Chuck Presents: Nudists and Community's Danny Pudi!

I've been lucky enough to be on the set of Chuck several times, but on this particular day, Chuck (Zachary Levi) and Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) are standing out by the nature of what they're wearing – or not wearing. You see, for the episode "Chuck Versus The Hack Off", which airs this Friday, Chuck and Sarah are undercover among a group who believe in a clothing-optional way of life - which is why Levi and Strahovski are wearing notably short robes as they shoot their scenes.

When I asked Strahovski about her outfit, she grinned, replying, "What do you mean? This is my own outfit I came to work in! Yeah, we're in a cult today. It's very hippy-dippy on the set of Chuck. Everyone's free-flowing." That comment certainly worked for Levi, who actually had a shorter robe than Strahovski, causing her to crack, "We hope that he's wearing underwear!"

Chuck co-creator Chris Fedak – who exclaimed, "We made a mistake!" regarding Levi's robe being shorter than Strahovski's -- describes "Chuck Versus The Hack Off" as "one of our nerdiest episodes yet." He praised the director (more on that guy in a bit) for making the episode "dynamic and energetic," noting that in this installment, "We learn a little bit about Chuck's backstory, like who he was before he met Sarah. A little bit about the hacker that was Chuck."

Another notable and nerd-friendly part of the episode is the guest appearance of Community's Danny Pudi, who appears as a Buy More employee. Said Fedak, "We're big Community fans. We just thought there was a character that we were building that only Danny Pudi could do. So instead of going, 'Let's reconceive this and make it a different person,' we were like, 'No, let's try to get Danny Pudi to do it.' So we used our forces at NBC to trick the Community people…. or asked nicely if we could possibly use him. And he's great. He came in and he killed it. He's so very funny. And it ties into the Jeff and Lester story."

The quick-witted Vik Sahay ("Lester") hinted it's likely not a coincidence that he and Pudi are both Indian – in the midst of a storyline where Jeff and Lester are on the outs -- quipping, "There is a situation where they bring in a lesser brown guy to try to mimic the Lester game, and maybe it snags me a little. It gets to me a little. And when I say me, I mean Lester! I'm fine with that. It's sort of a tactic that's used by certain people in the Buy More to lure me… I'll leave it at that."

Pudi too was a big vague about his character when I spoke to him about Chuck, remarking, "They told me not to say too much. It's a smaller part. I'm connected to Vic's character Lester in some way. I do not play Abed. I play someone who might pose an initial threat, but ultimately is not a threat whatsoever!"

Pudi described his time on Chuck as "fantastic," recalling telling Levi, "This is just a great opportunity for me to hang out with you guys." Added Pudi, "More than anything, I just wanted to hang out, because Zach and Josh [Gomez] and Vic [Sahay] and I have become buddies from the NBC events and Comic-Con, where I did Zach's Nerd HQ panel."

"Chuck Versus The Hack Off" has a notable director: Mr. Zachary Levi. Looking back at the experience of directing the episode earlier this week, as Chuck was in production on their very last episode, Levi said, "I really enjoyed it. I always enjoy it. It's kind of a weird love/hate thing, because it's really hard. It's only the third episode of television I've ever directed, so I still have a lot to learn and a long ways to go as a director. But I feel like I was the most learned [I'd been], and I applied that knowledge in this episode. Obviously, the more times you do it, hopefully the better you do it. And I feel like the storyline was a lot of fun. I tried to extrapolate as much comedy as I could out of it. Because at the heart of it, I really see this show as being an action-comedy, and I try to apply that in the episodes that I direct. It's really fun stuff - a lot of scenes with characters you wouldn't necessarily normally see together in situations that you wouldn't think they would be in together."

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Learn how Levi incorporated nudity into Chuck and more on Page 2.