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By
Suzanne

Interview with Kal Penn of "House" on FOX
House Conference Call
April 7, 2009/10:30 a.m. PDT
SPEAKERS
Kim Kurland
Kal Penn
Katie Jacobs
David Shore
PRESENTATION
Moderator Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to
the House conference call. At this time, all participants are in a
listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session.
Instructions will be given at that time. As a reminder, this conference
is being recorded. I’d now like to turn the conference over to Kim
Kurland with FOX Publicity. Please go ahead.
K. Kurland Hello, everyone. I just wanted to thank you all for
participating in this call this morning with Kal Penn. He’s going to be
participating in the first 30 minutes of the call and then House
Executive Producers Katie Jacobs and David Shore will join us for the
second 30 minutes. I think we can take our first question just so we can
get to as many people as possible.
Moderator Thank you. One moment for the first question and that comes
from the line of Matt Mitovich from TV Guide. Please go ahead.
M. Mitovich Hello, Kal. How are you doing?
K. Penn Hello, Matt. How are you doing?
M. Mitovich Thanks for your time today. Sorry to see you leave the show.
K. Penn Well, thank you for being on the call.
M. Mitovich Now, I know that you had requested to leave the show to go
work for the White House, which is awesome. I just wonder; were you
taken aback at all when they said that they were going to kill you off I
mean because it does rob you of the opportunity to ever return to the
show. Were you taken aback at all?
K. Penn I think everyone is always taken aback with every episode on
that show to be perfectly honest. I know in this case they’re unique
circumstances because the character is actually being eliminated. But I
feel like House is one of those shows, at least from the actor’s
perspective, when we get each script every week, we really don’t know
what’s going to happen and that’s on a page-to-page basis partially
because obviously the writers are so brilliant in creating and crafting
these characters, but also the character of House, it’s virtually
impossible to get into his head.
So, we’re sort of used to going page-to-page and going, “Wow. Is this
actually going to happen” and that goes for any episode. Obviously, yes,
you’re connected to the character. I love playing “Kutner” and so,
there’s a little bit of shock and loss- more than a little bit of shock
and loss when I found that out also, but I think that’s sort of,
plot-wise, what they were going for as well. So, yes, I was probably as
shocked as the audience was when I first found out.
M. Mitovich Then for my follow-up, I was just wondering was there any
discussion of you appearing in that final episode in any capacity?
K. Penn I was there when Olivia and Omar shot that scene, where they
discover “Kutner”.
M. Mitovich So, those were your legs?
K. Penn They were.
M. Mitovich You got paid?
K. Penn I did. Greg Yaitanes directed that episode and, even though we
were being shot from way back in the other room, he wanted it to be as
authentic as possible. So, we were fully in that moment.
M. Mitovich All right. Thanks, again, for your time, Kal. Good luck
with--
K. Penn Sure. Thanks a lot. Thanks very much.
Moderator Thank you, and now we’ll go to the line of Eric Anderson from
Us Weekly. Please go ahead.
E. Anderson Hello. How are you?
K. Penn Good. How are you?
E. Anderson Great, thanks. I was just wondering if you could talk a
little bit about your decision to leave the show and how long this has
been in the works and if your managers and agents are telling you you’re
crazy for walking away from such a successful show.
K. Penn Well, I think I’ve had people tell me I’m crazy from the time I
was 17 and said, “I want to be an actor.” So, that’s nothing new. I
think every actor has been told they were crazy.
This was a very unique circumstance. Growing up, I always had two
interests and two passions; one being public service and the other being
the arts and acting. So, it’s always been on my mind. I always try and
engage in different public service projects. In the last 18 months,
having had the opportunity to serve on the Obama campaign, I certainly
started thinking about that possibility and then when that opportunity
opened up, I went to David and Katie and sort of talked about it.
I mean it is a little insane in the sense that this is an incredible
show to have been part of. There were certainly no problems. If
anything, I was having a great time. I have a tremendous respect for the
writers and the other actors and obviously, David and Katie. So, it was
tough all around. The world that I still use to describe it is
bittersweet because it’s not like I’m retiring from acting. I certainly
intend to come back at some point. But right now, I just felt like my
calling was in public service and so we moved forward with that.
E. Anderson When do you start your new job?
K. Penn It’s kind of up in the air right now. There are a couple of
things that I need to finish up, but I’m going out to D.C., I think,
next week to do some apartment hunting.
E. Anderson Great. Thank you.
K. Penn Sure. Thank you very much.
Moderator Now, we’ll go to the line of David Martindale from Hearst
Newspapers. Please go ahead.
D. Martindale Thank you. Hello, Kal. I love the show. You were really
quite wonderful in it.
K. Penn Thank you so much. I appreciate that.
D. Martindale Would the actor in you, the showman in you, the ego in
you, have liked to have gotten a big showy performance and farewell
death scene, or do you like the way it happened?
K. Penn I like the way it happened. The thing that I enjoy about being
an actor and the thing that I enjoy about the arts in general is the
ability to make the audience feel an emotion that they weren’t intending
to feel before they went in. I think that Greg who directed the episode,
and obviously David and Katie, did that in such a great way that people
did feel the types of loss and anger and confusion about this fictional
character. I don’t know that you would have gotten that same sense if it
were some sort of a very “Kutner”-heavy episode where you see the trials
and tribulations. I think part of the loss that the team on House feels
from what he did is transitioned over into what the audience feels
because there was no explanation. I’m sort of glad that we didn’t have a
big kind of “Kutner” dramatic scene to wrap it up.
D. Martindale Cool. I’m quite sure there’s no way to document how many
people will see the episode, read the information at the end of the show
with the phone number, who to call if they’re in a suicidal condition
and make the call and save their lives, but how does it feel for you as
an actor and as a person to be able to do some work that puts that
information out there in such a big way?
K. Penn I’m really glad that the producers and FOX decided to put that
on the end. I know all of us, unfortunately, know folks who have taken
their own lives and you always go back and think about what you could
have done differently. You realize that in a lot of cases, there wasn’t
that awareness or there wasn’t that recognition of what to look for, how
to look for it, how to reach out to somebody who you think might need
that help.
So, I’m glad they mentioned it on the website and there are a number of
resources online. I hope people do take advantage of them because I’m
sure, sadly, out of the 18-plus million viewers that we have every week,
I’m sure some folks might be struggling and I definitely hope they take
advantage of websites like that.
D. Martindale Well, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if somewhere along the
way, years from now, weeks from now, somebody reaches out to you and
says, “This happened because of that episode.” I hope so.
