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Jennifer Love Hewitt at the San Diego Comic Convention on July 22, 2006 |
On the CBS television show Ghost Whisperer, Melinda Gordon (Jennifer Love Hewitt) communicates with earthbound spirits -- ghosts who cling to the living because they have unfinished business that prevents them from moving beyond the familiar plane of existence that we call life. The successful series, that is currently in its second season, explores the spiritual side of life and death as Melinda navigates among the dead and the living in her sometimes chilling, sometimes heart-rending and sometimes amusing attempts to act as an intermediary between the ghosts and those they haunt. Accepting of her unique abilities, Melinda sees her gift as a blessing and a curse, but always helps others in need find emotional closure.
The 27-year-old Texas native took time out to talk to MediaBlvd Magazine, along with executive producers Kim Moses and Ian Sander, about how much she loves the work she does, as both producer and star, on Ghost Whisperer.
MediaBlvd. Magazine> How is the second season of Ghost Whisperer going to be different from the first season?
Ian Sander> The end of the season, actually, was different from the beginning of the season, last year. I think that we will continue moving in that sort of a direction. When the show first began, the premise of the show was that Jennifer Love Hewitt plays Melinda Gordon, a newlywed who lives in a town, and sees people who have died but not crossed over because they have unfinished business to do, and she helps them do that, giving closure to that person and those who were left behind. But, I think that as the season went on, if you watch the show, you found that we started getting a little bit more edgy, a little bit scary, sometimes funny, and I also think that we were starting to build the mythology of the show. I think that we hope to take that another step next season. When I say the mythology of the show, I mean in terms of dealing with life/afterlife and good/evil. I think we’ll continue getting scarier. When we first started the show last year, we probably spent 20% of what we now spend on special effects. So, while it’s still always going to be a character driven show, the show is growing, in terms of the scope of the show, as well as the vocabulary of the show, visually.
Kim Moses> We have aberrant ghosts hidden in the shows and they have secret messages and you have to decode them, and we’ve issued those challenges on the Internet. We do that for almost every episode, to build that mythology that the spirit world is getting stronger. This year, we’re also going to take that up a notch.
Ian> As filmmakers and as people that produce television shows, I think we have to be cognizant of the changing world that we’re living in, and that is the changing world of entertainment in general. Part of that is distribution, part of that is publicity, part of that is advertising, and part of that is the way people watch television and experience entertainment. What we do with the Internet is, obviously, to drive eyeballs to the television, but at the same time, the television also drives eyeballs to the Internet. We have children and we think that, if television is to get that younger demo that everyone craves, that younger demo isn’t just watching the boob tube. That younger demo is also on the Internet and we have to be cognizant of that, so we are creating that sort of infinity loop.
MB> Jennifer, how is your role different, as producer on the series, as compared to the other shows you’ve worked on?
Jennifer Love Hewitt> I was really honored, first of all, that as a female at 27, they were willing to allow me the producer credit on the show. I think it makes the cast feel really comfortable ‘cause I’m always there, literally every day, all day. If Kim and Ian are busy with something, the actors feel like they have somebody there, watching after their best interests, and they can come up and talk to me about things. And, it kind of makes me feel like I have a really good place to protect Melinda, if I ever need it. Although, they do such a wonderful job of looking after her on their own that they don’t really need me to. They’re great people to learn from. They’ve done a lot of stuff. They’ve been in the business a really long time. I hope to be a big producer someday, so it’s a great learning place for me.
Kim> And, she has story ideas and character ideas. She’s involved with that whole creative process, which is very helpful for us.
Ian> She does have input, whether it has to do with characters, script, hair and make-up, camera, or any of those things. She’s there all the time. We’re there a lot, but she’s there all the time.
MB> When did you know that you were going to kill Andrea (played by Aisha Tyler) off, and how is that going to affect Melinda in the second season?
Ian> The idea of the season finale was something that we had been dealing with for quite some time. We knew we wanted to have a finale that would be surprising and controversial. Ghost Whisperer is a little bit different than most shows. Just because we kill somebody doesn’t mean they go away. We deal in the past with flashbacks, we deal in the present as we all know it, and we deal in afterlife. We deal with good and we deal with evil.
MB> The first year of a show is always about finding the show’s voice. In what ways do you feel Melinda has been able to grow?
