Psych at 20: James Roday Rodriguez on Which Friends Star Almost Got His Role

James Roday Rodriguez recently hung out with a bunch of "Psychos" in San Francisco, and he couldn’t be more thrilled about it. 

“We like to come together and host weekends for them,” he says of the self-described rabid fans of his delightful comedy detective series. “We do a bunch of silly things so it feels singular and unique and immersive and interactive.”

But this time, the actor adds, he and his fellow cast members plus creator Steve Franks celebrated a special occasion: “We had a moment to reflect and feel appreciative. We definitely toasted to two decades of ‘What the fuck . . . ?!’

Indeed, July 7 marks 20 years since the premiere of Psych — the only procedural in history to feature Val Kilmer as a detective, Molly Ringwald as an asylum nurse and glorious tributes to both Clue and Twin Peaks. Rodriguez starred as Shawn Spencer, a slacker who, as seen in the 2006 pilot, uses his specific set of hyper-observant and deductive skills to convince the Santa Barbara Police Department that he’s psychic. He and his best friend Gus (Dule Hill) soon open a private “psychic” detective agency and end up solving mysteries for the force in their own goofy way. 

Along with the likes of Monk, Royal Pains, White Collar and Burn Notice, Psych was an integral part of the USA Network’s early-00s “Blue Sky” era, when lighthearted, character-driven series served as an escapist alternative to gritty prestige TV offerings. But this show was especially sunny and bright: Nearly each episode was filled with retro pop culture Easter eggs and callbacks, as Rodriguez and Hill often gamely cosplayed in costumes for their investigations. What it lacked in Emmy nominations during its eight-season run — just two overall, both in the Creative Arts categories — it made up for in enduring fervent fandom. (See: Three post-finale Psych movies). 

“There’s a magic sauce to it,” says Rodriguez, who evolved into a show producer, director and writer. “No matter what’s happening in the world and pulling us apart, you can sit down in front of the television with your kid and laugh for 45 minutes. And that’s because we led with love and kindness.”

For Psych’s big milestone, Rodriguez — he reverted to his full birth name in 2020 — shared his observations with the Television Academy. 

Television Academy: Happy anniversary! Let’s hear your Psych origin story. 

James Roday Rodriguez: I was kicking around TV for five, six years and landing on these shows that just weren't resonating with people. It started to feel like maybe this wasn't the thing for me, so I made a choice to move back to New York and do some theater and relight the fire. I read the Psych script on the flight back to New York. My agent was like, “I know where your head's at, but just read this script because I think it’s special.” When I landed, I thought, “Shit, he's right.” 

So, I agreed to meet with Steve and we spoke for almost three hours. He's one of the most positive and aspirational human beings you'll ever meet. There's like an innocence and a hopefulness to him that is really hard to come by — both then and now. We started talking about how we saw the show. Ferris Bueller's Day Off was a big comedy inspiration for him; Real Genius was a huge inspiration for me. And we said to each other, “Maybe we can meet somewhere in the middle.”

That seems a little too easy, all things considered. 

The deck was definitely stacked in my favor. The last curve ball was that before it was official, the studio wanted to offer it to Matthew Perry. They were like, “He'll probably say no, we don't have the money because this is USA. But we have to do it.” There was a 48-hour period where we were all just sitting on our hands waiting to hear that Matthew Perry didn't want to do Psych. As I expected, he did not. I will owe him forever, may he rest. 

He chose Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip instead, which only lasted one season. 

Yes, but he had done a million years of multi-cam work. Given an opportunity to [work] with Aaron Sorkin, he was probably like, “Yeah, I'll do that.”

Was Psych always intended to be a love letter to ‘80s and ‘90s nostalgia? 

It was always going to be a love letter to best friends, specifically best friends living out their dreams. The ‘80s and the ‘90s became progressively baked in as Steve and I realized that we shared a lot of the same pop culture references for music and movies. We were in a vacuum at the time — especially that first season, when we were up in Vancouver. USA, at the time, was trying to rebrand itself. The fact that we could tickle each other was like, “Well, we'll go with that!” We hoped that there were other people out there like us who would appreciate our references. We soon discovered that there were. 

Which guest star really made you starstruck? 

The very, very last guest star was Val [Kilmer], who did the series finale. Never in a million years would I have thought that would have happened. He was my hero, my childhood idol and the single biggest inspiration I had as a performer. I left Texas for NYU, with a little wallet-sized photograph of him in my wallet, as a reminder of why I was there. A reminder to keep my eyes on the prize. To have him show up and do that for us was huge. 

You never know what it's going to be like when you meet your heroes, and Val was an interesting cat. There were a ton of stories out there about him and that he was difficult, so I wasn't sure what to expect. But I’ve got to tell you, he showed up. He could not have been more of a prince to all of us. He didn't even go back to his trailer; he hung out on set the whole day because he knew we were all starstruck. He knew we wanted to spend time with him and pick his brain and talk to him as much as possible. It was the last thing we shot — talk about a perfect day. 

Psych was famously part of USA’s “Blue Sky” programming. Was the happy vibe prevalent behind the scenes, as well? 

It was for us. At the beginning, it was just Monk and [Psych]. There wasn't a giant “blue sky” umbrella over us yet, so we really did get to find our own way and create our own aesthetic.  We were [shooting] in Canada and we became a chosen family because none of us knew anybody except each other. The on-set vibe was smooth and silly — and we had so much room to make it sillier. We really were the cast that looked forward to coming to work every day. We enjoyed the material, we knew we were going to laugh no matter what. Dule and I never had to fake it, and I think it translated. 

Talk a bit more about your dynamic with Dule. Are you still close? 

I had never met Dule before his first audition. He hadn't done a ton of comedy, so we needed to position him the right way. I went to his house in Woodland Hills to work on the material with him before he had to do it for the [network execs]. He always says, “Dude, you didn't need to do that.” But in my head, I was like, “Yeah, but you were the guy we wanted, and I had a car.” 

Early on, we knew that the show was going to sink or swim based on our chemistry, so we had the same mission. After eight seasons of The West Wing, Dule really wanted to show people a different side of himself. We were each other’s social lives in Vancouver, and the relationship just got deeper and deeper. I was in his wedding. If I ever have a wedding, he would be in mine. I love the dude. 

You also racked up 16 writing credits. How did writing for the show come about?

Two words: Steve Franks. I think 99% of show creators are exceptionally and understandably proprietary of their babies. But that’s not Steve. He knew that I had co-written a horror movie [2006’s Skinwalkers] — not a very good horror movie. But he came to me in the first season and was like, "Hey, man, I think it'd be cool to do a scary episode, but I don't know the first thing about horror. What do you think about writing it together?” I had never written an episode of television before. I felt I had no business co-writing a script in the first season — especially when I was carrying the water of creating that character. But, the next thing I knew, we were writing the season finale together. I eventually wrote with every other writer in the room. 

Will “Psychos” ever see a fourth reunion movie? 

The answer is always going to be “yes,” because we really do love being able to give back to the fans that have kept us in the zeitgeist for all these years. The tricky part of the Psych business model is that Peacock has limited resources. As much as they appreciate us as this evergreen brand, it's tough for them to go, "Oh, let's spend X amount of dollars on another Psych movie, which is basically just going to appease a bunch of people that are already subscribed to our service.” It’s more likely they would spend the same amount of money on a new show that would add subscribers. 

But, they know we’ll always answer the phone. We even have a script in the hopper — Steve and I wrote it a couple years back. So it wouldn't even be like, “They want to make another one, we’ve got to scramble.” We would just take it off the shelf, polish it up, and we'd be ready in two weeks. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Psych is streaming now on Peacock.