Last night was the Season 4 finale of the USA Network’s TV series Psych. The Hitchcock-inspired episode is directed by the show’s star, James Roday, and guests stars Ally Sheedy (best known for her role the 1985 film The Breakfast Club) who is reprising her role as the serial killer, Mr. Yang.

During a recent conference call interview Roday talked about being a fan of Alfred Hitchcock and the Psych homage to his films. He also revealed what it was like to work with the ’80s pop culture icon, Ally Sheedy.

The Psych Season Finale is a Hitchcock Homage

Roday not only starred in the final episode of the season, as he does each week, but he also directed it. He said he drew his inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock, stating, “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.”

Does Roday have a favorite Hitchcock movie? “I am a huge Psycho fan. I have always been a Psycho fan… I just think Hitchcock sort of revolutionized the idea of the chiller twist that horror films attempted to be predicated on since Psycho came out. That is the original jaw dropping twist that 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.”

Hitchcock was known for creating an entire movie in his head before any shooting happened. Roday was asked if he approached this episode that same way. He replied, “No. Hitchcock, God love him, he’s one of the great masters of all time, but he did used to stick to that whole idea that the entire movie was in his head before he stepped on set for the first day and that never once in his entire career did anything ever change. That’s the most impossible thing in the world for me to believe, if for no other reason than something must have fallen over at some point or exploded or something.”

Roday continued, “We’re a TV show on a seven-day schedule so… you learn very quickly that if you can get two or three or maybe four of the things right or at least close to what you had in your head over the course of a seven-day shoot then you’ve succeeded. For this episode the Hitchcock stuff was obviously very important. We wanted to service that as best as we could and it was a lot.”

James Roday Directs Ally Sheedy

The episode brought back the character of serial killer, Mr. Yang, played by Ally Sheedy. She first performed the role in the Season 3 finale and reprised it again in this last episode of Season 4. Roday was asked what it was like working with an ’80s icon.

He replied, “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 – it’s unbelievable. You just kind of want to capture these moments in little time capsules… I haven’t been nervous many times on our show, I have to be honest, but I had the butterflies going with Ally.

Will David Bowie be the Next Guest Star on Psych?

One other pop culture icon Roday has always wanted to work with is David Bowie, but so far he has not had any luck securing the musician/actor. He admitted, “It’s a long shot, man. He’s always in some exotic place and he’s tough to track down. I feel like our best shot was probably on American Duos when Landis, who is friends with him, sort of reached out and almost made it happen. We’re going to keep trying, but I have to be realistic. I want you all to be realistic with me. There is a less than 30% chance it’s going to happen, but we’re going to keep trying.”

What Show Would Roday Like to Guest On?

Lastly the actor commented on whether there is a show he would like to guest star on. He divulged, “I’m going to cheat my way out of this and say I was ready to do just about anything on Flight of the Concords but now they’re done so my dream is out. My candle is no longer burning. I think those guys are genius and I would have rode by on a bicycle and just the back of my head being featured. I thought that’s how much fun they were having on that show.”

source: primetimetv.suite101.com