Jennifer> Well, Melinda went through a lot in the first season -- more than I thought she was going to. It’s a TV show, so I thought, “Okay, we’ll coast along.” Oh, no! There’s no coasting on Ghost Whisperer at all. Every script you get, you’re like, “I have to do what?” So, she kind of started off as this hopeful, wonderful person who was really concentrating more on just being a newlywed and an antique store owner, who was very much trying to just sweep away the fact that she had this gift. Then, as we got into the middle of the season, she became so passionate about what she did, and could do, that she really started to concentrate more on that, and the other things started to fall by the side a bit. I think, by the end of the season, her world was just completely flipped upside down. Wide Brim is such an incredibly strong force for her. She kind of feels like a superhero who is fighting something that she doesn’t really understand yet. She’s just a normal woman in a small town, and he feels like something out of a big action movie that you don’t quite know what to do with. He really threw her world into a tailspin. And then, she had to deal with the crash of the plane and having to not just deal with one person, but 250 at one time, and understanding how really powerful her gift is, and then realizing, in the last moments of those episodes, that she’s not invincible to the pain that she tries to help other people grow from. As you see her in the second season, she’s a little bit exhausted. She’s not bitter, but she’s a little bit more aware of the fact that the world is not as perfect as she thought it was and that she’s going to have to fight a little bit, and that what she is fighting is not just a girl who has a gift, but good and evil in the world, and how she’s going to deal with that. Wide Brim is still out there and she has to get rid of him. How she’s going to do that, she has no idea. And, she’s fixing her own broken heart. She saw a lot of really intense things and, as intense as it was for the people she crossed over and the people that got to live, she was quite affected by that. I think she’s a much stronger person, but I think she’s a little more aware and a little less innocent this season. She’ll always be innocent because I think you have to be innocent to have her gift, but I think she’s a little tougher and I think she’s a little more on edge, and just waiting to see what’s going to happen and who’s going to jump out at her next, and figure out how to handle that.
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Jennifer Love Hewitt at the TV Guide Emmy Awards after-party held at Social in Hollywood, Calif. on August 27, 2006 |
MB> What about Melinda drives her to help people? What makes her special?
Jennifer> I think Melinda’s gift makes her special. I think that the other thing that makes her special is that there are lots of people in the world who are given gifts that choose not to use them for other people. I don’t think Melinda has a choice, really. She is a person who wakes up every single morning and does not want to do anything else, other than help these people. She’s the most empathetic person in the world. These people are her heart and her spirit. I think she knows better who she is, when she’s helping somebody crossover, than she does when she’s ringing up a dresser at the antique store. And, I think the part of her that wants to feel normal and be a good wife and a good antique store owner is just to put her two feet on the ground, really. When she’s doing her job, she’s kind of off in a place that nobody really understands, but her and her grandmother. But, I don’t think she has a choice. I don’t think she would ever wake up and be able to do anything else, even in the times that her gift could seem more like a curse. She would never choose to be any other way.
MB> You introduced a new adversary in the last two episodes of season one. Is that going to be an ongoing arc this season, or will it be wrapped up fairly quickly?
Ian> You will see that continuing. We have Wide Brim Hat Man and we have Laughing Man, both of which started as very small things in the show and, obviously, grew as the season went on. John Gray, who is our partner on the show, and creator of the show, has a Bible and we know how the show is going to go, but I think that it is a dynamic process, in which we also do listen to the audience. You don’t want to ignore, and we haven’t ignored, what is said on the Internet, and the things that people really get passionate about. So, when we introduced, for example, Laughing Man or Wide Brim, it was amazing what happened on the Internet, and we took a cue from that and said, “Wow, this is really interesting.” It’s someplace that we really did want to go, but the audience actually, in some ways, gave us permission to go there. And so, that will continue this season.
MB> Are we going to learn what their role is and what they want?
Kim> Yes, and you’re also going to learn why and how their strength is building. There are some ghosts like Laughing Man and Wide Brimmed Hat Man, and then there are the ghosts that are featured in the shows, who connect with Melinda. We’ve also got some other ghosts in the show, like G-Man, who’s been imbedded in a number of shows, and there have been challenges to find him. His mythology is that he was present during the Kennedy assassination. He was a government worker and he saw what happened, but he died shortly afterwards, before he was able to tell his story. So, now, he’s showing up and kind of stalking Melinda, as a ghost, and he hasn’t been able to penetrate her world, or cross over ‘cause he wants to tell her what he saw.
MB> Can you talk about what being married on the show does for your character? How does Jim complete Melinda?
Jennifer> Oh, in every way. Melinda’s been somebody, since a very young age, particularly with most of it coming from her mother, who has had to really feel odd about who she is. In meeting Jim, she found somebody that was like, “Yeah, you are odd, but you’re great to be around, and it’s okay. I love you for your oddness.” He’s somebody that she knows is always there. He is her hero. All day, Melinda goes out into the world and she is a hero for pretty much everybody that she meets in the show, in one way or another -- whether it’s helping somebody get over the death, or helping somebody who has died, cross over into the light. She’s constantly there for people. When she comes home, it’s great for her, and necessary for her, to have somebody that will be the hero. He doesn’t see ghosts, he doesn’t know how to help them, but he’ll be the first to jump right out of bed and be like, “Okay, what are we doing?” It’s just nice for her to know that there’s somebody out there that will try, even though she’s really going to have to slay the dragons herself, and go out and take care of it. That’s what marriage is supposed to be. You’re supposed to feel like, even if they can’t do it, that there’s somebody who will try to have your back. For her, he’s really a necessary thing. I don’t think you could have Melinda and have her not be married. I think life would be very difficult for her. He’s the one normal, grounding thing that she has, and that’s very important in her world.
