Ally Sheedy makes a special guest appearance on tonights season finale of the hit USA show PSYCH. Sheedy plays serial killer Mr. Yang who is called into question when various classic Hitchcock films become scenarios in a plot to take out Shawn (James Roday). Is Mr. Yang responsible? Watch tonights season final of PSYCH at 10/9C on USA to find out!
Recently James Roday and Ally Sheedy sat down with a group of online media to chat about the PSYCH season finale, favorite Hitchcock films and the moving tribute to John Hughes at the Oscars. Here’s what they had to say:
EclipseMagazine.com: What are some of your favorite episodes in Psych’s four seasons?
James Roday: I assume you’re asking me that question?
EM: Sure, well, if Ally wants to answer as well…
JR: That’s a lot of pressure to put on Ally –
Ally Sheedy: That’s okay. I love the episodes that have Yang in them.
JR: Yes. Ally likes the Yang episodes. I too, like the Yang episodes. I would toss in just a random sampling of – let’s see, I’ve always been really fond of the tele-novella episode where we spoofed a Spanish soap opera that was called “Lights, Camera, Homicidio.” I think like half of season one is very dear to me just because we were sort of flying by the seat of our pants and every week was truly a new adventure. I look back at some of those episodes and even though they may not be the greatest episodes they’ll always have – they’ll be very near and dear to me because it was just so much love happening to get this show off the ground.
Then more recently they let me direct for the first time in season three and I’ll always remember that very fondly. That was the “Tuesday the 17th” episode and the first time John Landis came up to work with us on an episode called “Scary Sherry,” that also was one heck of an experience. But mostly the episodes with Mr. Yang.
AS: See why I like doing this show? There you go.
JR: Yes.
EM: Okay. Where do you get the creative inspiration for your character to be so bizarre and different? Do you get all that from the script or is there someone in your life that you modeled the character after?
AS: I’m not sure, who are you asking?
EM: Oh, James.
AS: Oh, okay.
JR: It’s a really great character because he kind of lives by his own set of rules and he’s Peter Pan. He’s Puck, I don’t know real people like him. To approach any situation first and ask questions later that’s just Shawn, and I think I’ve sort of found it along the way.
Like I said if you go back and watch early episodes and compare them to the stuff that we’re doing now I think the evolution of the character is – you can see a lot of differences. I’ve always sort of trusted in the fact that this guy doesn’t think a whole lot before he does stuff, so I try not to think too much before I do stuff, and I think it’s worked out okay.
EM: Clearly in this episode there is a lot of Hitchcock references. James I was wondering if there is anyone else you drew inspiration from – influences from when you were directing this episode?
JR: You know, I really do try to stay as faithful to Hitchcock as I could both aesthetically and in pacing and I just shamelessly ripped off four or five shots straight out of his films, quite frankly. It was an homage episode and I’m a Hitchcock fan, and Andy Berman who wrote the episode with me, is a Hitchcock fan. As much as we could get away with doing Hitchcock in a Psych episode that’s definitely what we set out to do.
EM: And Ally, from the season finale it looks like we may be seeing more of you. Do you know when that might be, how long we’ll have to wait to see you again?
AS: I don’t know. I think there is a strange secretive sort of story going on here and so I’m not going to answer that unless James says I can.
JR: I think it’s fair to say we have not seen the last of her and we’ll leave it at that.
AS: Okay, there we go.
EM: Ally, I want to take the time to say how gorgeous you looked last night on that awards show.
AS: Oh, thank you so much. That was a little nerve wracking, thank you.
EM: That was a beautiful homage that you guys did as well.
AS: Yes, it was great actually.
EM: Ally, what was it like having all those actors on the same stage again last night and what did you think about Fisher Steven’s win?
AS: Oh, that was – well first of all, that movie The Cove is an incredible documentary. It really, really is. It’s not a – I’ve never seen a documentary quite like that one just because of the particular people who were involved in it. It was thrilling. There was Fisher, who I’ve known forever, up there for a documentary. It’s just – I can’t really describe the feeling but there is something about it where you kind of feel like you’re proud of the person even though there is no reason for you to feel proud of them, kind of. It was great to see everybody. It’s really, really nice actually to see everyone. The only person I’m really in touch with regularly is Judd, so it was just nice to check in and see everyone is doing so great.
EM: Ally is how hard is it to be kind of menacing – this menacing character on such a hilarious show?
AS: Oh, it’s not hard at all. It’s not hard at all because everybody is so whacked out and so extreme that I feel like I’m not in the middle of some very serious true to life drama where I have to pull out all these details about how a serial killer would really behave. I just feel like I get to sort of swing out there and wing it, and it was fun working with James as a director because I definitely had the feeling like anything I could come up with goes. Nobody was coming up to me and saying, well, that’s really not how da, da, da, da, da. I felt like I have total freedom with this character to go anywhere, which is the best when you’re working.
EM: James is the episode that we’ll be seeing has kind of a little bit shocked and surprised a lot of the fans. It’s kind of hard for them to figure out what’s going to be happening. Is that surprise element something that you feel is important not only to this episode coming up but to the show itself?