K. Penn Well, that would be something good to come of it.
D. Martindale Thanks.
K. Penn Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
D. Martindale Yes, be cool.
Moderator Thank you, and now we’ll go to the line of Roxanne Roberts
from the Washington Post. Please go ahead.
R. Roberts Thank you. Good afternoon.
K. Penn Hello, Roxanne. How are you?
R. Roberts Congratulations on coming to Washington.
K. Penn Thank you. I’m looking forward to it.
R. Roberts We are just going to follow you everywhere. No; it’s great to
have you here. I have two questions for you. One is it’s a big lifestyle
change, particularly after the success you’ve had as an actor, to be
coming to live in Washington. I’m kind of curious about your view of the
place culturally; not arts particularly, but just living in this city
and what that’s going to be like and how much you know about it.
The second question is who at the White House and in Washington did you
talk to before making this decision? I don’t know if you talked to the
President himself as part of this or the Chief of Staff. I’m kind of
curious to see who you talked to and what convinced you to make this
move. I know the public service part. So, I’m looking for the other
aspect of it.
K. Penn Sure. Well, let me address the first question first then. I grew
up on the East Coast; I grew up in New Jersey and so, D.C. was always
accessible to us during high school. We would come down frequently. My
two interests, like I said, were public service and the arts. So, I
would always take advantage of both New York and Washington. I have
college friends and certainly friends from a number of the presidential
campaigns who are in Washington, who have worked there for years. While
I haven’t lived there before, I think I have a pretty good sense of what
D.C.’s all about and I’m definitely looking forward to being part of it.
The second part of the question; this was unexpected in the sense that
if you had told me two years ago when I started on House that I would
even be considering a move to public service, I probably would have said
you were crazy. I remain an independent. I’m not a democrat or a
republican.
When I started working on the Obama campaign, on the Arts Policy
Committee and as a surrogate, one of the things that struck me the most
was that the majority of folks who we were meeting around the country,
and this is particular probably to the three groups that I reached out
to the most, which I think were artists, Asian Americans and youth vote,
so under 35. A lot of those folks in all three communities shared that
sentiment of not really being entirely democrat or entirely republican,
but their concerns were what were overwhelming.
And so, to see that there was a candidate who was reaching out to those
folks, kind of transcending those lines that you think of when you think
of politics was incredibly moving, especially with regard to a lot of
these kids who either couldn’t afford college or were in college and
worried about student loans or the economy.
The types of change that President Obama had campaigned on and now the
opportunity to bring those changes to fruition was something that was so
incredibly moving that after he won and after having had the chance to
talk about a potential opportunity with some of my fellow campaign
staffers, the President, some of his aides, I reached out and said that
this was something that I really wanted to do and I’m deeply honored and
feel deeply privileged to have this opportunity now.
R. Roberts Just to clarify; you did talk to the President about this?
K. Penn Yes, ma’am.
R. Roberts Okay. All right. Did he say, “Hell, yes; come on down”?
K. Penn Not in that language. We discussed it briefly. I was trying to
find the right fit and to see if I would be helpful and to be of service
somehow.
R. Roberts Okay.
Moderator Thank you, and now we’ll go to the line of Hal Boedeker from
the Orlando Sentinel. Please go ahead.
H. Boedeker Sure. I wanted to be a little clearer on what exactly the
job is, why you want that job and who offered the job to you.
K. Penn Sure. Well, the job itself is that I will be an Associate
Director in the White House Office of Public Liaison. What the OPL does
is similar in a sense to what I was doing on the campaign in that now
that it is the actual Administration, what they try and do is take the
Administration itself out of Washington.
So, they go into communities across the country, continue the sorts of
dialogue that people had started during the campaign and basically
assure that a bunch of different citizens’ views about their elected
officials, about their government are all happening, they’re working
effectively; make sure that a lot of these new voices that have emerged,
especially during the campaign season, are brought to the table -
democrats, republicans, everyone in between - and to build those
relationships and kind of embody the types of changes that President
Obama had run on.
The reason that was appealing to me simply is because I have friends who
are in these sorts of situations. I know folks who were over in Iraq.
I’m 31-years-old, but I still have friends who continue to dream about
going to college and just don’t have the financial opportunity.
Like I said, I’m not giving up acting; I’m not retiring, but since this
seemed like the opportunity that presented itself and it seemed like
something that I would enjoy doing and be honored to serve at, I figured
it was something to do.
H. Boedeker Who offered you the job?
K. Penn There was a bunch of discussions. I don’t know that there was
any one point person. My point folks in the Office of Public Liaison are
Mike Strautmanis, Valerie Jarrett.
H. Boedeker Does this mean no more Harold & Kumar movies?
K. Penn That’s probably true, yes.
H. Boedeker Thank you very much and congratulations.
K. Penn Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Moderator Thank you and now we’ll go to the line of Laura Saltman from
Access Hollywood. Please go ahead.
L. Saltman Hello, Kal. How are you?
K. Penn Good; how are you?
L. Saltman You said you’re not retiring from acting. Does this job allow
you to do any acting projects at all, or is this it for a specific
amount of time?
K. Penn I won’t be acting while I’m working at the White House, no.
L. Saltman Do you know how long? Is there a certain amount of time that
you’re going to do this for? Are you going to do it while Obama is in
office, whether it’s for this four and possibly eight?
K. Penn There’s no set limit. I mean I definitely intend to go out there
for at least a year or two and figure it out. There are certain
financial concerns to consider with all of it. There are career, both
public service and arts-related, concerns to think about. So, we’ll see.
The reason that I say I’m certainly not retiring is I’m not packing up
and saying I’m leaving Hollywood and all this sort of stuff. It’s just
pursuing another passion right now. I’m equally as passionate about the
arts and will also continue to be. But right now, I wanted to pursue
this sort of thing and we’ll see for how long and under what
circumstances.
L. Saltman Would you have made this decision and done it, do you think,
if it had been any other president than Obama?
K. Penn I don’t know. I certainly don’t think so. Like I said, this
wasn’t the intention. This was not part of any master plan for the last
couple of years. It was something that I was inspired by and someone I
was inspired by. And again, formerly being a very cynical independent
who agreed with both democrats and republicans on different things, it’s
really refreshing to have a president who is listening to all three of
those parties’ voices and I’m looking forward to this.
L. Saltman Thank you.
K. Penn Thank you.
Moderator Thank you, and now we’ll go to the line of Amanda Melillo from
the New York Post. Please go ahead.
