“My brother e-mails me when he thinks he's seen something wrong, and he writes 'ha ha' at the end,” said Spencer, whose brother and father don't just play doctors on TV.
“The thing that's real is that doctors don't know,” said Attanasio. “Most of the time when you walk in, it's a medical mystery. They put on the white coat because they don't know.”
“The show is a hypochondriac's worst nightmare,” laughed Singer.
Leonard revealed that every script comes with a vocabulary list, with definitions and pronunciations. Morrison said she used to obsessively look everything up so she could understand it completely. “I've stopped that,” she grinned, but suggested that the actors have to know enough to understand what their characters are fighting for against House. “I don't know why we always argue with him – he's always right,” she added.
Shore said that the memorable Housisms that pepper the show “just kind of happen” and that the writers' challenge is to not succumb to the allure of the brilliantly sarcastic one-liners. “That's one of the temptations we have to resist. That's the biggest challenge – to motivate the Housisms.”
Singer's stock answer to questions about the possibility of future romances, revealing Cuddy's Ally McBeal-esque back story, or making House more likeable, was to yell “Sweeps!”
“He gets really nice in February and May,” Morrison joked, before Shore promised that “House will never get soft and cuddly,” provoking applause from the audience.
“I want to thank FOX,” Shore continued. “That was the note everyone expected - 'make House more likable.' We never got that note.”
New episodes of House return March 28 and are scheduled to run without further breaks until the season finale.
Article comments
1 - Joanie
Congrats! This article has been placed on Advance.net
2 - Cathy Fornabaio
To Diane Kristine-
Loved your article- have a question about it if you don't mind. You wrote... When an audience member who suffers from vasculitis and runs a
vasculitis foundation asked why they'd chosen that disease as the possible diagnosis that seems to pop up in every episode.......
I was inquiring on who you speak of. I have written in many time about the vasculitic disease- Behcet's disease. This very rare disease has come up many times on HOUSE. I have written in about it many times as well. I was inquiring so as to get connected with this person as we seem to be working towards the same goal. Would it be possible to give this person my contact info? Thank you so much for your help.
Sincerly,
Cathy Fornabaio
President American Behcet's Disease Association
3 - Diane Kristine
Sorry, Cathy, I have no idea what her name was or the specific name of her organization, though it's possible it was simply called the Vasculitis Foundation. I didn't speak to her directly - she mentioned all that as a prelude to her question about why they chose vasculitis.
And I think (besides that they're "doing God's work") the answer is that they didn't really chose it. It just pops up because the medical cases are always rare with a variety of symptoms, and vasculitis is rare with a wide variety of possible symptoms, so it ends up fitting as a possibility in many of their endless differential diagnoses.
In answer to her question, David Shore was clear that any awareness the show brings to the disease was completely unintentional, but obviously nice if it happens, and that it's the work of foundations like the questioner's that do the good work that should be recognized. So he could be serious too - I just pointed out the funny.