Rather than commanding the halls of Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital as Dr Lisa Cuddy, Edelstein almost wound up on Wisteria Lane when she auditioned for the role of Lynette on Desperate Housewives, a part that went to Felicity Huffman. The producers were making the offer to Huffman when Edelstein came in for her final test.

“It was a bit embarrassing,” she says. “I walked in and they were on the phone talking numbers.”

She landed House a week later.

Having been through 15 prior pilot seasons, Edelstein felt she had a good sense for what shows would succeed. “You develop a skill for recognising three things: something you like on the page, something you think you’d like on the page six years from now, should it be successful, and something you think is written well enough to become that show,” she says.

But she also knows not to set her expectations too high. “You have to look at it in the long term, but assume the short term.”

From the beginning, Edelstein was drawn to the character of Cuddy, but confesses she felt underused in the first season.

Edelstein says: “It wasn’t about wanting more attention; it was about wanting to keep my job and make sure my character stayed in the show! So, yeah, I was nervous.”

Edelstein didn’t want to come off as “an annoying, desperate actor”, so she took it upon herself to come up with ideas for Cuddy, pondering Cuddy’s back story and relationship with House. Then she presented her ideas to the show’s creator and producer, David Shore.

“It was great; he liked my ideas,” she says. “I realised it wasn’t that they didn’t care about my character, there was just a lot going on.”

She points out that the first six episodes of House did not do well in the ratings, until the show was put after the juggernaut that is American Idol. By that point, episode 14 was shooting.

“He was trying to get a show off the ground,” Edelstein says. “But I felt more solid after that. We were all on the same page.”

Edelstein, 44, says she knew she wanted to be an actor “as soon as I could talk, but I don’t think my parents took me too seriously. They thought I’d grow out of it and be a lawyer. Which is hilarious – I can’t think of anything worse; I don’t even want to play a lawyer on TV!”

At 14 she had headshots done and dropped them off “at any business that had ‘agent’ or ‘manager’ in the title”. She attended New York University’s Theatre Department, but it never clicked for her and she left.

But not before taking a class where she was asked to write a satirical and political song. Her teacher was so impressed, she urged Edelstein to write a full musical.

“That’s the kind of thing you do when you’re 20,” Edelstein reasons, “You put on your show.”

Titled Positive Me, the musical dealt with the growing Aids epidemic and Edelstein was the writer, composer, and star. She says she raised the money by “literally singing and dancing in people’s living rooms”. The experience taught her a lot, on and off stage: “I learned how much you need to fight for what you want to do, because people will try to get in your way.”

Until then, she was regarded as a “club kid” in New York City, hanging out at nightclubs with friends like party promoter James St James. But the show gave her a certain amount of credibility.

She ended up landing a gig hosting the MTV show Awake on the Wild Side. With typical candour she says: “I hated it. But it was good for me because first of all, they paid me and I was broke after doing my show for two years. Second, it put me in front of the camera where I learned a lot.”

She got her Screen Actors Guild card for one line in her first movie, The Doors, a role she got after a strange audition for Oliver Stone.

“The only scenes they were giving women to read at the audition were raunchy sex scenes,” she recalls. “We were rolling around on the floor screaming. We ended up rolling under Oliver’s desk.”

She was originally supposed to do three of the sex scenes, but after the first one Stone said he had seen enough.

“I said: ‘So you only need to see me f**k on the floor, not against the wall or on the couch?’,” Edelstein recalls with a laugh. “And he looked at me and said: ‘Will this be your first movie?’ I think I got the part because I was sassy. He liked that.”

Since her film debut, Edelstein has worked steadily in film and TV; memorable roles include Ben Stiller’s awful date in Keeping the Faith and arcs on The West Wing as a call girl and Ally McBeal as a transsexual. The actress says she learned early on that good work would lead to more work.

“I never had a big break, but there were jobs that I knew would propel me a little bit further,” she says. “The first were guest star spots on Seinfeld and Mad About You. Then I did a show called Relativity that didn’t last long, but it was a wonderful character. I worked on a sitcom with (director) Tommy Schlamme, and he put me in the live ER episode, then Sports Night when they were having trouble casting a role. That’s where I met Aaron Sorkin, who put me in The West Wing pilot and brought my character back throughout the season. Work begets work; that’s the way my life has gone and it’s been wonderful.”

Now on her own hit show, Edelstein says she’s grateful for her success and its timing.