A. Melillo Hello, Kal. How are you?
K. Penn Hello, Amanda. How are you?
A. Melillo Congratulations on your new job.
K. Penn Thank you very much.
A. Melillo I’m just curious about whether or not you’ll actually be
traveling around the country to talk to people, or are you going to be
staying most in Washington, D.C. during this time.
K. Penn I would imagine it would be a little bit of both. The Office of
Public Liaison is known as the front door to the White House. Like I
said, one of the things that they do is to really take the
Administration itself out of Washington; so, the ways in which
communities are represented. Often times, they have folks who come to
Washington to meet with the White House or with Congressional
representatives or what have you. By the same token, we also do go into
the communities and work with them directly as well. So, I would imagine
it’s a fair amount of both.
A. Melillo Okay.
Moderator Thank you. Next, we’ll go to the line of KJ Matthews from CNN.
Please go ahead.
K. Matthews Hello, Kal. How’s it going?
K. Penn Good; how are you?
K. Matthews Pretty good. So, I understand your job to be the associate
director, one of the things is kind of being the liaison between various
communities and the President. I’m wondering; are there any communities
that you particularly would like to reach out to to kind of help the
President accomplish some of his missions? I know you had a conversation
with him and I’m assuming that came up.
K. Penn Yes. Well, two of the communities that I’m sort of going to be
the point person for are the arts and Asian American folks. Part of that
was during the campaign itself, I served on the Arts Policy Committee
and a lot of the outreach we would do was to arts groups, students and
under 35 voters and Asian Americans. So, two of those - the arts
community and the Asian American community - are two of the groups who
I’ll be reaching out to.
In particular, I think the feeling is that we want to make sure that
everyone’s concerns are heard, that they’re familiar with the
President’s plans and proposals, but also even something as small as--
So many folks in Los Angeles usually donate money to presidential
campaigns on both sides of the table, but they’re not as engaged. I’m
speaking from someone who has lived there the last 10 or 12 years. I
know that my colleagues aren’t as engaged frequently in the day-to-day
on the outreach aspects of things. Hopefully that’ll change. We’d like
to include folks in the arts community.
Part of the stimulus bill had a certain amount of funding for the arts
and of course, the arts, especially in America, have always been
extremely relevant to documenting history and providing educational
opportunities. It’s something that I’m really looking forward to. It’s
obviously a big shift from the last 12 years of my life, but it’s
something I’m looking forward to.
K. Matthews I know you said that you are an independent, but do you
think you might switch over to being a democrat now? Has President
Barack Obama swayed you at all?
K. Penn I don’t know. Something that I really admire still is that in
the White House, there are folks from both major parties and a couple of
nutty independents like myself. So, we’ll see. I’m certainly not getting
any pressure to change my political affiliation; let me put it that way.
Everyone’s respectful.
Moderator Thank you. Now, we’ll go to the line of Sheila Marikar from
abcnews.com.
S. Marikar Hello, Kal. Congratulations, again.
K. Penn Thank you very much.
S. Marikar Do you know of other people in the entertainment industry;
are there other people that you talked with before you decided to make
this decision? Are there people who kind of share the same passion that
you do of wanting to work in Obama’s White House?
K. Penn That’s a good question. I think the folks who I shared it with;
obviously, while it’s a decision based almost wholly on passion and
something that I want to do with my life, you can’t ignore the other
career-related aspects of it or the financial aspects of it or things
like that. So, I obviously had a number of discussions with agents and
managers and accountants and folks like that, as well as a number of
friends who are in and outside of the industry to basically say, “This
is what I really want to do, but am I crazy?”
The caveat being, of course, I kind of talked about this a little bit
earlier; the caveat being I don’t think there’s any actor who I know who
wasn’t told they were crazy when they were an aspiring actor moving out
to California to follow some sort of a dream. And so, the way that I
view it, it’s a journey. I’m certainly not trying to burn any bridges
and say that I’m never coming back to acting because it remains a
passion. By the same token, I’m incredibly honored and privileged to be
able to serve in the Obama Administration.
S. Marikar Do you have any plans to run for office yourself one day?
K. Penn No.
S. Marikar Great. Thank you.
K. Penn Thank you.
Moderator Thank you, and now we’ll go to the line of Tatiana Smith, MTV.
Please go ahead.
T. Smith Hello. How are you doing?
K. Penn Hello. How are you doing, Tatiana?
T. Smith I’m not doing too bad. My question is what did your parents,
family, friends think when you told them about the career switch and
when did you tell them?
K. Penn I discussed it with them kind of off and on, I guess, maybe the
last eight or nine months or so. I don’t think it came as a surprise to
anyone because when I joined the Obama campaign I wasn’t as involved-- I
think I joined in October of 2007 and then slowly became more and more
involved through the Iowa caucuses during the writer’s strike and ended
up moving to Des Moines for, I think, that last month and a half before
the January caucus. I think at that point, a lot of my friends and my
family said, “Wait a second; what are you doing? Is this something that
you’re getting caught up in? Is this something that you’re actually
passionate about?” From that point, the discussion has always ensued.
The folks who know me the best always have known that those have been
the dueling passions, shall we say - the arts and public service. So, I
don’t think they were shocked at all, but it was certainly nice to
bounce some ideas off of people about whether or not this was the best
decision for me right now.
T. Smith Okay. This was already asked and you kind of gave, “I don’t
think so;” but really no more Harold & Kumar? You couldn’t turn this
into something?
K. Penn I don’t know. I certainly don’t want to squash anyone’s hopes or
dreams of that, but right now I’m going to be moving to Washington to
take on this position. I’m certainly not going to be acting while I’m
serving in the White House. Who’s to say what would happen three, four,
five years from now. But at this point, it’s not on my radar, no.
T. Smith Cool. Thanks so much. One step at a time.
K. Penn Sure.
T. Smith Well, thank you. Congratulations.
K. Penn Thank you very much.
T. Smith Bye.
Moderator Thank you, and next we’ll go to the line of Ann Oldenburg from
USA Today. Please go ahead.
A. Oldenburg Hello.
K. Penn Hello, Ann. How are you?
A. Oldenburg Good. Congratulations.
K. Penn Thank you.
A. Oldenburg When you first met the President, did he mention he
recognized you from any particular roles?
K. Penn I’m trying to think. I think the first time I met him was late
in 2007. Yes, he did mentioned House actually, but it was a passing
comment. I had met him at a fundraiser, the rope handshaking line
towards the end. I introduced myself and he said, “Oh, yes. You’re on
that show. What show are you on?” I said, “I’m on House.” He was like,
“That’s right, the doctor show. Nice work.” I said, “Thanks” and that
was it. I didn’t really get to know him until later on during the
campaign.
