CS Video: Get Ready to Ride with the CHIPS Cast

March 23, 2017

CS sits down with writer, director and star Dax Shepard and his CHIPS cast

This Friday, Warner Bros. Pictures is delivering a new take on the late ’70s/early ’80s NBC police series with writer, director and star Dax Shepard‘s CHIPS. Shepard stars as California Highway Patrol (CHP) officer Jon Baker alongside a CHIPS cast that also includes Michael Peña as Frank “Ponch” Poncherello and Shepard’s real life wife, Kristen Bell, as Baker’s wife. All three recently sat down with CS in Los Angeles for a look at what it took to bring CHIPS to the big screen. Shepard explains how he pitched Peña for the Ponch role before having even met the actor. Bell, meanwhile, explains how she almost didn’t wind up starring because her husband felt she was too likable to play a character that the audience is supposed to hate.

In CHIPS, Jon Baker and Frank “Ponch” Poncherello have just joined the California Highway Patrol (CHP) in Los Angeles but for very different reasons. Baker is a beaten up pro motorbiker trying to put his life and marriage back together. Poncherello is a cocky undercover Federal agent investigating a multi-million dollar heist that may be an inside job—inside the CHP. The inexperienced rookie and hardened pro are teamed together, but clash more than click, so kickstarting a partnership is easier said than done. But with Baker’s bike skills combined with Ponch’s street savvy it might just work… if they don’t drive each other crazy along the way.

The CHIPS cast also includes Rosa Salazar (The Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, Alita Battle Angel), Adam Brody (The O.C., Yoga Hosers) and Vincent D’Onofrio (Emerald City, Marvel’s Daredevil).