Yvonne Strahovski Versus the Nose Ring

Update: Check out my exclusive interview with Chuck executive producer and creator Chris Fedak with his thoughts about the season and how he's going to approach season four.

I teased a while back that I'd give you a couple tidbits about Australian actress Yvonne Strahovski, who plays Sarah on NBC's Chuck.

Coming up tomorrow (Monday, April 26), Chuck comes back after a couple weeks off with "Chuck Versus the Honeymooners," and it's GREAT! Forget the whole "Chuck's a spy" or "Chuck's not a spy" business. Chuck's back and so is Sarah, but in a completely different way.

Here's part of an interview with Yvonne that was conducted BEFORE the enormous "game changing" episode, "Chuck Versus the Other Guy," where Chuck and Sarah finally got together big time. While we didn't talk about all the new developments on Chuck (like Chuck and Sarah hitting the sheets), here's some general goodies about Sarah, her American accent, and why she misses her nose ring:

KATHIE: What is your biggest challenge in playing Sarah this season?

YVONNE: I think it is the fact that Chuck is becoming more of spy and I think for Sarah she’s becoming more of a human being and learning how to be sort of be somewhat normal and it is kind of baby steps for her cause she’s always been in the spy world. She doesn’t know it but I think she’s sort of unraveling a little bit more this season and we’ll definitely see more of that in episodes to come. You get to see her more raw side.

KATHIE: We found out Sarah's real name was actually Sam this season. But the revelation wasn't to Chuck.

YVONNE: No, it wasn’t to Chuck... It is those little things we keep finding about the characters and the family and how it’s kind of getting dangerously close to the family. Like Chuck’s secret is creeping in on that family life of his. So there is definitely surprises coming up.

KATHIE: How do you feel about more people from Chuck's non-spy world like Captain Awesome and Morgan finding out his secret?

YVONNE: I think it’s just a natural progression of the show and I think we’re all really happy with that. There are certainly more revelations to come as we near the season finale.

KATHIE: Why did you want to take this role in the first place?

YVONNE: Straight up I think she’s a very strong, intelligent woman and being a spy is something not many of us get to do on a daily basis. So jumping into that world and getting to pretend to be a spy everyday is pretty fun, and the physical aspect of the role as well really attracted me. I’ve always been pretty athlete growing up and a bit of tomboy and very much into rock climbing camping and all sorts of sports. To get to do stunts on a weekly basis is really, really fun for me, and I love doing all my stunts and wire work in the fight scenes and all the cool stuff we get to do. Those are kind of my favorite things about the role.

KATHIE: When I talked to Zachary Levi (who plays Chuck), way back when the series was starting up, he complained that he didn't get to carry a gun. That's changed this year. Is it fun for Zach now that he gets to shoot people?

YVONNE: Yeah, he used to always want to be a part of it and now it is. I think he’s loving it. It is fun to see him get involved with all the fight stuff as well.

KATHIE: Is it a challenge for you to lose the accent when you become Sarah or is automatic now?

YVONNE: No, it's automatic. Living here in the U.S., I’m surrounded by the accent everyday. I think it would be a different story if I had to play this character and shoot it in Australia where I was surrounded by a cast and crew that had Australian accents, you know. It is a lot easier when you're living the accents.

KATHIE: No one would guess you were Australian, considering Sarah isn't. You do the American accent very well.

YVONNE: Oh, thank you.

KATHIE: Are you ready to take up the directing reins like Zachary did this year?

YVONNE: I think I might leave that to everybody else [LAUGHS]. For now, I don’t see myself directing a Chuck episode anytime soon.

KATHIE: What is something most people don’t’ know about you?

YVONNE: Most people don’t know that I had a nose ring for five years.

KATHIE: Do you miss it?

YVONNE: You can still see the little hole in my nose. A little bit, I’ve thought about putting back [LAUGHS].

KATHIE: I don’t know if Sarah would wear a nose ring?

YVONNE: No, no I don’t think that would be appropriate [LAUGHS].

For more of my interview with Yvonne, check out my article on Chuck in the June issue of Sci Fi Magazine.