A. Oldenburg Did he ever or any of the staffers ever joke about Harold &
Kumar or drugs or any of that sort of thing?
K. Penn No, no. This was probably one of the other reasons that I was so
drawn to the campaign was the folks who were on staff even as early as
pre-Iowa caucus back in 2007 were incredibly inclusive, incredibly
respectful and also very driven by actual issues. I never had an
experience where I thought anyone was distracted by anything other than
getting people registered to vote, discussing issues with them,
reporting those issues back. It was really quite remarkable to see how
the whole operation was being conducted.
There was never any conversation about any of the more frivolous items
from any of us who came from different fields. There were folks who were
formerly musicians or sports folks or teachers or whatever. We just
didn’t really talk much about that. It was very focused on the issues at
hand, which was really nice. I had not had an experience like that
before.
A. Oldenburg Kind of refreshing, isn’t it?
K. Penn Yes, it really is.
A. Oldenburg Good to hear. All right. Thank you.
K. Penn Thank you. I appreciate it.
Moderator Thank you, and next we’ll go to the line of Emily Hochberg
from fancast.com. Please go ahead.
E. Hochberg Kal, thanks so much for taking the call today.
K. Penn Of course. Thanks for being on it.
E. Hochberg I’m a big fan of the show and I’m kind of curious; what did
you think about suicide as a choice for “Kutner” to take after playing
him all the time?
K. Penn I was shocked by it, but I think that was the nature of what
they were going for. When we discussed or when they told me about it, I
asked if there was anything in his background that would have indicated
or if there were any warning signs beforehand and the answer was
generally no, that this is something that was just as shocking to the
team as it is to the audience and it’s something that nobody sees
coming.
It’s kind of tough to wrap your head around that, especially as the
actor who plays the character, to know that he was obviously tormented
about something, but didn’t share it with anyone. I think that’s
indicated pretty well at the very end when “House” goes back into
“Kutner’s” apartment and starts going through photos, searching for some
sort of an answer and he sees pictures that we had never seen a side of
“Kutner” before. We never knew that he had a girlfriend. We never knew
that he hung out with his college friends at the beach regularly. That
last picture that he pulls out right before the episode airs is of
“Kutner” looking very different than we’ve ever seen him before. The
look on his face is so completely different from him being kind of
jovial in the hospital or even saving somebody’s life. It’s this
distraught look that we just don’t have an answer to. He didn’t leave a
note. He never discussed it with anyone. For the first time, “House”
doesn’t have an answer to something.
So, it was disturbing to me as an actor, but recognizing that that was
also kind of the journey that the audience would go through made it
disturbing and also a little bit strange because I wasn’t allowed to
talk about it with anybody. So, at least when the audience gets to see
it, they can talk about it with their friends and watch it, but there
was a lot of Peter Jacobson and Olivia Wilde and I going, “Isn’t this
insane? Wow. This is so sad.”
E. Hochberg Well, were you said that you didn’t get to portray that
other part of him, of having a girlfriend and all that?
K. Penn No, because I think you saw the different layers to all the
characters. We rarely see, with the exception of “House” of course and a
little bit with “Taub” and his wife, the characters - you don’t see them
that much outside the hospital. Most of the plot ends are based there.
Despite the fact that they’re all based around medicine, you know an
incredible amount about these characters and a lot of their back story
really informs their behavior and informs how they deal with patients.
So, I definitely don’t regret that because I don’t think it’s really
that type of show. If anything, I think it accentuates the shock and the
anger and depression that the rest of the team feels surrounding the way
in which he passed away.
E. Hochberg Then just lastly, are you a little nervous about going from
the set to going to a 9 to 5 desk job?
K. Penn Not really. I’ve had experience in that field over the last
couple of years. It’s something I’m actually looking forward to. I’m
incredibly honored to have the opportunity to do it and we’ll take it
from there.
E. Hochberg All right. Well, congratulations. We’ll miss you.
K. Penn Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Moderator Thank you. Now, we’ll go to the line of Kona Gallagher from
AOL TV Squad. Please go ahead.
K. Gallagher Hello, Kal. How are you doing today?
K. Penn Good. How are you?
K. Gallagher Fine, thanks. First, I want to congratulate you not only on
the new job, but on having the best reason for leaving a show I’ve ever
heard. I mean you get like creative differences, I want to do movies,
but you have getting a job in the White House. So, I think you get some
sort of prize for that.
K. Penn Thanks.
K. Gallagher Anyway, my question is just going back to the shock of the
suicide and finding out, how many episodes did you shoot after you found
out that this is how “Kutner” was going to end, but before the actual
final episode? Did that affect your performance at all?
K. Penn I think I found out while we were shooting episode 17. It was -
I’m trying to think. I think it was episode 17 or maybe halfway through
18. It was probably halfway through 18 actually and no, the performance
didn’t change. That was the first thing that I asked David Shore was,
“Do you want me to change anything? Do you want this to be informed that
he’s struggling with something?” The answer was, “Not really.” This is
something that really does come out of left field in episode 20 and we
don’t want to lead anyone on. We also don’t want to mislead anyone. It
just is what it is and there’s no explanation for it.
K. Gallagher So, the audience shouldn’t go back to the last couple of
episodes and try to look for a sad face somewhere or something like
that?
K. Penn No. I mean by all means watch the episodes again for enjoyment,
but no, there was nothing hidden in there. There were no codes that we
put in for people to decipher.
K. Gallagher All right. I have to ask because I read the interview that
you did with Entertainment Weekly where you mentioned that your parents
marched with Gandhi. Did they pull that out growing up like all the time
on you? When you were doing Harold & Kumar for instance, were they like,
“Oh, yes. That’s great. We marched with Gandhi, but that’s cool too”?
K. Penn No, it was my grandparents actually and no, it was never
preachy. These were stories they would tell you at the dinner table. I
remember my grandmother telling me stories about boycotting some salt
and cotton. You just think that every grandparent has stories and it was
not until much later, probably in high school or college that you go
back and say, “Wait a second. Grandma told me a story about this chapter
in this history book? That’s insane.”
But, it was never preachy. It was never used to try and coerce us into
doing anything and by the same token, when I shared that with Mike at
Entertainment Weekly it certainly wasn’t to draw any sorts of big
comparisons or to be ostentatious about anything. That was always on my
mind growing up, almost second nature, knowing that it was those types
of small public service actions that have made a difference. And so, if
I can make some sort of a small difference, I’m certainly honored to do
it.
