I’ve read that you’ve had to turn down some movie and theatre roles because of the show. Does a part of you wish you could be on screen even less?

Not if I didn’t get paid! No, what I’m doing right now is this show and making a great deal of money, which is great. There have been a bunch of plays that I’ve been sorry to miss. For instance, it was heartbreaking to have to turn down Tom Stoppard’s THE COAST OF UTIPIA at Lincoln Center. I had a hard time watching it because I wanted to be in it so badly. All my friends were there, including Tom, but that’s life.

A MOTHER WITH A MYSTERIOUS MEDICAL ILLNESS
MAY HAVE A SECRET THAT COULD KILL
ON “HOUSE” TUESDAY, JANUARY 29, ON FOX

Guest Star Janel Moloney in All-New Episode

House and the team treat a woman who suffers from a sudden paralysis of the hands that causes an injury to her daughter while she’s spotting her at an indoor rock-climbing wall. As House probes the woman and her injured daughter for any leads as to what might be causing her condition, House is convinced that the woman is withholding information. When the woman's daughter reveals some very descriptive details about her mother's personal life, House isn't so sure the woman hides anything about herself from the people around her, especially her daughter. As the team runs tests to find out what caused her paralysis, the woman loses her eyesight and her system begins to shut down, and House and the team are baffled as to whether it is the woman herself, or her own physiology that is lying to them. Meanwhile, House lets his team participate in a Secret Santa gift exchange, but he puts his own twist on the holiday tradition in the "It's a Wonderful Lie" episode of HOUSE airing Tuesday, Jan. 29 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. (HOU-410) (TV-14 D, L)

Cynthia would like to know how long it takes to film an episode and if there were any funny moments you were in that you could reveal to the readers.

Typically they schedule eight days per episode, but often go over… I think this episode was shot in nine days, of which I think I worked five. The whole thing was a lot of fun, there’s a lot of joking around, everyone is pretty funny, but there aren’t really any stories I can tell without giving anything away… I guess one thing I could say is that I was so nervous at first to work with Hugh Laurie, but luckily for me, in the first scene I had with him all I had to do was hyperventilate and pass out, over and over again, which was perfect, because that’s exactly how I felt! He was very kind, too, he was concerned about how woozy I was getting (because as it turns out, there’s really no way to ‘act’ hyperventilating without actually hyperventilating) and he had them bring me a paper bag to breathe into between takes. The ’sick’ make-up is also a little tough on the vanity at first, I kept joking with the make up artist, saying, ‘come on, is a little blush and mascara really going to ruin everything?!?’ I didn’t really mind, though, I generally embrace not having the pressure of having to be ‘pretty enough’, it can be a real distraction from what you’re trying to do… Actually, the sicker they made me look, the more I liked it, it was fun because I’m very interested in special effects make up. It’s probably what I’d be doing if I wasn’t an actress.

Kelso native Elissa Brentano, 26, appears in a scene in the medical drama that stars Hugh Laurie as a maverick medical genius.

Brentano's scene has been in televised previews for the episode, she said, so "this time they can't cut me out of it."

Brentano, a 1999 graduate of Kelso High School who lives in Los Angeles, has been appearing in "House" off and on for about a year, she said.

For the past few years, Hugh Laurie has mused to me and other critics that he envisions the day, possibly soon, when he'll quit "House," leaving the show in the hands of people who aren't Hugh Laurie.

"House" without Hugh Laurie would be an empty nest. But Laurie gets exhausted in L.A. and misses his family in England. For now, the show is a go, although the writers strike has sent him back home for a well-deserved winter break.

"I got my SAG card for an Oliver Stone movie, 'The Doors.' I was Jim Morrison's makeup artist backstage at "The Ed Sullivan Show." And I had to speak -- if I didn't speak, I wouldn't get my SAG card -- so he told me to just make something up, which I did, but I realized I'd made up a really short line. So every take, I made my line longer, until finally I got yelled at. He said, 'You're stopping the whole scene with your line!' and I had to go back to that first line I made up."

Imagine going indoor rock climbing with your mom and, without warning, her hands suddenly go numb and you fall 45 feet.

You are rushed to the hospital with a broken arm and everyone begins trying to figure out what caused Mom’s abrupt paralysis.

Native Galvestonian Liana Liberato did imagine the scenario and will be acting it out in her role as Jane in Tuesday’s episode of “House,” FOX’s innovative medical drama in which medical mysteries are solved and the hero, Dr. House, is an irreverent physician who prefers to avoid his patients whenever possible.

