Monsters and Critics joined a few journalists on a teleconference with "House M.D." executive producer Katie Jacobs, and the call got into the nitty-gritty of the whole House-Cuddy-Cameron heat currently being played out.
Dr. Gregory House - Hugh Laurie - 2008 FOX All Star TCA Party At The Pier - Santa Monica Pier - Santa Monica, CA. USA © Albert L. Ortega / PR Photos
The unorthodox love affair will continue to tease and torture those who want Cameron to win House's affection, and team Cuddy (me) who feel she is Gregory's woman.
FOX's "House M.D." features the brilliant work of Hugh Laurie as the contentious, afflicted and cranky Dr. Gregory House. The show is overseen by his executive producer Katie Jacobs, who keeps the storyline simmering between House, Cuddy and his supplicant medical minions who share a love-hate relationship with their brilliant mentor who takes pleasure in pushing them all to their limits.
Exciting episodes are in store for November sweeps month: “Emancipation,” airing on November 18th and then “Last Resort,” which Katie Jacobs also directed, airing on November 25th, the show has an extended airtime for that episode - from 8:00 to 9:08 p.m. on that night.
Monsters and Critics talked to Katie to talk all things "House."
Katie, how did the writers and you prep the hostage episode?
K. Jacobs I talked to several SWAT guys. One had a really interesting story about how the hostage taker was moving outside the hospital, from one area to the other, and they were all poised to get him. When he came out, he and the hostages that were surrounding him all had on surgical scrubs and masks so they could not figure out who the hostage taker was and who the victims were. Yes, we researched this.
He’s worked on several situations like this. What we were really interested in tapping into – because obviously guys pulling guns is not all that original, but what we were interested in tapping into is the frustration that many of us feel when we go in to see a doctor or a hospital, and we’re not diagnosed, when they simply don’t know what’s wrong.
This patient had been to 16 hospitals and has been through every imaginable test and he feels that there is a certain indignity, and he’s not being seen, and yet, at the same time, he’s lost everything because, also, people with illnesses know, you miss a certain amount of work because you’re not feeling well, or you’re not able to carry on even the closest of relationships, so you can lose your life to this illness. That’s what we’re more interested in is patients’ frustration and their need to be seen.
Talk about House and Cuddy for a moment. Unorthodox love affair?
K. Jacobs: It’s funny because you’re right to say “unorthodox,” and at the same time, I think it’s probably more real than any other love relationship on TV insofar as relationships are complicated.
House and Cuddy work together. There’s obvious chemistry; there’s obvious respect, but there’s barbs, and there’s jousting. It is unorthodox and, at the very same time, incredibly real. So, yes.
How big a part of this is this going to be of the show from here on out? Have you thought about how risky their potential love affair is for you?
K. Jacobs: Well, how big a part in terms of how much screen time?
Hopefully, we do the best job we can to have the patient-of-the-week, as it were, tie in and reveal in some way something thematically about our characters and give them the opportunity to reveal a character.
So, it’s going to play very much in the way that we’ve done that in the past.
Well, I took a poll in my office about people – do they like it? Don’t they like it? I’ve heard from some people who really don’t like it, don’t think that they’re right for each other.
K. Jacobs They may not be right for each other. First of all, I love the fact that you took a poll. Believe it or not, I love the fact that some people like it and some people don’t because I think that’s what’s so interesting to us about the relationship is that I could, right now, make a case for it and make a case against it. That’s interesting to me. That’s actually real. That feels real to me, the fact that there are two sides.
I don’t think that it will go on in a predictable, “Okay, now everything is shifting, and this is the story” kind of way. Hopefully, we explore it in a very House-ian way, which is, it’s there, and now, what do we do? But, don’t expect to see dates and they go to the movies. It’s not going to unfold like that. It’s going to unfold in a House-ian way. Is that okay?
House-ian. Define that.
K. Jacobs: I like to think that we take our own slant on the world. It’s usually a bit harsher or rough around the edges or spicier than most shows, but at the very same time, I think that gives us an opportunity to hit real sweetness and comedy.