K. Gallagher I think it’s great, what you’re doing and I wish you the
best of luck. Thanks.
K. Penn Thank you. I appreciate it.
Moderator Now, we’ll go to the line of Michael Saul with Daily News.
Please go ahead.
M. Saul Hello, there. Congratulations on the job. You mentioned earlier
in the phone call that you talked to the President about the job. Can
you just relay a little bit more expansively what that conversation was
like and what he said to you?
K. Penn Sure. We talked about it briefly during the Inauguration. I
spoke at the Staff Ball backstage very briefly, had mentioned that I was
looking to work for him and we sort of talked a little bit about what
sorts of areas I might be able to hopefully serve in. There were no huge
discussions at that point, but obviously there are a number of folks,
like Tina Chen and Mike Strautmanis who deal with a lot of this stuff.
So, I had some follow-up calls with them afterwards and also a number of
friends who worked on the campaign to try and figure if in fact I would
be a good fit and where.
M. Saul Okay. You mentioned a couple of times on the phone call that
there were going to be some financial repercussions here. Can you be a
little bit more explicit - how much you’re going to be making at the
White House and how does that compare to what you’re making now?
K. Penn Sure. I won’t talk numbers right now, but obviously going from a
private career where you’re working for a big company to a public
service career, there’s a huge pay cut. So, the concern with that, quite
frankly, is I own a home. There’s a terrible housing market and my
concern is the same as everyone else’s concern. If I’m moving to a
different city, can I sublet my house? Can I sublet it for the same
price that my mortgage is? Can I refinance? It’s the same thing that
everyone else is going through - similar concerns. So, we’ll see. It’s
not something that I’ve entirely figured out just yet to be perfectly
honest.
M. Saul You haven’t figured out whether or not you’re going to sublet or
refinance or sell?
K. Penn No. This is all the kind of stuff I’m looking at. It seems like
you can’t effectively do either of the three right now in the Los
Angeles area because banks are not very keen on letting you refinance;
the rental market because it decreased significantly. But also, you
don’t want a house sitting there barren. We’ll figure it out.
M. Saul All right. Last question; on behalf of Harold & Kumar, what’s
your position on legalizing marijuana?
K. Penn Oh, I don’t smoke weed in real life. So, it’s honestly not
something I’ve given much thought to. Those movies are all very
frivolous and fun to do. I remember somebody wrote some article when we
shot the first one. When we shot the first movie, I was also a
vegetarian. So, there was this mini uproar amongst stoner White Castle
fans - “How can you hire a vegetarian who doesn’t even smoke weed to
play this character in the movie?”
I know that it is a serious issue, especially in California -
legalization of medical marijuana and questions about taxation and
things like that. But sadly, that’s not my area of expertise at all and
admittedly, I probably didn’t try and learn about it because I knew that
people would ask me about it.
M. Saul Fair enough. Thanks so much.
K. Penn Yes, sure. Thank you.
Moderator Thank you. Before we go to our next question, I’d like to
introduce House Executive Producers Katie Jacobs and David Shore to the
call.
D. Shore Hello.
K. Kurland One moment for Katie.
K. Jacobs Hello. I’m here.
Moderator Thank you, and we’ll go ahead and go to the next question and
that goes to the line of Tom Jicha from Sun-Sentinel. Please go ahead.
T. Jicha Good timing because most of the questions I had for Kal were
already asked and answered now. I have one quick one. Kal, is there any
chance that they’ll be having you do commercials or public service spots
on behalf of the Administration?
K. Penn I don’t know. That’s not something that we discussed. I would
imagine that my role is not going to be any different than the other
talented staffers who are already on that team. So, I would imagine not,
but I don’t know for sure.
T. Jicha Okay, and now for the producers, I assume this is going to
resonate through the rest of the season, or how long will it resonate?
D. Shore It’ll resonate at least through the end of this season. The
impact on “House” and the rest of the doctors and the people that work
there… is what we’re looking forward to exploring.
T. Jicha Are you proud to keep a secret in Hollywood as well as you did?
D. Shore Pardon me?
T. Jicha Are you proud you were able to keep a secret in Hollywood as
well as you did?
D. Shore I’m absolutely startled, yes.
T. Jicha Okay. Thank you.
D. Shore Anybody who did know about it and didn’t come forward with it,
I am most grateful to you.
T. Jicha Okay.
Moderator Thank you, and now we’ll go the line of Ileane Rudolph with TV
Guide Magazine. Please go ahead.
I. Rudolph Hello. Can you hear me?
D. Shore I can hear you.
I. Rudolph Okay. Congratulations (inaudible).
K. Jacobs David, there’s a lot of wind making it impossible to hear, I
think, on your end. Sorry to interrupt.
D. Shore Sorry to interrupt. Is that better here?
K. Jacobs A little bit.
D. Shore I’ve found an alcove. I’m actually in the shadow of the
Washington Monument.
I. Rudolph Can you hear me now? Okay. That’s much better. Anyway,
congratulations. It was a brilliant episode; just stunning. It’s no
secret that in this climate, show producers are going to have to tighten
their belts. Did Kal’s decision fit perfectly into that? Were you asked
at all to bring the show in cheaper?
K. Jacobs No. We were not asked to bring the show in cheaper. We have an
immense amount of support from the studio and network with this show.
These are purely creative and personal decisions and it’s just been
fantastic the amount of support that we’ve gotten from the studio and
network. I’m not saying we’re a cheap show, but you have to figure we’re
pretty much on stage most of the time, not on location, but we have a
tremendous amount of support. So, this had nothing to do with that.
I. Rudolph Now, there are clearly lots of shows violently killing off
major beloved characters. I’m not even talking about Lost and 24, which
almost kill for sport, but of course Edie on Housewives, Derek on
Terminator. What does it bring creatively? I don’t know if you can speak
in a more general way for lots of shows, but what does killing a beloved
character like this bring creatively?
D. Shore I don’t know I can speak generally at all. I know what it
brought to us. I guess, obviously, stirring the pot brings something to
any show. Kal came to us with his issues and his opportunities more
specifically and we were very excited for him, but it created a creative
problem for us. I’m very happy with the way it worked out. It gave us an
opportunity to do something unexpected.