JR: I don’t want to pull the rug out from under our fans every week and slap them in the face with stuff, but this was a season finale and it was the long awaited return of Mr.Yang, and yes, we kind of wanted to load our canon with as much stuff as we could.
That’s a fun way to end a season, I think.
EM: I guess it’s obvious now that “Mr. Yin Presents” was always kind of being formed since the first episode but how did the whole story line come together and how long have you been working on writing it, James?
JR: Well, we sort of – we kind of had to … that it would be fun to do a trilogy within the landscape of Psych. For a while it was just me and Andy that thought that was cool and then we did the first one and it kind of went over like gangbusters. And Ally was a huge part of our campaign to keep going because I think she did such a marvelous job with that character that it’s like how can you not want more of that? I’ve got to give credit to Jimmi Simpson, too, who also came in and –
AS: Oh my God!
JR: — and created this unbelievable sort of character that we didn’t want to see the end of yet either. A lot of things came together to sort of give us a boost and then from there it was sort of like a no-brainer. We started thinking about the second Yang, I think a day after the first one aired and everybody was so pumped about it. We have not stopped thinking about it since because we still have more work to do.
AS: Thank you for saying all that, James, –
JR: It’s so true, though.
AS: Thank you. That made my day, definitely made my day.
EM: I’m really excited. I really loved the second part and it definitely leaves you on a cliffhanger, but I enjoyed the Hitchcock references and I was wondering for either of you if there was any particular movie that you wanted to reference in that or what your favorite Hitchcock movie is in general.
JR: What do you think, Ally, what’s your favorite Hitchcock?
AS: What’s my favorite one? What’s the name of the Kim Novak one?
JR: Vertigo.
AS: See, she’s the boss in this and I can’t remember anything anymore. Vertigo, yes, I love Vertigo, absolutely. I didn’t frigging reference anything for that character. I was like, whatever, you know?
JR: Yes, you were just Yang-ing it in the cell there.
AS: Yes, I just, you know, yes.
JR: Most of the references were happening outside.
AS: Yes.
JR: I personally am a huge Psycho fan. I have always been a Psycho fan. I’m a horror buff, which is why not only did I get Ally Sheedy in a John Hughes tribute, I got a horror film tribute in the same Oscar telecast and I don’t think it gets better than it did last night for me. I just think Hitchcock sort of revolutionized the idea of the chiller twist that horror films kind of attempted to be predicated on since Psycho came out. That is the original jaw dropping twist that sort of set everything else in motion. I love that movie, and Anthony Perkins is fantastic in it and it’s shot amazingly and yes, that would be my number one.
EM: James, I thought that was a pretty good Jimmy Stewart impersonation you had there. How long did it take to perfect that, or was that one of those kind of impersonations that you have to know as an actor?
JR: You know what? I didn’t think I had a Jimmy Stewart in my canon but Andy wrote it and I gave it a shot with a full disclaimer that if it was terrible we would not be using it.
It’s a bad Jimmy Stewart impression but it’s good enough that you know who it is. Yes, that’s what I have to say about that.
EM: James, since the show likes to reference the 80s so much, what was it like for you working opposite Ally?
JR: It kind of goes back to that last question, I’ve been a huge Ally Sheedy fan for a long time and she’s been on our board of people that absolutely must come on the show since the very beginning. It’s surreal. It really is. You grow up and you have dreams of doing this for a living and you have people that inspired you and then you get lucky enough to do it and one day you’re sitting across from them and it’s crazy, but it’s also – it’s unbelievable. All you can do is – you just kind of want to capture these moments in little time capsules because –
AS: It’s so cool. James, what’s really funny is when we were sitting in the car for the first scene in the first episode, I was sitting there and was just okay, ready, jump off the cliff here and just do my thing; but I was also thinking please let me do a good job for him. You don’t know what goes on, on the other side, too. It’s like both of us, you know?
JR: Yes, I haven’t been nervous many times on our show, I have to be honest, but I had the butterflies going with Ally.
AS: Aw, you know, I did not know. Cool.
EM: Ally, what’s the best part about playing Mr. Yang?
AS: Everything. Everything about Mr. Yang is fun for me, everything. When I read this one and – I wish somebody could read what I read for the first one. Mr. Yang is on a bungee cord like banging off walls. You know what I mean? I read that and then I gave it to my kid to read and I said, “I don’t have a clue how they’re going to do this.” She thought it was just hilarious. I also said to Rebecca, “I’ve done a lot of stuff in my career as you know, my darling girl, but I have never been on a bungee cord.”
JR: Ally was a very, very good sport.
AS: It was fun. It was really fun. It was craziness.
For more information about the show PSYCH, please visit the USA Network. The season finale airs tonight at 10/9C.
Interview by: Tiffany N. D’Emidio
Twitter: TiffanyDEmidio
**The interview was conducted by a group of online media. The transcript provided is a reflection of questions taken from various members of that panel.