So what is it that turns you on to this show, this character, and this particular story?
Well, I’m a crazy House fan. It’s my favorite show on T.V. and it’s funny because once I got pregnant with my first child, I ended up watching a lot more T.V. than I had for years and I just became absolutely addicted to House and just thought it was so intelligent and thought Hugh is so fantastic and the writing and the other characters. Everything about it just drew me in every week and continues to do so.

So when I met Hugh at the Golden Globe three years ago, and I was five months pregnant and nominated for Human Trafficking and he was nominated for House and we were all seated at the same table, I just started gushing about how much I loved the show. And I think I might have frightened him.

But then a few years later they called and said “We know Mira loves the show. We think we have one of the best female characters we’ve ever written on it. Would she like to come and do an episode?” I was really excited to do it, entering the world of my favorite show. It’s the equivalent of me as a child getting to go and … in the Six Million Dollar Man.

In the episode, titled Airborne, brilliant diagnostician Dr Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) is seen leaving Singapore on a fictitious Malaysian Pacific Air flight with hospital administrator Dr Lisa Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein). ...

Dr Cuddy retorts: 'We're flying out of Singapore. If he has a credit card and a condom, he can get anything he wants.' ...

Marketing manager Chua Boon Hou, 35, who watched the episode last Thursday night said the moment was 'shock awakening'.

The self-professed House fan was irked enough to e-mail The New Paper to complain and demand an 'official apology' from the writers.

What kind of work ethic is there working on the show? What’s it like working with the other actors in the cast?

Olivia: It’s a generous set. It’s the rule of thumb for House. You would never let someone do a phone call or any scene like that without being off camera for them. Everyone takes rehearsal very seriously. People are there for each other, to work through the scene as many times as everybody wants before shooting and that can be time consuming. We’re known as having one of the hardest work schedules of any TV show. We don’t do a lot of location shoots. We’re often inside the hospital. But the reason it takes so long is people are willing to work really hard for each other. And even if you have one line in the scene and you feel totally comfortable with just winging it and going back to your trailer, but someone else wants to work through it for a few hours to get it rehearsed properly so it’s up to par for the shooting of the show, you do that for them. They’d do it for you. Hugh is constantly like that and I was really interested in the fact that Mira Sorvino was like that as well. She at one point missed a flight home because she was willing to stay and do off camera for someone. I thought that was unbelievable that she was an Oscar winning actress and has a family at home and she had enough respect for everybody that she waited. I was really blown away by that. She was fabulous. That’s the rule f thumb on House.

You said that you were previously a fan of Hugh Laurie before working with him. So how is it working with him?

Olivia: I was so terrified my first day because he’s so fabulous. But he’s immediately disarming. He has this incredible sense of humor that comes across and completely disarms you. He started as a comedian at Cambridge and obviously worked very successfully as a comedian. Even though he’s brilliant at doing drama, he has this amazing sense of humor. He has a lightness of heart that permeates the room. That immediately softened me and made me more comfortable. He couldn’t be more encouraging.

Talk show hosts are, without a doubt, the most popular television personalities out there, with seven of them occupying the top-ten spots in 2007. Stephen Colbert (tied for No. 6 with Letterman) is the only host new to the poll, which has been conducted since 1993. House's Hugh Laurie is the highest ranking non-talk show host; he landed at No. 4, the same spot he had a year prior. Non-hosts Ray Romano and the only fictional character on the list, Homer Simpson, round out the top-ten; each tied for No. 9.

Starring Jennifer Morrison (TV's House, M.D. and Star Trek) who gives an audacious performance as Gaby, a young woman who yearns for the trust she has so assiduously failed to earn. As her storytelling spins more and more out of control, Gaby seeks to find answers to not only a situation, but also a world that seems to have too many questions.

Casting news: Olivia Wilde, who plays the entrancing Thirteen on House MD - and when, O Lord, will this writers' strike ever end? - has signed to play the female lead, opposite Jack Black, in a Bible comedy - sort of - called Year One, Variety reports. Oliver Platt is in it, too. Harold Ramis directs; he and the invincible Judd Apatow are producing. The picture is shooting now.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association today announced that the recipients of Golden Globe Awards in 25 categories will be revealed during an hour-long HFPA press conference at The Beverly Hilton to be covered live by NBC News beginning at 6:00 pm PST on January 13. “The 65th Annual Golden Globe Awards” NBC telecast and champagne dinner in The Beverly Hilton’s International Ballroom is officially cancelled.

“We are all very disappointed that our traditional awards ceremony will not take place this year and that millions of viewers worldwide will be deprived of seeing many of their favorite stars celebrating 2007’s outstanding achievements in motion pictures and television,” said Jorge Camara, President of The Hollywood Foreign Press Association. “We take some comfort, however, in knowing that this year’s Golden Globe Award recipients will be announced on the date originally scheduled."