What’s fascinating about it is it’s a question that “House” can’t answer
and he’s the man who has the answers to everything. It’s so unexpected
for the “Kutner” character and that what was really exciting about it
was the unexpected nature of it and the fact that there are no simple
answers and not even complicated. I mean they were very complicated, but
nothing that “House” can figure out and that’s what was very exciting to
us and then, of course, just the very opportunity of dealing with the
fallout for any human being, which is, I guess, the general answer
because anytime somebody you’re close to dies, people react differently.
I. Rudolph Will you bring someone in to replace “Kutner”?
K. Jacobs There is no replacement for “Kutner”.
D. Shore Exactly.
I. Rudolph Thank you very much.
Moderator Thank you. Now, we’ll go to the line of Matt Mitovich from TV
Guide.com. Please go ahead.
M. Mitovich Hello, Katie and David. Thanks for your time. I’m just
wondering; are you going to leave it out there, the question of whether
it was in fact a suicide, or is that going to be dropped from here on?
K. Jacobs It was a suicide. It was a suicide.
M. Mitovich Okay. So, anybody out there super-analyzing the scene and
looking for contradictory evidence, that’s just not going to go
anywhere.
D. Shore They’re being like “House”. They’re looking for more answers
where they may not be more answers.
M. Mitovich Which individual would you say is going to be most impacted
by the aftermath of “Kutner’s" death moving forward?
D. Shore Everybody is going to be impacted. We are going to see perhaps
surprisingly “Cameron” and “Chase’s” reaction to it. We’re going to see
more of that. That doesn’t say that they’re going to have a greater
reaction to it, but we are going to see more of that and, of course,
“House’s" reaction and “Wilson’s” reaction and everybody’s reaction. It
was important to us that we be as truthful with this as we possibly
could and see how everybody react, but we are going to bring “Cameron”
and “Chase” to the forefront a little bit.
K. Jacobs Yes, I mean everybody feels the impact of such a significant
loss and people process it and characters process it in different ways,
I think that the greatest impact, correct me if I’m wrong, David, is
ultimately with “House” because he is not at peace. He’s unable to rest
with the idea that he did not see it coming and cannot explain it. So
ultimately, I think it has the greatest impact on “House”.
D. Shore Yes, he is the one who has the least ability to cope with it
and as a result, it has the greatest affect on him.
K. Jacobs Yes. He has no resources. He has no sort of family to go home
to.
M. Mitovich Thank you, again, for the call today.
Moderator Thank you. Now, we’ll go to the line of Alan Sepinwall from
Star Ledger. Please go ahead.
A. Sepinwall Hello, David and Katie. I have kind of a chicken and egg
question for you in terms of how far back you knew you were going to do
this. It seems as if there hasn’t been much done with “Kutner” in quite
a while, which allowed you to do this ending where we didn’t know much
about him and it was ambiguous why he would have done it. Was this a
case of you knew you were going to kill him off and therefore you wanted
to put him to the sideline a little bit, or did you look back and
realize, “We haven’t done a lot with “Kutner”. Therefore, we have the
ability to do this”?
K. Jacobs That’s not how we felt about it at all. We knew a while ago.
David figured out how he wanted to envision this in December and I’m
actually surprised. You might be right, but I feel like he’s been an
important part-- I mean in the very last episode, he solved the case. He
solved the case a couple of episodes before that too. He was sort of
riding a wave of success in “House’s” team. He had given Kal the go
ahead to take credit for it, but I feel like we played him a lot
recently. David?
D. Shore Kal, are you feeling under utilized?
K. Penn No.
D. Shore You’re free to say it now. You don’t have to kiss my ass any
more.
K. Penn I never felt under utilized. In fact, what I talked about
earlier was one of the nice things about having had the chance to do a
series that’s an ensemble is you’re constantly learning about your
character. So, it’s constantly fresh. It’s fresh in learning about
himself, but also learning about the way in which he reacts with the
other cast members, the other characters. I think that was especially
true in a couple of episodes where you see the banter between “Kutner”
and “Taub” or “Thirteen” and “Kutner” talking about something or other
that had nothing to do with medicine. Actually, I really enjoyed it. I
don’t think I was under utilized at all.
A. Sepinwall Well, maybe the way I should have phrased it then is that
we saw quite a bit of “Kutner” professionally, but not personally to the
degree that we’ve seen pretty much every other character this season.
D. Shore I think it is true that had we seen some major dilemma in his
personal life we could not have done this story the way we did because
one of the integral elements of this story is that there are no easy
answers available. If he married and have an affair, if he just broke up
with a girlfriend-- Even though the answer would have been much more
complicated than that, that would have been something that somebody
could just hang on to and feel that that was the answer and we didn’t
want that there.
A. Sepinwall Thank you very much.
Moderator Thank you, and next we’ll go to the line of Rick Porter from
zap2it.com. Please go ahead.
R. Porter Hello, Katie and David. You mentioned a couple of minutes ago
about bringing “Cameron” and “Chase” to the fore a little bit. Can you
talk a little bit more about that?
D. Shore No. Again, as Katie said, the impact is mainly on “House”, but
of the other people, we do see some fallout with “Cameron” and “Chase”
in, I think, an interesting way. Again, I don’t want to spoil it.
R. Porter Okay. All right. Well, it was worth a shot. Thanks.
D. Shore I can tell you that everybody has a slightly different reaction
and it was important to us that we see varied reactions. Both “Cameron”
and “Chase” do not have a unified reaction.
R. Porter Okay, and is there any sort of longer range plan for bringing
a new member into the team?
D. Shore I go with Katie’s answer, that “Kutner’s" irreplaceable.
R. Porter Okay.
Moderator Our next question comes from the line of Sarah Jersild from
Tribune Interactive. Please go ahead.
S. Jersild The “Kutner” memorial site that you put up-- Can you hear me?
K. Jacobs Yes.
D. Shore I can hear you, yes.
S. Jersild Yes, the “Kutner” memorial site that you put up on the FOX
website, how long was that in the works and Kal, do you find it kind of
creepy?
K. Jacobs Do you, Kal?
K. Penn No, not really. When I heard that it was going to happen, that
was the first question I asked. I think what I said was just don’t put
any of my real family photos on the website. Make sure they’re the ones
from all the photo shoots that we did when we wrapped up episode 20.
They said, “Of course. Obviously.”
It’s sad certainly. It’s sad because I loved playing the character and
to see that the character is not around and took his own life,
obviously, is incredibly disturbing, but I mean it’s very, very clear
that’s it’s a “Lawrence Kutner” memorial page.
