Dulé Hill Interview: Psych 3

Psych 3: This Is Gus has once again reunited lifelong best friends Shawn (James Roday Rodriguez, A Million Little Things) and Gus (Dulé Hill, The Wonder Years) with the entire Santa Barbara Police Department for another wacky mystery, only this time the stakes are more personal. The new film, streaming exclusively on Peacock starting November 18, follows Gus as he’s about to take the biggest step of his life: marriage.

There’s only one hitch in his plan to get hitched, and that’s his beloved fiancée Selene (Jazmyn Simon, Raising Dion) still being married and not dropping the necessary details about her ex. Gus is ready to go full speed ahead with his dream wedding regardless, and so it is up to Shawn to help his friend uncover the mystery surrounding the woman of his dreams.

Hill spoke to Screen Rant about the joy of watching Gus’ life unfold onscreen in parallel to his own, and what new ways the creative team finds to mix things up after fifteen years.

It’s such a blessing for fans to return to these characters every once in a while to check in on them and see how they’re doing, and also watch them evolve. What is it like for you to step back into the same character at different points long past what anyone would have expected?

Dulé Hill: There was a movie out a few years ago [called Boyhood], where it followed the journey of somebody over the course of how many years – it took forever to shoot. This is like Psych-hood. That’s what this is. This is Psych-hood.

Because, really, we’ve been with these characters for 15 or 16 years. And we definitely all have grown; we’ve evolved. My hair has grown; there’s gray that’s come up. I don’t know if Gus has as much gray hair as I do, but I think in a fourth Psych movie, you’ll start to see that gray come out for me with a child on the way.

But it’s fun to be able to stay engaged in this world and with this family of characters that I have fallen in love with and Psych fans have fallen in love with over the years. It’s something that just feels good. It’s a place called home; that’s really what it feels like. It feels like a place called home not only for us, the actors, but also for the Psych universe at large. We all get a chance to check in with each other, make sure we’re all doing well, and make sure we’re all still quirky and wacky and unique in our own way.

What I think I like about the movies bringing the community back together is that it lets us continue to realize that, yes, it’s okay to be ourselves. It’s okay to be wacky, it’s okay to be what some people may call nerdy and others call cool. It’s okay to be everything. That’s what is fun about us and fun about life.

I love the Psych family, too. Obviously, this film is about welcoming Selene into the family, and the new member that she is carrying. But she also literally became part of the family. Psych always puts pieces of your life in this story, which makes it so layered for fans.

Dulé Hill: The meta-ness of it all is always pretty cool. For myself, it’s heartwarming to see that through the journey of my own life – to be able to connect with Jazmyn along this journey, fall in love with her, create our family, create our world, and then see her now enter into the Psych world. Not only as, “Oh, that’s somebody who Dulé’s married to over there,” but to actually come into the Psych world and be embraced by the Psych fans the way that they have. It really is heartwarming.

And then on top of that, for Selene and Gus to be having a child, and for Jazmyn and I to have just recently had a child… It’s like art imitating life imitating art imitating life. We’ve heard it both ways. We’re living it one way, we think. It’s all a big whirlwind, but it’s a lot of fun. Psych is something that is so close to my heart, and has been such a major part of my life for so long. I could not ask for a better scene partner than Jazmyn Simon to come now and be the love interest for Gus. It makes all the sense in the world.

I mean, she has me laughing at home; she had me cracking up at home. And now the Psych fans get a chance to see some of that wackiness that I get a chance to see off screen. And I trust as we go further, and hopefully get a chance to do other movies, that there’ll be more wackiness to come.

In this movie, we get Gus the Groomzilla. How much fun is it to explore that side of him? And then to juxtapose that with Shawn almost pulling you back like, “No, wait?”

Dulé Hill: It makes sense that that would be Gus. Gus is always very detailed. He gets down to the nitty gritty of everything; of every fact and figure about every unnecessary thing that is out there. And it’s fun to play. I love those dynamics where Gus kind of goes down this rabbit hole, and Shawn is trying to pull him out so that he can go down some other wild goose chase. Shawn is the wild goose chase; Gus is the rabbit hole, and they’re always trying to pull each other.

And to a certain extent, even though it’s evolving, we’re experiencing something new about how Gus is as a groom – becoming a groomzilla. It is also very classic Psych, because it definitely makes all the sense in the world that he gets very heady about the most minute details concerning the wedding. It makes all the sense in the world that, no, it’s not gonna be a bride. It’s gonna be a groomzilla. Burton Guster? Yep, that makes sense.

And then Shawn is kind of like, “Come on, there’s other things – more important things that we could be doing.” So, it is definitely classic Psych.

We hope for many more Psych films down the line and many more new experiences. Is there any place that you would like to see Gus go next?

Dulé Hill: I definitely want to see Gus as a dad. That makes all the sense in the world, his next series of neuroses that he goes through. That makes all the sense in the world. I mean, that would drive everybody crazy. I have no doubt. I think there’s so much comedy gold that can come out of that, because he’s going to be the helicopter parent of all helicopter parents. I don’t think there’ll be a bigger helicopter parent than Gus, so I definitely want to see that.

I want to see what happens with Shawn and Gus in their dynamic, because Shawn is always going to be the uncle that is extremely cool but always kind of steering the child in the wrong way. “I don’t think you should be doing that right now.” “It’s fine!” You know what I mean? I want to see how that push and pull goes.

I want to see what happens with Jules and Shawn now that this is happening in Gus’ like. Anytime you change a piece of a puzzle, the shape changes, so I want to see how that goes. And I would love to see how Lassie is as an uncle, because he’s always such a curmudgeonly type person. I would love to see Gus putting a toddler in the arms of Lassie: “You watch him for the next hour.”

Psych 3: This Is Gus will be streaming exclusively on NBCUniversal’s Peacock on November 18.

About The Author

Tatiana Hullender
(635 Articles Published)

See also  12 Most Memorable Quotes From Tom Holland's Spider-Man

Tatiana Hullender is a writer at Screen Rant, focusing on film and television, as well as a co-host of several podcasts. In the interviews she conducts for Screen Rant, she seeks to learn what drives each creative mind and how different experiences influence the same narrative. As a graduate of Columbia University in New York City, Tatiana studied theater and comparative literature. She has been passionate about all manner of storytelling since being exposed to Jane Austen and BBC adaptations of her work all at once. But Regency satire of manners isn’t the only genre she loves, as a love of comic books naturally developed into a love of cinematic universes and their superheroes. So long as a story has heart and humor, there’s a chance of finding something to enjoy in the telling of it.
Visit @myrcellasear on Twitter to follow Tatiana’s articles, interviews and podcasts including: The Flash Podcast, Pop A La Carte and Ladies With Gumption. Subscribe to them on the Podcast app, or contact her directly at painted(dot)out(at)gmail.com.

More From Tatiana Hullender