One of the things that I’m most proud of about the show is that, if you look at our one-hour drama in comparison to many other of the popular one-hour dramas, both on cable and on network TV, our actors are so completely gifted as dramatic actors and gifted as comedic actors, whether it’s Hugh or Robert or Lisa, they’re all seriously gifted comedic actors, so House-ian meaning hit it hard, but hit it funny at the same time and hit it sweet.
The Christmas episode really has a very satisfying surprise for Cuddy and House in a personal kind of way. I do not mean that they wind up embracing each other. It’s House-ian. It’s left of center.
I’m going to pick at this House-Cuddy subject some more. Because I’m a girl I’m seeing this whole triangle of love for Hugh Laurie's House. So, let’s talk. If there was ever a character in televised history that needed to get bedded properly, it’s Dr. Gregory House.
K. Jacobs I’m with you.
So, you’ve got Dr. Cameron who’s totally pining for him. You’ve got Cuddy. It seems that the chemistry is there between him and Cuddy, not him and Cameron. Elaborate.
K. Jacobs: I hope that there’s chemistry between House and Cuddy, House and Cameron, House and Wilson, House and Thirteen.
I certainly hope we go for as much chemistry as possible. I think what it is, is House, as a character, has a hole, has an emptiness. What most of these women want to do is somehow see if they can ease his pain because everybody knows on the inside, or they think on the inside that there’s a lot of pain and if they can somehow be the one to make House smooth out those rough edges, wouldn’t it be sweet?
It’s mostly going to be up to House. He could have a relationship with any one of them, but he’s got to be in the mind space and be at a place where he’s ready to make himself vulnerable. I don’t see him as being at that place entirely at the moment. At times, we’ve seen glimpses of his getting closer.
Technical question. I love the work that Danielle Berman does, your set decorator. I was wondering if you could talk about the unusual props that she has to procure for your production?
K. Jacobs: First of all, I love the fact that you notice her work because she really is a gem and works so hard and is so good at her job. What we try to do, I remember in particular for some reason, this episode that we did where House goes into a second-hand store.
It’s a scene between House and Wilson. What we try to do – she does it, I do it and when we’re at our best, everybody tries to do it, it’s sort of in the dressing of one of our sets if we know that House is going to be in that set, we try to give as many opportunities for House to do something that would come out of character and out of Hugh Laurie’s brilliant mind.
So, for example, we don’t write in all of the toys that he may play with, right? But we dress sets to give Hugh opportunities in the exploration of the character to reveal things about the story through the props we put around. He always does. It’s amazing.
So, if we put a sculpture of a brain, or if we put lollipops – do you know what I’m saying? The more we dress it, the more opportunities there are for Hugh to figure out a way, if he wants to, to incorporate them into his performance.
Is it a constant challenge to give everybody a little chance to be in each episode?
K. Jacobs Yes, it is a challenge. It’s something we really wanted to expand for our own stories and broaden out and do things a little differently, just to keep it fresh for ourselves, but absolutely you’re right.
It is hard, and yet, I always find it satisfying when we’re able to do it because what I love about what David Shore has created is, every character, I feel has their specific point of view on the topic of conversation that we’re exploring that week.
How do you approach directing? Do you ever get surprised at what you see from the director’s eye as opposed to the writer and producer eye?
K. Jacobs: For me, it’s a total dream insofar as, as a producer, we’re always in a constant state of prepping, casting one episode, shooting at least one episode or picking up – we only shoot one at a time, but sometimes, we have to pick up other things and then we’re in post on at least three.
So, that kind of juggling and having to split your mind in so many different directions and keep so much in your head is something, as a producer, that’s challenging with 24 episodes a year.
As a director, it’s kind of the dream part about it. It’s an excuse. I’m forgiven for just focusing on one show. I really like the way that feels when I choose to do that.
Cameron and Chase were sort of really heavy in last night’s episode, which I know a lot of the fans are excited about. How much more of them are we going to see?
K. Jacobs: Well, this is kind of a trick question because I know whatever I say that the fans are going to think that I made it up or am lying, so that’s kind of weird. I think it’s weird and great in a way because they want more of them.
I want more of them. We are currently shooting episode – last night was #7. We are currently working on Episode #13. I don’t know the way the entire season is going to unfold or how much you’re going to see of anyone.