K. Jacobs Our motivation came from that it felt like such a significant
thing that we were doing that I didn’t want the audience in any way to
feel that we took it casually, as if everything can go on the day after
the same as it was the day before because we felt profoundly changed and
I was thinking if the audience, the fans of the show felt that change,
that they would want to know that we thought about it a lot beforehand
and that we took it really seriously and that we would want them to have
somewhere to turn to express any or all of their thoughts and emotions
and feelings about the show and about what we did to the show.
But mostly, we’ve been working on it for a while. It came from the
notion of letting our audience know that this was a big deal to us. And
so, it felt like a big deal to them that we sort of have that in common.
D. Shore Let me just add to that. This has nothing to do with the
memorial per se, but it relates to what Katie was saying. This was a big
deal. I wasn’t on at the beginning of the call when Kal was speaking,
and Kal knows this and he’s expressed this same sentiment in reverse.
This is not something that would have happened if not for these
wonderful opportunities that Kal’s been presented with. We loved him. We
loved working with him. Once this happened, we were not going to stand
in his way. We were thrilled for him as human beings, but as executive
producers we had second thoughts. We were thrilled for him and we found
a way that I think is very exciting for us creatively, but it would not
have happened if not for this great personal opportunity.
K. Jacobs It was the only reason why I didn’t want Obama to be the
candidate and then-- no. I mean seriously, this has been on Kal’s mind
for a long time and I remember saying to David, “Well, he hasn’t even
won the primary yet. Well, he hasn’t even”-- Do you know what I mean?
Because I think I was in a state of denial. Just for the record, I
obviously was the hugest Obama supporter that there had been, or one of
them. I mean I was just trying to avoid the reality that we would
actually have to face this moment.
S. Jersild Actually, let me ask a follow-up question because it seems
like you’ve been working towards a suicide storyline for a while. From
my understanding, this is something that you’ve been planning for a
while if not with this character. You’ve had your--
K. Jacobs Only with this character.
D. Shore It was only with this character. The plans are this. We were
noodling stuff around. We knew that we might have to face this. And so,
we had been noodling stuff around since the fall. It really came
together concretely, I guess, very early December - right after the
election basically, but we had the thoughts in mind and then we mapped
out the end of the season at the beginning of December.
S. Jersild Okay. You’ve been pulling a bit of a bait and switch though
because you certainly made it seem like “Taub” was not in a good way.
K. Jacobs Everybody has problems and different ways of dealing with it.
“Taub” is struggling in his own way. But as I said, I think that’s more
close to real life. It’s a little silly to think that we all don’t have
our struggles on the inside. It’s how they manifest and how we deal with
them.
S. Jersild Okay. Great. Thanks so much for your help.
Moderator Thank you, and next we’ll go to the line of Bill Keveney from
USA Today. Please go ahead.
B. Keveney Hello. Thanks for taking the time. There’s a point in there
where “Thirteen” says, I think, about 25% of people kill themselves with
no sign of it at all. I assume from your research that’s a correct
number. I just wanted to double check if that is the case.
D. Shore Yes, that’s not a number we just pulled-- Well, we don’t pull
any numbers out of our hat. That is something that research supports. I
know there is conflicting research, but it’s certainly a surprisingly
significant number.
B. Keveney Okay, and did you consider any other ways to have the
character leave?
D. Shore We considered many ways to have the character leave.
Ultimately, as I said before, this has been the story that allowed us to
really have the greatest impact on “House” in particular; have an impact
on everybody, but in particular the man who craves answers not having an
answer. That is what really excited us about this story.
B. Keveney Okay, and although you said you’re happy for Kal, this
obviously threw a wrench into your plans. You hear stories about
producers sometimes deciding violent ways for characters to leave when
they’re not pleased. Was there any of that?
K. Jacobs No. We’re, I’m devastated. This phone call is making me more
sad than I was the other day when I saw Kal.
B. Keveney Okay.
D. Shore If he had come to us and said, “I’ve been offered a great part
on CSI,” then yes, we would have had him--
K. Penn I’m actually going to do Grey’s Anatomy, David.
D. Shore It would have been auto erotic asphyxiation or something like
that. No, we’re thrilled for Kal. This is something that as human beings
you hear about this and you go-- If anybody on our crew had come to us
and said, “I need to leave because I’ve had this sort of opportunity,”
we would have wished them well and been thrilled for them and gone back
into our office and go, “What do we do now?” We would have been
thrilled.
B. Keveney Okay. Thank you.
Moderator Thank you. Now, we’ll go to the line of Bruce DeMara from
Toronto Star. Please go ahead.
B. DeMara Hello. Two quick questions; one for Kal and one for the
producers. Kal, actors/celebrities going into public service goes back
as far as Shirley Temple, maybe even earlier. I noticed on the FOX
website that there’s a lot of viewer comments, very positive for the
most part, but there’s also a strain of cynicism amongst some of the
comments; people saying, “Oh, another actor trying to be a celebrity,
using a celebrity to go into public service.” How would you respond to
that?
K. Penn I mean I can certainly understand that sentiment, but I would
respond to that by just being open about the fact that I’m not a
democrat or a republican. I’ve been a registered independent for a
number of years. I’ve made it very clear to the White House that I
should not be given any special treatment. It’s a privilege to be asked
to serve there and I’m looking forward to being just one member of an
incredible team that already exists in the Office of Public Liaison. I’m
going to be putting acting on hold and it was also made very clear to me
that I was being hired because of qualifications that had nothing to do
with being a “celebrity.”
So, I certainly understand any of the cynicism that comes along with
that. Fortunately, in my particular case, none of the - and I even hate
the word - celebrity aspects of this had anything to do with me going
into public service.
B. DeMara Kal, you’re a funny guy. You’re the kind of person that
people-- You’re funny. When I see your face, you make me laugh. So, are
you going to use humor much at all in your new job? Does humor have a
place?
K. Penn You mean I’m funny when smart writers write witty things for me
to say.
B. DeMara I guess.
K. Penn I always pursue things with a sense of humor. I think it keeps
things lively and active, but I also think that there’s a time for humor
and there’s a time to be more serious and hopefully life brings a
balance of both.
K. Jacobs Actually, we’ve cut that part of his brain, the funny part of
his brain out and we’re holding on to that here at House.
K. Penn They actually have the right to hold that for I think it’s
another four years. So, I can get it back after that.
B. DeMara Okay. To the producers, I’ve worked in the newspapers for 20
years and newspapers/media in general are very, very cautious about
reporting suicides of any kind because suicides often cause rashes.
You’ve seen it in high schools and the native reserves and that kind of
thing. I know you put some resources on the FOX website for people who
are contemplating suicide, but are you concerned that you may have an
incident in the future or that you may precipitate an incident at all
involving suicide? Was it a risk that you consider worth taking?