MB> She did have Andrea, though.
Jennifer> Yes, but Jim gets it in a way that Andrea didn’t. Andrea was great about going, “Okay, brush the ghost off your shoulder and let’s go get coffee.” She did the girlfriend job, which was what she was supposed to do. And, Jim is really good about saying, “Woah! Now that you guys have brushed it off and had coffee, you have to face the fact that you could be really hurt here, and that there are people in the world that really care about you.” The greatest moment that I think Jim had for Melinda was in our season finale, when she was willing to say, “Okay, well, maybe my life is supposed to end so that I can take care of all these people,” and he was like, “No, you have to be here ‘cause there’s millions of people who need your help.” He’s really there to keep her steady and grounded, on her path to go and save these people.
MB> Will David Conrad’s character be doing more with Melinda, and trying to help her more?
Kim> It’s a journey for him because he’s learning about the world and the rules. Yes, his role is going to progress, but in a very natural way. He’s never going to step over and become a ghost buster.
Ian> One of the things that we think, on television, that there is a paucity of is a functional relationship. Obviously, relationships have ups and downs, but hopefully there is a roundness to them. We think one of the things that the audience is responding to, and that we and the writers respond to and want to bring out, is a functional relationship. This is a man who is supportive. That doesn’t mean that he’s never fearful. That doesn’t mean that they don’t ever have disagreements. But, at the same time, he does love her and she does love him, and they are supportive of each other. I think that that’s part of the joy of that relationship. I direct a lot of the shows and it’s something that I really enjoy directing, and that Jennifer and David really enjoy playing.
Kim> There’s chemistry. And, it seems, from the response that we have, that there is a real appetite for a functional romantic relationship on television, in this day and age. We monitor all the chat on the Internet and we hear a lot of that kind of thing, and we’re happy to give it to them.
MB> It’s great that you pay such close attention to the Internet.
Kim> We produce the show at a number of levels. There are the traditional television watchers, and CBS has done a tremendous job of building that audience, and then there are those 18-34 year olds, particularly guys, who don’t want to watch television, they want to experience it. And so, the way to do that is through all of these events that we create on the Internet. When the show went on the air and Les Moonves announced that he was taking back Friday nights with Ghost Whisperer, we knew that there was a challenge because Jennifer Love Hewitt’s audience is a young audience and, when we did the research on ghosts, we found that it’s a funnel kind of thing where the younger you are, the more you believe in ghosts. As you get older, that closes up. And so, we knew to go to the Internet to get that audience and bring them to the show, and how do you do that but by interactive means.
MB> Are there any story arcs that you have established for the future of the show to keep things fresh?
Ian> Jay Mohr has also joined the show. We will have a season-long arc with Jay. He plays a great character, who is a professor that Melinda goes to. He’s funny, he’s edgy, and we think that he brings a whole other level to this show. We always want to be sure that the show is growing. Like everything else, if year two is only as good as year one, I think we’ll have trouble getting to year three. Our goal is to keep ratcheting up another level, and just growing. And, we added writers to the staff that we think will bring new levels to it. So, I think the goal is not to stay put and just deal with being the status quo. Our goal, of course, is to get to the next level.
MB> How do you feel about working with Camryn Manheim this season?
Ian> We are just thrilled. She is an Emmy award winning, Golden Globe award winning actress, and I think that she brings a whole other level and depth to the show that we’re really looking forward to exploring.
Kim> We knew, when we first met her, that she was the right person to add to the show, and it took awhile to make that happen. We just hung in there. Every day, Love was asking us where we were, and Ian was pushing that deal forward, and we got the support of the network and the studio. And, Camryn is just over the moon about the show, so it’s a perfect match for all of us.
Ian> When you meet with an actor or actress and talk about what you want to do with a character, it’s an evolving process. What we found, when we sat with Camryn Manheim for this, is that she is not just a wonderful actress, but really bright, and she really knew the show and knew Love. It became a real give and take between John Gray, Kim and I, and then, ultimately Love, about where the character could go and where it should go, and Camryn had input into that. We think it’s going to be a really wonderful experience this year.
MB> Are you surprised about all the guest stars that you’ve gotten, like Anne Archer as Melinda’s mother, Balthazar Getty, Christine Baranski, Wentworth Miller?
