TV Cover
Dule Hill ‘Psych’s’ out his inner nerd for TV role
By Jacqueline Cutler
- ZAP2IT
Updated: 07/13/08 7:57 AM
-
- Dule Hill, left, returns with James Roday for a third season of “Psych,” beginning at 10 p. m. Friday on USA.
The first time Dule Hill was asked to perform, he hid under a table and only ventured out when his mom bribed him with a Blow Pop.
That was at Marie Wilde’s School of Dance in East Orange,
N. J., where Hill, then 4, was a promising tap-dancer.
Today, an assistant director need only knock on Hill’s dressing room door to get him to perform as Gus, the quirky best friend on USA Network’s “Psych,” returning for its third season at 10 p. m. Friday.
Hill, 33, made his Broadway debut a day after his 10th birthday, as understudy to Savion Glover in “The Tap Dance Kid.” That’s pretty heady stuff, but his parents kept him grounded.
“The first day I got ‘Tap Dance Kid,’ my dad was like, ‘You may be the Tap Dance Kid over there, but today you still got to take out the garbage.’ ”
He laughs at the memory, but the work ethic his folks instilled paid off. Hill calls for an interview at 5 a. m. in his time zone. He picked the time because he didn’t want to interfere with the show’s production.
The show’s fun twist is that James Roday’s character, Shawn, a slacker with keen observational skills drilled into him by his rigid father (Corbin Bernsen), passes himself off as a psychic to help police solve crimes. Shawn’s lifelong best friend is Gus.
“You watch Gus in the pilot and Gus now,” Roday says. “It’s like watching a kid go from kindergarten to 12th grade. He was probably the least developed character in the pilot. The traditional sidekick role we have seen many, many times. Because Dule was not interested in being that, and being aggressive with his own ideas and where he wanted the character to go, it allowed him to do things just for Gus.”
Gus works at a pharmaceutical company and follows the spelling bee with the fanaticism some devote to football teams. He loves his company car with great gas mileage, and his hobby is safecracking.
“My main thing really was I didn’t want Gus to be a straight nerd, a one-note nerd tripping over himself all the time and following after Shawn,” Hill says. “I didn’t want to play a character like that for five years. Even though he was a nerd, I thought it would be interesting if he thought he was cool.”
“Gus is like a cornball Renaissance
man,” Hill says. “I like Gus. He just thinks he’s cooler than what he really is. To a certain extent that’s what makes him cool. He goes on his own path, not following the crowd.”
Not following the crowd is what Hill decided to do while observing Martin Sheen and playing Charlie, President Bartlet’s aide, on “The West Wing.”
“A lot of young actors my age at the time, they are out partying all the time, or they come to the set with these egos so big,” he says. “I realized how long Martin had been in the business, and he is such a personable man and was always engaging people and he was open to everybody on the set, and that was more of how I wanted to be.”
The late Gregory Hines, a tap-dancer of exquisite precision who became a beloved actor, also had a tremendous impact on Hill.
“I want to find different ways to help get the dance art form out, especially with the passing of Gregory,” Hill says. “My long-term goal was to build my career, then do something for dance.”
He also plays as much poker as possible, aiming to break even, and enjoys an involved version of Monopoly. For the last four years, he’s been married to actress Nicole Lyn.
“I still dance and have some shoes and a piece of wood in my trailer,” Hill says.
And when they call him onto the set to perform, no Blow Pop is needed.
On the cover: Dule Hill and James Roday in “Psych.”
