Shawn Spencer
| Shawn Spencer | |
|---|---|
| 'Psych' character | |
| First appearance | Pilot |
| Created by | Steve Franks and Andy Berman |
| Portrayed by | James Roday Josh Hayden (Young Shawn - Pilot) Liam James (Young Shawn) Kyle Pejpar (Young Shawn - Season 1, Episode 2) |
| In-universe information | |
| Alias | Lenny, Aurora Borealis, Kkarlton Lassiter, Byron Bojengles III, Black, William Zane, Levon Tostig, Jerry Hathaway, Felicia, "T-Bone" Turner, Maniac Maniac 19, Shawn Spenstar, Ichabod Fletchman, Judd Nelson, Jim Stoneman, Hans Jorgenson, Shawn White, R. P. McMurphy, Skip, Juan Priestley, Chad, Dr.Howard, |
| Nickname | "Goose" (mother)[1] |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Psychic Detective |
| Family | Henry Spencer (father) Madeleine Spencer (mother) Unnamed Brother (Set to appear in Season 4) |
| Relatives | Jack Spencer (uncle)[2] |
Shawn Spencer is a fictional character on the American television dramedy Psych played by American actor James Roday. Taking advantage of his photographic memory, he poses as a psychic and works as a private detective who often consults with the Santa Barbara Police Department. He has been dating Abigail Lytar, played by Rachael Leigh Cook, since the season 3 finale.
Creation and development
Actor James Roday says that he thinks the character of Shawn Spencer may have been written with Matthew Perry in mind in terms of a prototype. Roday himself had sworn off television at the time the pilot episode was being cast, and was planning to go back to New York to do some theater productions, but was convinced by his agents to read the script. He was the first person cast for the series, and was subsequently involved in the casting process of every other character.[3] In preparing for the role, Roday visited a number of psychics and asked them to describe what their visions entailed, "so that when someone asks if I was pulling all this out of my ass, I could say that I met with a few psychics and they say that sometimes their temperature rises and they convulse."[4]
Fictional biography
Born in 1977, Shawn comes from a family of police officers. His parents separated in 1992, and later divorced; his mother, Madeleine (a psychologist), eventually returned and explained that she left to pursue a job opportunity.[1] His father, Henry Spencer, schooled Shawn in detective work from as early as age 7, aiding the development of his extraordinary powers of observation and deduction. At the age of 15, he achieved a perfect score of 100 on the detective's exam.[5] This is drawn loosely from the childhood of series creator Steve Franks, who was also born into a family of police officers and whose father "was training [Franks] in his own way to follow his footsteps." Franks' father would ask him how many people were wearing hats in a restaurant, a tactic employed in the show's pilot episode by Shawn's father.[6]
Shawn's relationship with his father is complicated and at times highly strained. Though often it may seem that Henry is intentionally aggravating or imposing his will on his grown son, it is usually revealed that his motives are genuine. For example, tipping off the meter maid to ticket Shawn's motorcycle which is parked too close to a hydrant outside his apartment. The impounding as a result was Henry's ultimate goal, as Shawn had got into an accident some time ago.
Despite his obvious talent, Shawn has no interest in entering the police force, and after graduating from Leland Bosseigh High School in Santa Barbara, California, in 1995[7], takes up a string of random jobs selected strictly for his own enjoyment. In his spare time, he entertains himself by calling in tips to the police hotline based on observations he has made on crime scenes shown in television news footage. After one such tip, the Santa Barbara police become suspicious of Shawn, whose information is so good that they believe it could only have come from an inside source. Desperate to avoid jail time, Shawn lies, explaining that he obtained the information in a psychic vision. Although initially skeptical, the department is impressed when he uses his "psychic" abilities to deduce that McNab was getting married, the secretary was haunted by her dead grandmother, Lassiter was in a relationship with his partner, and solve a vandalism case. So they hire Shawn as a consultant. Burton Guster, Shawn's best friend, hesitantly allows Shawn to recruit him, and they open their own psychic detective agency, "Psych".
It has been recently revealed he inherited his eidetic memory from his mother.[citation needed]
Characterization
Although Shawn and Gus often have disagreements, they have been friends since early childhood and actor James Roday describes the pair's bond as "unbreakable. It's one of those friendships that make people who don't have one ask, 'Why does Gus put up with Shawn?' It's not about putting up with one another. It's about knowing each other so well that things that might annoy someone from the outside don't annoy you anymore."[4] Shawn knows exactly how to manipulate Gus, and often frustrates his friend with his antics, but has come to rely on him more in their case work as the series has progressed. Roday believes that Shawn has "evolved a lot" as a partner, moving away from "dragging Gus around by the collar against his will from case to case to case" towards a more equal partnership.[8] He states that under Gus's influence, Shawn has "wisened up a little bit" and is learning to display a little more discretion at times.[9]
Shawn's seemingly random stream of consciousness often belies the far-reaching logical connections that his observational skills allow him to make. He explains the multiple-personality-afflicted Robert Dunn's condition to Gus by referencing The Flying Nun, which starred Sally Field, who played the similarly-affected title character in Sybil. He also hybridizes movie quotes voiced by James Earl Jones in two separate films (The Lion King and The Empire Strikes Back) when addressing a mountain lion: "Simba, I am your father." Running jokes on the show center around Shawn's love of Jerk Chicken and pineapples (even though he has a "distaste" for pointy objects), which he will often bring as a gift to people he is meeting for the first time; his inability to set his cell phone to vibrate, even when spying or infiltrating the homes of suspects; his fondness for Val Kilmer; his comments on other people’s hair; his difficulty in pronouncing certain words (such as "chassis"); after being proven wrong saying "I've heard it both ways" (e.g. "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Marzipan"); his use of other people's property in his psychic "visions" (i.e. using O'Hara's scarf to cover his eyes, him ripping out the paper tray of the printer belonging to Chief Vick, Gus's head); and, of course, the pseudonyms he makes up for Gus each time he questions a person of interest, often a reference to an obscure '80s movie, a combination of two or more celebrities' names, or something he created on the spot.
References
- ^ a b Psych, Episode 3.01: "Ghosts." Original airdate: July 18, 2008.
- ^ Psych, Episode 3.04: "The Greatest Adventure in the History of Basic Cable." Original airdate: August 8, 2008.
- ^ Norton, Al (August 23, 2007). 411 Movies Interview: James Roday of PSYCH. 411mania.com. Retrieved on 2007-12-23.
- ^ a b Donnelly, G.J. (February 9, 2007). Meet the Faker: James Roday Takes Our Psych Exam. TV Guide. Retrieved on 2007-12-23.
- ^ Psych, Episode 2.11: "There's Something About Mira." Original airdate: January 11, 2008.
- ^ Goldman, Eric (June 30, 2006). Reading Minds with the Stars of PSYCH. IGN. Retrieved on 2007-12-23.
- ^ Psych, Episode 3.02: "Murder? ... Anyone? ... Anyone? ... Bueller?" Original airdate: July 25, 2008.
- ^ Roday, James. Video Interview: Shawn's Evolution. USA Network. Retrieved on 2007-12-23.
- ^ Roday, James. Video Interview: Grown Up?. USA Network. Retrieved on 2007-12-23.