Ian> I think that part of it is that this is a show in which, while Jennifer Love Hewitt is the single lead in the show, and we have an ensemble around her, the guest roles are remarkable because they’re not just perp of the week, if you will. You get guest parts that are so different than what people usually get to play as guests on television. The second part of that is that I think some of it does come from Jennifer Love Hewitt. The reality is that doing this show is a really good experience for people. They really love doing it. It’s a fun show to do. The crew is great, the cast is great, and there is a really good feeling. It does usually really come from the top. Having done shows -- this is my 7th or 8th show -- Jennifer Love Hewitt does create an atmosphere on set that does permeate that, so when guests come on the show, they tell other actors. Anne Cusack, who did the show, knows Camryn Manheim. When Camryn Manheim came in, she knew that this was going to be a good place to be. When we offered Jay Mohr -- who doesn’t guest that much on television shows -- this role, he said, “I heard that this was a great show to be on. I’d love to work with Jennifer Love Hewitt.” We’re very fortunate.
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Jennifer Love Hewitt & Ross McCall at the Primetime Emmy Awards held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, Calif. on August 27, 2006 |
MB> There seems to be a desire for supernatural elements on shows, among audiences. Does this show seem to be emotionally resonating with people?
Jennifer> Yeah. I’ve been able to meet a lot of really amazing people. I’ve had really funny things happen where I’ll have people stop and look at me in stores and say, “Well?,” and I’m like, “You’re clear.” And then, I can walk off and think, “Job well done.” Then, I’ve had really emotional moments with people. We had an episode really early on, in the first season, where a little boy was hit by a train. It was one of my favorite episodes that we did. And, I met a woman whose young son had died exactly that way, and she came up to me in the mall and held onto me for an hour while she was crying. It’s a pretty unbelievable thing, especially in busy places like L.A., New York and Chicago, where you feel like, most of the time, people only talk to you just to move you from traffic or get out of their way. It’s really special to have people come up to you and want to spend time with you because you’ve touched them in some way. I had another woman who was telling me that her husband and her get together every Friday night. They watch the show and she makes his favorite meal and they hold hands and sit there and enjoy the show together. It wasn’t until the end of the conversation that I realized that he had passed away and she believes that he comes to her to watch the show. He really likes Melinda Gordon.
Kim> The three of us were also in Vegas with a group of people for Love’s birthday and a woman came up to us and was telling Love that she’s a cancer survivor and, every Friday night, a whole group of cancer survivors -- along with other people she knew around the country through these organizations -- get together and watch the show because it gives them hope, and that’s very meaningful, that you can hit all these different audiences and interests, young and old. It still has a residence in people’s souls, and that’s a lovely thing.
MB> Has anything paranormal or odd ever happened on the set?
Jennifer> We actually had something happen recently that was unbelievable. We were filming a scene with Jay Mohr. We were sitting with a light in between us and, all of a sudden, in the middle of a break, it just shattered and exploded on both of us, in a million little pieces. Glass went all over me, it went all over him, and everybody was like, “What was that?” So, immediately, they went over, like you would do, to see if the metal part around it was hot at all. It was completely cold. And, everybody was like, “Well, I guess they don’t like this scene that we’re doing.” We’ve had make-up spilled in the trailer -- like a bottle that just spilled itself. We’ve had lights move. We’ve had very strange things happen.
Ian> We’ve actually captured, on film, unexplained presence of people. We froze a frame of film and, if you look at it, there was a presence in it. I know we’ve all read that, yes, we can see Jesus in a piece of bread. But, I’m telling you, when you look at the film, you really swear that it’s a person.
Kim> He never enters or leaves the scene. He is just in one place. We’ve also posted some photographs on the Internet. We’ve got a thing called the Ghost Gallery, which Love takes you on a virtual tour of. There are ghosts that we’ve shot on the set that are featured in that. It’s fascinating.
MB> When you watch this show, it tends to stay with you for awhile after it’s over. How long does it take you to shake this character?
Jennifer> I think that I’ve done a little bit better of a job with it, so far, this season. When you finish work and you go home and you have four hours before you go to sleep at night, it’s really tough to go, “Okay, well, there’s no dead people around right now and everything’s fine and life is great and it’s wonderful.” It got tough, at times, but it is a job and you just have to go, “This is this person’s life and my life is feeding the dog and learning lines for tomorrow and watching a comedy right now, not a drama.” At times, it’s a really good show to actually take home with you ‘cause the show does really put things into perspective. The show really is about telling people to live their life better and to the fullest, and to not have unfinished business. But, if you do, because we all have unfinished business sometimes, there will be somebody out there for you. There are parts of the show that are really comforting, and so, sometimes it’s good to take it home with you ‘cause it puts your head in the right space and it makes you really appreciative of the fact that you do get to go home and live a great life and have an awesome job. It’s a balance.