“There’s a level of appreciation that only comes with life experience and knowing what those other 15 years were like that you just can’t know if you’re really successful at 24,” she observes.

“I feel like I’ve been working for 20 years and I worked for 15 of those years to get here. I feel like I belong in my job.”

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Gallery link: Tv Sorrisi e Canzoni – June 2010

WAS LISA EDELSTEIN DESPERATE FOR A ROLE BEFORE ‘HOUSE’ CAME ALONG?

For over a decade, Lisa Edelstein’s career was little more than a series of small movie roles and dozens of guest-starring appearances on more than 30 TV shows, including “Seinfeld,” “The West Wing,” “Ally McBeal,” and “The Practice.” Then, in 2004, she was suddenly in the running for regular roles on a pair of high-profile shows. Obviously, we know one of them, since she’s been an integral part of the “House” cast through the show’s first six seasons — and with Dr. Lisa Cuddy now romantically linked with Dr. House, we can expect her to take an even more prominent role in Season 7.

But what other show was she considered for? When Fox All Access host Chris Leary interviewed her, she told us, so watch the video and find out!

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Gallery link: Clippings thanks anasyx and Evita92 for the scans

Aaaaand new fanart donations, new entry of the fanarts world media site…welcome Valentina Music 92 and her works

Gallery link: Valentina Music 92 – icons

Media gallery links:
icons – Jessica
wallpapers – Margreet

House has finally confessed his feelings to the director of Princeton-Plainsboro. To find out if she will have to wait is for tonight, when four issues the final chapter of the sixth season. The actress who plays Cuddy, Lisa Edelstein, does not seem very willing to lose their grip …

How does Hugh kiss?
I’ve never kissed Hugh, only Cuddy kissed House.

And is Hugh in real life like House?
At all. He’s sweet and funny, supporting the whole world and caring about those around him. But he’s as brilliant as House, that.

If you met a doctor like House, what would you do?
I’d always love him as long as I don’t die. I’m tough, able to deal with men like House.

What do you like the most of the script?
It’s the best job I got. The script is well written and I love people I work with: they’re complicated and insane. I couldn’t be more comfortable. (laughs)

What would you like to do after House?
I want to go on working, even if I’m not 20, I’m not asking for 10 productions per year. And I want to fulfill an old dream: visiting the whole world and be a better person. Sometimes I’d like to produce something that gives me and other actors job.

Many actors left House. Aren’t you tired?
Fool them. (laughs) It’s hard times and I’m a woman on her 40s playing in hit show on television: I think it’s silly to leave it. I give all myself to this until I can.

It’s more difficult to use medical terms or use the medical instruments?
(Laughs) Sometimes instruments can be more complicated. I’m left-handed and when it came I had to suture they gave me things for right-handed people.

What do you like the most of your character?
I’m shocked from the amount of things she can do at the same time. Wouldn’t be bad if she could have more fun and get larger steps, it’s impossible with dress she has.

Don’t you like your skirts?
For her yes. (laughs) For me they would be too tight, but when I get home I’m destoyed.

translated from 20minutos.es

Gallery link: Backstage West – 2010 thanks LApprgirl

and more news House is nominated at Teen Choice Awards
Choice TV Show: Drama
“90210″
“Gossip Girl”
“Grey’s Anatomy”
“House”
“The Secret Life of the American Teenager”

Congrats to all cast of House

thanks Elmira

Rather than commanding the halls of Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital as Dean of Medicine Dr. Lisa Cuddy, Edelstein almost wound up on Wisteria Lane when she auditioned for the role of Lynette on “Desperate Housewives,” a part that eventually went to Felicity Huffman. The producers were making the offer to Huffman when Edelstein came in for her final test.

“It was a bit embarrassing,” says Edelstein. “They didn’t know someone had let me in, and I literally walked in and they were on the phone talking numbers.”

She landed “House” a week later.

Having been through 15 prior pilot seasons, Edelstein felt she had a good sense for what shows would succeed. “You develop a skill for recognizing three things: something you like on the page, something you think you’d like on the page six years from now, should it be successful, and something you think is written well enough to become that show,” she says.

But she also knows not to set her expectations too high. “It’s always a gamble,” she says. “You have to look at it in the long term but assume the short term.”

From the beginning, Edelstein was drawn to the character of Cuddy but confesses she felt somewhat underused the first season of the show — a common complaint made by the show’s fans. “I didn’t feel my character was getting used or thought about,” Edelstein says. “It wasn’t about wanting more attention; it was about wanting to keep my job and make sure my character stayed in the show! So, yeah, I was nervous.”

