bironic

As a consolation prize for those of us who didn't attend the closing performance of Company on Sunday (two days after I went!) where Robert Sean Leonard and his fiancée were in the audience*, here is a four-page interview from Entertainment Weekly about what he's up to during a summer off from filming House, besides not doing any plays: A Summer Away from the House (7/3/07).

*sob

Highlights include:

RSL: I'm the guy who's always telling [House] what he's doing wrong. I feel a little bit like the frustrated wife or something. But these two guys are very mysterious to me, their relationship is very weird. Maybe that's one of the reasons it works. I like Hugh a lot ,and I love what he does on the show. I feel quite peripheral to it sometimes, and that might be another reason it works. I just come in and check things out every few scenes.

EW: Now that you have seven weeks off, what are you going to do?
RSL: I'm going to meet my friend Craig, go to Bed Bath and Beyond. I'm so excited.

RSL: This play Tom Stoppard wrote, Coast of Utopia, I'd seen it in London three years ago, and I just knew I was gonna do it. And when I did House, one of the things I thought about was, damn it, Utopia's gonna happen. At some point Lincoln Center's gonna do it, and I'm gonna be tied [to House]. And that's what happened. I had my Neil Diamond moment of sitting on the beach with a tear in my eye. I went to see it and saw Billy Crudup and Ethan and Martha Plimpton, and for me that was like...it's like when you're watching the Yankees, and Andy Pettitte's shoulder's out, that look in his eye when he's seeing them winning or losing, that's how I felt.

RSL: It's great. You get the New York Times, you get on a bus, you go all the way uptown, cross over, and come all the way back. I love it. I find it really lulling, I don't know why.

Oh, RSL. Never change.

There's an upcoming feature in TV Guide Magazine in which exec. producer David Shore says:

"People think they want House to change, but they don't. They watch him because he's a bastard."

I for one couldn't agree more. When explaining to people the awesomeness that is House, I usually bring up the fact that not only is the main character impossibly brilliant, morally ambiguous and incorrigible, the writers have resisted the temptation to soften him up for a season and a half now. They have given us a complex character and managed to make him stay interesting for 30-something episodes without altering him, staying true to their characters' insistence that no-one really changes. (

copperbadge brought this up once in his journal and addressed it better than I'm doing now.) It's really excellent thinking on the creators' part because they make us perpetually want to ease House's pain and they know better than to do it because then he wouldn't be so interesting. Regardless of what Wilson may tell him about how being miserable doesn't make him special, we "love to hate" House because he is arrogant and unafraid to tell people off and takes unethical risks and doesn't give a sh*t beyond figuring out the medical mystery, and it's okay because he's always right in the end (which *will* change at some point). As Shore goes on to say, "We always say House will never get a puppy. You won't find him sweetening up or becoming more compassionate. That would be the end of our show." Take for example House/Stacy: ( spoiler for earlier this season. ) Thank goodness executive producer Katie Jacobs is quoted as saying, ( spoilers for later this season. )

House has been cranky and stubborn for at least 10 years; it would be stupid for him to change within a few months just because he hired a doctor who has a crush on him or because it's sweeps week. The staff, thankfully, know this. House should not get a puppy. The little bits of genuine laughter with Wilson are all we need.

I wanted to post this afternoon about how much I was looking forward to tonight's episode of "House," having heard it was excellent, and because there was a mediocre feature article that nonetheless contained some choice Robert Sean Leonard quotes (RSL vies with Hagrid for king of "Whoops, shouldn't'er said tha'"), but I waited for the episode to air first. Turns out it didn't matter. The ep was good -- had some choice Wilson and House/Wilson moments ( details ), and who can say no to House imitating a California dopehead or going one-on-one with a little blonde kid? -- but argh! far too soap-operatic, and two scenes on the roof that were supposed to be dramatic but during which all I could think was OMGfakesunsetbluescreen! and then later, OMGfakenightskybluescreenagain! But really, worth it entirely for the Wilson goodness.

The thing that got me, really, was what seemed like a dose of misogyny. People have pointed out before that Jennifer Morrison's is the only name in the credits that isn't set against a medical image -- okay -- and that Cameron is whinier than the others -- okay -- and that article described Wilson by his job and position but Cameron by her looks and love interests -- not the screenwriters' fault -- but tonight what bothered me is that ( spoiler, if you care about Stacey ).

...I'm not even going to get into what Alan is saying right now on "Boston Legal." *coughCaptainHandsome*cough*BeautifulBlondLocks*cough*.

Uh, so, in closing, what Sam said.

Entries tagged with house: interviews

RSL during hiatus

House: loveable bastard.

House rules

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