone to do a signing for at… [House of Secrets] in Burbank and while I was there doing this signing this girl came through and she handed me… Volume 1 of like the compiled- so it was like the first three issues of Y: The Last Man. And she said… ‘I’ve been following this graphic novel since it came out... If they ever made a movie of it I didn’t think anyone would beright for it until I started watching Chuck and I was like, I think this would be you and here it is’ and she just gave it to me and said ‘I hope you like it,’ and so I read it ALL that first night, I was like ‘oh my gosh, this is such an incredible graphic novel and couldn’t wait to get the rest of them. Fortunately on of the guys- one of our grips…had the entire collection so he was like, ‘here you go!” And it just so happens the second season, I go back to work, and there’s Y The Last Man stuff in there and it was so, like, kismet, I couldn’t believe it.

EC: So are you aware of the following online? Where there’s like a big movement where ‘We need to get DJ Caruso to cast Zach Levi in this role‘? It’s like a thing, it’s like an issue.

Chris: I think that’s a great idea.

Zach: I- Thank you.

Fedak then volunteered more Y info. Because we’re not obsessed or anything, it’s cool. Also, the entire time Josh sat there looking generally enthusiastic and adorable. For those who were wondering.

Chris: It’s a great idea. We tried to clear that poster for the first season, but it was only when we were coming back for a second season that we were able to get it up on the wall… Chuck’s bedroom is actually like a clearance nightmare…there’s a number of things, there’s a poster up there called Yakuza Prep, which unfortunately we had to make up…it’s a fusion of a couple things, [mostly] Battle Royale. So we thought, Josh is really obsessed with Y: The Last Man, and there was also that notion of these are all movies in some ways we kind of imagined seeing Chuck in, from Dune to Tron…which is really my obsession with the 80s, and then Y: The Last Man to bring it back [to the present].

NEAT. The boys also talked a bit about travel!

EC: Josh, Zach, you’re both excellent actors. How big of geeks are you in real life, because we can’t tell?

Josh: Gosh.

Zach: Well. We haven’t gotten a compliment like that… ever! We’re pretty big geeks. I’ll just give you a snapshot. The entire flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco consisted nearly entirely of us going through the latest issue of Xbox magazine, discussing the pros and cons of all of the top gamesof last year, this year and coming up, discussing what we liked personally about the two games we are playing currently, Killzone 2 & Halo Wars… and even sitting there last night with Adam and his daughter and Adam’s like, ‘what is a good shooter game? and we’re literally like-

[Zach and Josh together in a chorus of nerdom] “Well, you know, personally, mmmmmnif I had to talk about my top five” –

Zach: This is what we think about – we have answers because we think about what IS the best first person shooter.

Josh: Then a girl walks past and we'll giggle.



EC: So, Call of Duty 4, or Call of Duty: World at War?

Zach: Oh oh oh oh, COD 4. Unfortunately there’s a very – there’s a definitive line between Triarch & Infinity Ward. Triarch tried to implement things that Infinity Ward brought to – I’ve gone to another planet now! – Infinity Ward makes better games. They were the first ones to really kind of put a stamp on the perks and for whatever reason

Josh: And the modern weaponry.

Zach: And the modern weaponry! I don’t mind the throwback weaponry, I just feel like the gameplay is a little wonky.

I expressed our preferences, nay necessity, for RPDs.

Zach: Shooting through walls is fun.

Who do the gents geek about? Dominic Monaghan.

Zach: Geek out!

Chris: What about us just hanging out in the kitchen and just talking, getting stories about Lord of the Rings?

Zach: Oh my gosh, yeah, it was so great and I mean we were just like, tell me more, Mr Monaghan! What was it like working with Frodo and the gang? And what exactly was the hatch about when you opened it up on the island?” It was just Nerdy McNerdison.



Anymore gimmicks? The few that got mentioned were Chuck Live, Chuck underwater, Chuck the musical, Chuck on ice, Chuck unplugged. Then Chris showed his true and deep geek colors by referencing the Whedonverse.

Chris: I think that’s the coolest of genre shows, where you get episodes of Buffy like Hush or the musical episode – just taking an episode and trying to do something different. We did one episode this year, Chuck vs Santa Claus where it was all set inside the Buy More and to do that I think is really fun, it was my favorite episode of the year so far.

They also had a massive group geek-out at a recent table read, which included such talents as Morgan Fairchild, Chevy Chase and, oh boy, Scott Bakula.

Which prompted this:


Because apparently the fact that I was at the convention to begin with didn’t appropriately broadcast my geekness.

The boys talked about conventions!




Josh: And to be thrust into things like this, places like this and coming to these events…the first time we went down to San Diego

Chris: It‘s like an adventure.

Josh: Yeah, and when you’re not used to it, you’re just like, ‘holy cow’. It’s definitely a new world.


EC: So you hadn’t quite crossed the geek line to attending conventions on your own, before?

Zach: We always wanted to!

Josh: We always talked about how we wanted to [go to Comic Con], we just never got a chance to.

Zach: San Diego is farther from Los Angeles than people realize. I mean it’s like a couple hours, it’s not that far, but it’s… traffic and this and that and the other and it’s like, I don’t wanna go, it’s just so far. So we never did. Then we got invited to go. THEN you go!

Here, here, gentlemen. Be seeing you there.