CHUCK -- "Chuck vs. the Hack Off" Episode 505A -- Pictured: Vik Sahay as Lester Patel -- Photo by: Matt Kennedy/NBC
Few fans are more dedicated and loyal than those viewers who watch Chuck. They may also be the most vocal since NBC decided not to pull Chuck off the air in mid-season after all. The final episode on January 27 will actually be a two-hour extravaganza.
Entertainment Heartbeat talked to Chuck co-star Vik Sahay this morning about his renewed show. “It’s better to have five seasons completed, story-wise, give it to the fans and kind of go out on our own terms.”
Sahay is happily surprised with the show’s viewers. “I have never been a part of anything like this remotely, and I can’t imagine it ever happening again,” he says. And it’s just a chemistry between the show and the fans…and they wouldn’t let it die; we’ve survived because of them for this long. According to the kind of antiquated Nielsen rating system it shouldn’t be on the air, but they made damned sure that we were.”
On Chuck, Sahay plays Lester Patel, a, well, pathetic, angry computer-geek with a heart. Sahay tells us that he likes to “prepare from the inside out,” and spent time with “some of these geek-squad types in Canada, where I’m from, and hung out with them and found this guy who just had that kind of rage and anger and…pathetic-ness about him and I started asking him some questions and started to feel that he was a needy, sad, broken boy, and I think that’s what Lester (Patel) is, he’s got this egg-shell persona that he puts on that is strutting and angry and what-not, but beneath that he’s just a guy who’s desperate to behugged, to be loved. And if only he knew that if he just relaxed he could get that; you know, I have this whole backstory for him…his upbringing certainly didn’t teach him that.”
We discussed with Sahay what we might hope the end of Chuck might be, that his team at the Burbank Buy More become proficient CIA operatives and live in eternal bliss. “Do you really want a guy like Lester on your spy team, I ask you that,” Sahay says seriously before forming a smile.
While Sahay will say nothing about how Chuck will finish, he does believe that the remaining shows are likely the best of their five seasons, including the one tonight that’s directed by star Zachary Levi. “There were moments when, nothing even huge or explosive, just saying text back and forth with Scott (Krinsky) or whomever, and going ‘this is some of the best writing we’ve ever had on this show.”
There is a long acting life ahead of Sahay where he is booked solid well into the future. The actor has just finished filming My Awkward Sexual Adventure, a romantic comedy where he plays a smooth ladies man, the inverse of his Lester character. And then Sahay has a movie coming out this April titled American Reunion, that’s an American Pie sequel with the original characters that may be less romantic and more loudly comedic.
Although Sahay had to leave he did stay long enough to discuss his interest (passion) in early morning roadwork and sparring in the boxing ring. “It’s mentally-awaking, and I really believe there’s a kinship, and this is getting a little, maybe hoity-toity between my actor artist thing and a boxer and the way that you train and the way I do research as an actor and the way I train as a boxer,” he says. “…getting up very early, you’re hitting the road, you’re doing the research, and then you’re accumulating the information, you come up with a strategy and when the bell rings or they call action you let it go and you’re on instinct and on impulse, and somehow those two worlds are similar, I feel the same of doing both. It’s very important to me, it kind of clears the cobwebs, and it’s my time to reflect and think and feel and get into my body as it were.”
Chuck (and Sahay) will soldier on tonight on NBC at 8pm/7 Central.
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