Adam Baldwin

ADAM BALDWIN’S JOHN CASEY RELUCTANTLY PROTECTS ’CHUCK’ (AGAIN) IN SEASON THREE

The actor talks about the new season, fight choreography, working retail and why he thinks fans like the show

Fans like Adam Baldwin for all sorts of reasons. Partly, it’s because Baldwin is appreciative of their appreciation and partly it’s his body of work. Baldwin has a knack for working on projects that build long-lasting followings. He says he still gets mail about his first major feature film role in MY BODYGUARD, in which the then 18-year-old actor played an emotionally shut-down high school student who winds up protecting a vulnerable classmate. “People come up to me all the time and say the movie touched their heart,” Baldwin says. “I’ll get mail saying, ‘I remember that movie – it changed my life.’ Either they were bullied as a youth or they were troubled and they found their way through.”

As an adult, Baldwin has been in feature films including PREDATOR 2, FULL METAL JACKET and INDEPENDENCE DAY. On TV, he had a recurring role on THE X-FILES, then was Jayne Cobb one of the leads on Joss Whedon’s short-lived but dearly beloved FIREFLY, which enjoyed big-screen resurrection in SERENITY. Now Baldwin is entering his third season as CIA Agent John Casey on NBC’s CHUCK, in which Baldwin’s character sometimes reluctantly protects Zachary Levi’s title character, a novice secret spy.

CHUCK has been off the air since the May second-season finale. It’s coming back sooner than expected in January, with an extra six episodes, bringing the third season total up to nineteen. Does Baldwin think the long break between seasons will be a problem for viewers? “I don’t know,” Baldwin says. “I think it’s always a crapshoot. I have high hopes and expectations, but I don’t know.”

There have been times when Casey has been ordered by his superior, General Beckman, played by Bonita Friedericy, to kill Chuck and/or lock him up for good. Does Baldwin think Casey ever has a crisis of conscience about this? Baldwin thinks it over. “There are moments of choice,” he muses, then laughs. “Hmm. Yes. No.”

As Casey, Baldwin is called upon to fight a great many opponents. As the actor is six-foot-four, a lot of his onscreen adversaries are somewhat shorter, although, as Baldwin points out, “Some of the guys they’ve brought in have been huge. The little ones, I said, ‘I can just shoot ‘em, and the bigger ones, you’ve got to put me in a fistfight with them.’ Choreography’s the key.”

It’s even looked convincing when Casey has occasionally lost a fight with fellow spy and Chuck’s love interest Sarah Walker, played by the petite Yvonne Strahovski. How has that worked? “Well, they frame her nicely and me not so much, so she wins,” Baldwin explains with a chuckle.

CHUCK stunt coordinator Merritt Yohnka won an Emmy for choreographing the fight in the episode “Chuck Vs. the Undercover Lover,” in which Casey and Chuck had to take on the bad guys while tied together back to back in chairs. How much of that was Baldwin and not his stunt double? “The whole fight sequence,” Baldwin replies. “I didn’t go out the window, obviously, but the rest of it was me in the fight scene, on the balcony and stuff.”

Has Casey ever met anyone he wasn’t sure he could take down? “I think Casey’s pretty confident he can take anyone down,” says Baldwin, “and when in doubt, I guess he can throw a microwave or blast ‘em.”

Sometimes a bigger question is how long Casey will be able to tolerate his undercover job at the electronics superstore Buy More, which enables him to keep an eye on Chuck. Baldwin says he has his own memories of toiling in retail in real life. “I worked in a hardware store once. That was kind of fun. I remember my boss was this old guy, Jerry, and women would come in, housewives, and they would ask for stuff. ‘Where’s the colanders?’ I’d say, ‘I don’t know. Where are the colanders, Jerry?’ He’d say,” Baldwin drops his voice to an elderly rasp, ‘Over in the colander department, don’t you know, you idiot!’ I think they hired me just to load in the dry concrete. Dry concrete loading day – ‘Concrete’s here, Adam!’ ‘Oh, great.’”

At the end of Season Two, Chuck got zapped with fighting skills, albeit he doesn’t quite understand how they work. Does Baldwin think Casey is happy that Chuck is no longer totally helpless, or does Casey think Chuck still is totally helpless, kung fu or no kung fu? “No, no, their relationship works out very well,” Baldwin says. “There are a lot of complexities that we haven’t really been privy to. The first script is great.”

Without spoiling anything for third season, does Baldwin have favorite moments from the first two seasons? “Just following along and laughing with Zach,” Baldwin relates. “He’s kept us really happy. I understand there’s a large following for CHUCK because Zack is just so lovable and just a wonderful talent. He’s like a modern-day Dick Van Dyke. The guy can sing and dance, he’s funny.” Baldwin adopts a talk show host voice. “For those younger viewers out there, Dick Van Dyke was …” Baldwin trails off with a laugh. “You don’t know him, but he’s great.”

Baldwin says he’s happy that CHUCK seems to have attracted some fans of FIREFLY/SERENITY. “I think both [series] have been embraced very well. I’m lucky and I feel glad that CHUCK has been embraced by that fandom as well. Again, I have high hopes and love for this family that we’ve created on CHUCK and hope we get to continue on and that the audience out there will connect with us even bigger.”