K. Jacobs I certainly hope that that’s not the case. The intention was
to bring to light the fact that this can happen and at the end of the
show, we ran a NAMI ad. If you are all contemplating suicide, there’s
help out there for you and we placed a number. If anything, we were
hoping quite the opposite, that we would have people who are feeling in
a desperate way realize that they are not alone and that there’s help
out there for them.
D. Shore I concur. Thank you, Katie. We did not want to glamorize it. We
wanted to show that there are alternatives, that you communicate, you
reach out to your friends.
K. Jacobs The other thing is that even if it’s not directly related to
everybody, take a good look. If you feel like one of your friends or
someone you know is in distress, again, there is somewhere for you to
go. So, we were trying to be very responsible about it and very human
about it. I think one of the things about mental illness that troubles
people so much is that they feel that it’s stigmatized and that they
can’t talk about it and they feel very alone. We want to convey that it
is a medical illness, because it is, like any other medical illness and
there is treatment. So, that was our hope.
B. DeMara Just a quick follow-up; just to be clear, there’s no evil twin
brother doctor who’s likely to return in three or four seasons on House.
K. Jacobs You come up with a great script for it, we’ll consider it.
B. DeMara Okay. Thanks so much.
Moderator Thank you, and now we’ll go to the line of Hal Boedeker from
Orlando Sentinel. Please go ahead.
H. Boedeker Sure. This is for David. I’m just wondering; will there be a
major change in “House’s” character because of this?
D. Shore Look, “House” says nobody changes and I sort of agree with
them. This will prompt him to question some of the choices he makes and
it will, perhaps, promote him to try and change. Whether he succeeds or
not is a completely different question.
H. Boedeker This is for Kal too. I wanted to go back to the cynicism out
there. I’ve had people saying, “Has he paid his taxes?” making cracks
about Washington. Are you worried that the way the character died will
overshadow your new job?
K. Penn No, and I certainly hope that most of us out there recognize
that there’s a big difference between fact and fiction and that the
characters that an actor plays are very different than his or her real
life. Superman flies and Anthony Hopkins eats people in Silence of the
Lambs, but I think we’re all rational enough to know that those are both
fictitious. By the same token, the same goes with television.
What I am hoping that folks recognize for all us, no matter what your
political affiliation, the last couple of months have been incredibly
exciting. It’s definitely a new day. I’m hoping to put that sort of
cynicism behind and move forward collectively with something a little
more positive. I have a feeling that the majority of folks are in that
mindset as well.
H. Boedeker Thank you.
K. Penn Thanks.
Moderator Thank you, and now we’ll go to the line of Emily Hochberg from
fancast.com. Please go ahead.
E. Hochberg Hello, David and Katie. I was kind of curious; is “Kutner”
going to be the cupid who is going to bring “House” and “Cuddy”
together?
K. Jacobs Another good idea. What do you think, David?
D. Shore Yes. I think being dead might put a crimp in that, but no, not
in the foreseeable future.
E. Hochberg Are there any plans--
K. Jacobs The serious answer is this, and what David saying earlier
about how everybody reacts differently. I think you’re so right to say
that certain people would take the impact of this horrible event and
want to be closer and want to sort of couple up and be closer to people.
But with “House,” it sends him in the opposite direction. So, no.
E. Hochberg Are there any plans to kind of explore more maybe any motive
behind “Kutner’s” decision?
D. Shore No. The issue is it’s unknown. I mean obviously, there
ultimately is a reason. Something went on in that man’s head, but it
went on in that man’s head and it is ultimately unknowable. I think that
in our show is a more interesting question. The question of dealing with
that and accepting that is a more interesting issue than trying to put a
little pin in the answer.
K. Jacobs It’s a struggle.
E. Hochberg Thank you, guys, so much.
Moderator Thank you, and now we’ll go to the line of Jenny Thomas from
Pioneer Press.
J. Thomas Hello. I was just wondering; did you shoot any flashback
scenes, or is that really the last time that we have seen “Kutner”?
D. Shore We didn’t. We actually thought about that and we specifically
rejected that because again, any flashback would have to be chosen for
it telling us something. This story is about us knowing nothing. The
answers are in his head and we can’t get there. And so, we ultimately
decided that we should know what we know and not what “Kutner” knows.
So, we decided that because this is so unfathomable, we shouldn’t see
that.
K. Jacobs It’s the way that it is. When you lose somebody, it is a shock
and there’s such a mix of emotions. You feel sadness. You feel anger and
I think the intensity of those emotions are made even greater by the
fact that you cannot go back. Once someone is gone, they’re gone.
David’s decision to make this happen at the beginning part of the
episode and in a way that gave us no clues, I applaud because it’s
devastating, but it’s how we feel when something like that happens.
You’re just caught off guard. There are no answers and there is no going
back. We wanted to put the audience in “House’s” and in our characters’
shoes and feel it in that kind of raw, unexplainable way.
D. Shore Inexplicable?
K. Jacobs Either way.
J. Thomas Thank you very much.
K. Kurland I’m sorry for interrupting, but we have time for one more
question.
Moderator That question comes from the line of Sarah Jersild from
Tribune Interactive. Please go ahead.
S. Jersild Great. Thanks so much. I wanted to know how much, if at all,
your association with the National Alliance on Mental Illness influenced
the choice of the story.
K. Jacobs It did not influence the choice of the story at all. This is
something that, as David said, has been ruminating in his brain and I
always find he’s thinking about; David is thinking about ways of telling
stories in his head and then on this writer’s retreat that we took in
early December, the whole story sort of came out and poured out. Then it
just seemed like a natural connection to reiterate our alliance with
National Association on Mental Illness. So, the story comes first here
and then we try to-- Story comes first above all else and then we try to
have everything fall in line to follow that.
S. Jersild Was the decision to sort of align with the National Alliance
on Mental Illness influenced at all by the story kicking around in your
brain, David?
D. Shore No, that alliance was in there for quite some time.
K. Jacobs We made that alliance to NAMI years ago.
S. Jersild Okay. Great. Well, thanks for your help.
Moderator We have no further questions. Please continue.
K. Kurland All right. Well, I just wanted to thank everybody for
participating. If anybody has any other questions beyond what got asked
today, feel free to e-mail me at kim.kurland@fox.com. Thank you, again,
so much. Thanks, Kal and thanks, Katie and David.
D. Shore Thank you very much.
Moderator Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference for
today.
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