They’re going to be woven in the way they are. I’m always happy, as is David Shore, when we get to focus on them because I’m really interested in their point of view. It’s kind of a hot topic because we want to see all of our characters. We never can give enough time space to Hugh either because we want to see all of our characters and we want to see Hugh. So, it’s an embarrassment of riches.
We see more of the same as the episodes go on?
K. Jacobs: I hope so. Initially, last season – I remember we did talk about this when we were repopulating with the “Survivor” game and who was going to be on House’s new team. It was hard to weave everybody in. I certainly hope we’re doing a better job of it now because that is our desire.
Will Cuddy still be thinking about the baby?
K. Jacobs Yes.
What was the decision behind using the walk-and-talk technique of filming in the show? You guys call it pedi-conferencing?
K. Jacobs: That’s so funny. When we do walk-and-talk’s on our series?
It’s funny because one of the very first things before even the idea for the show House came about, my partner, Paul Attanasio, and I were meeting with the different heads of networks and seeing what they wanted.
Gail Berman, at the time, was at this network. She said, “I want a medical show, but I don’t want to see white coats going down the hallway.” That was one of the many scenes that contributed to the idea of House.
When you put a scene on the move, it’s a different way of creating an urgency and an intensity. I think that Hugh is so mesmerizing. Here he is with a cane and a limp; yet, he’s able to lead the charge. It was never a conscious decision. It was more of just a creative, “Oh, that seems right” kind of decision.
How do you guys pick and choose which medical conditions you’re going to use from all the research that you do?
K. Jacobs: Unfortunately, there are so many cases to choose from, more often than not, maybe not more often than not, a surprising number of times when something is wrong with you, and you go into the hospital, they don’t know what is wrong with you.
The way that they figure out, the only option that they have, is this high stakes trial and error, where they start to treat and see if you respond to that treatment. It eliminates certain possibilities and puts other possibilities.
So, very few, if any, doctors take it to the extent that Dr. House takes it to, but the way of thinking about how do you figure out what’s wrong with someone is all-around quite unfortunately.
What I meant was, are there certain ones that are just tops, and you’ll be like, “Okay, we got to do this one,” or “We’ll wait for that one.”
K. Jacobs I don’t think so. No because then you have to put in the twists and the turns to getting the diagnosis. I suppose occasionally all of our writers bring their individual, medical mystery ideas to the table. They all are responsible to come up with those medical mysteries and then bring them to us. So maybe I’m not the best person to answer that question.
Can you talk a little bit about what is happening with Thirteen and her whole downward spiral? How are we going to continue to see that play out?
K. Jacobs: She’s kind of at a spirally place, kind of lost all hope, and feels like since she’s been diagnosed with Huntington’s, and we know that to be a terminal illness, and she watched her mother die from Huntington’s, she’s kind of given up. It’s one of the stories that is in “Last Resort” – the hostage-taker, played by Zeljko Ivanek, decides that every drug that Dr. House is going to try on him to see what’s wrong with him, he’s going to make somebody else take it first.
That person has to take all the drugs to see how they interact together. Thirteen, as part of her spiral, volunteers for this. She thinks there’s no better candidate, since she’s sick anyway, to take all of these drugs.
By the end of the hostage episode, she’s going to come to a very interesting, different place than we’ve seen her before, having gone to the very edge in this episode. So, we are going to deal with it. Then, it continues on, her Huntington’s and how her new point of view or new ideas about how she wants to deal with it – that’s a story line that we will carry on into the New Year.
I think Thirteen’s – the episode that started with her picking up a girl at a bar is – and you just see them having sex after, the episode ends with her being in the same place. She’s just trying to lose herself, lose what’s ever-present on her mind, which is how am I going to deal with the fact that I have a terminal illness?
So, she’s just looking to sex to numb her pain, which ultimately is not going to be that satisfying for her. She’s going to have to figure it out.
That’s not what we’re exploring or talking about. We’re dealing with the character who wants to figure out how to numb her pain, and how to not deal, and how to go as far away from the reality of what’s going on as possible. So, she goes out at night. She uses sex as a way of trying to avoid. It’s not going to work ultimately. She’s going to have to deal with it.
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