Edelstein didn’t want to come off as “an annoying, desperate actor,” so she took it upon herself to come up with ideas for Cuddy, pondering Cuddy’s back story and relationship with House. Then the actor presented her ideas to the show’s creator and producer, David Shore. “It was great; he liked all my ideas,” she says. “And I realized it wasn’t that they didn’t care about my character, there was just a lot going on.”

She points out that the first six episodes of “House” did not do well in the ratings, until the show was put after the juggernaut that is “American Idol.” By that point, episode 14 was shooting. “He was trying to get a show off the ground,” Edelstein says. “But I felt much more solid after that. We were all on the same page, and it developed from there.”

OPENING ‘DOORS’

Edelstein, 44, says she knew she wanted to be an actor “as soon as I could talk … But I don’t think my parents took me too seriously. They thought I would grow out of it and be a lawyer. Which is hilarious — I can’t think of anything worse; I don’t even want to play a lawyer on TV!”

At age 14 she had headshots done and dropped them off “at any business that had ‘agent’ or ‘manager’ in the title.” She attended New York University’s Theater Department, but it never clicked for her and she eventually left. But not before taking a class where she was asked to write a satirical and political song. Her teacher was so impressed, she eventually urged Edelstein to write a full musical. “That’s the kind of thing you do when you’re 20,” Edelstein reasons, “You put on your show.”

Titled “Positive Me,” the musical dealt with the growing AIDS epidemic and Edelstein was the writer, composer, and star. Edelstein says she raised the money by “literally singing and dancing in people’s living rooms.” The experience taught her a lot, on and off stage. “I learned how much you need to fight for what you want to do, because people will try to get in your way,” she says.

Until then, she was regarded as a “club kid” in New York City, hanging out at nightclubs with friends like party promoter James St. James. But the show gave her a certain amount of credibility. More important, she says, “I really proved a lot to myself; that was a big deal.”

She ended up landing a gig hosting the MTV show “Awake on the Wild Side.” With typical candor she says, “I hated it. But it was good for me because first of all, they paid me and I was broke after doing my show for two years. Second of all, it put me in front of the camera where I learned a lot.”

She got her Screen Actors Guild card for one line in her first movie, “The Doors,” a role she got after a strange audition for director Oliver Stone.

“The only scenes they were giving women to read with at the audition were raunchy sex scenes,” she recalls. “We were rolling around on the floor screaming. We ended up kind of rolling under Oliver’s desk.”

She was originally supposed to do three of the sex scenes, but after the first one Stone said he’d seen enough. “I said, ‘So you only need to see me f— on the floor, not against the wall or on the couch?’” Edelstein recalls with a laugh. “And he looked at me and said, ‘Will this be your first movie?’ I think I got the part because I was sassy. And he liked that.”

STEP BY STEP

Since her film debut, Edelstein has worked steadily in film and television; memorable roles include Ben Stiller’s awful date in “Keeping the Faith” and arcs on “The West Wing” as a call girl and “Ally McBeal” as a transsexual. The actor says she learned early on that good work would lead to more work.

“I never had a big break, but there were jobs that I knew would propel me a little bit further,” she says. “The first were guest star spots on ‘Seinfeld’ and ‘Mad About You.’ Then I did a show called ‘Relativity’ that didn’t last long, but it was a wonderful character. I worked on a sitcom with (director) Tommy Schlamme, and he put me in the live ‘ER’ episode, then thought of me for ‘Sports Night’ when they were having trouble casting a role. That’s where I met Aaron Sorkin, who put me in ‘The West Wing’ pilot and brought my character back throughout the season. Work begets work; that’s the way my life has gone and it’s been wonderful.”

Now on her own hit show, Edelstein says she’s grateful for her success and its timing. “There’s a level of appreciation that only comes with life experience and knowing what those other 15 years were like that you just can’t know if you’re really successful at 24,” she observes. “I feel like I’ve been working for 20 years and I worked for 15 of those years to get here. I feel solid and present and like I belong in my job.”

source

We started by watching a screening of Edelstein’s all Cuddy episode, “5 to 9.” I hadn’t seen it in awhile and it was fun to watch with an audience.  Sometimes I forget how comical House can be because I typically watch by myself and it helps to have an audience there to laugh with you.

After the episode, Lisa Edelstein came out and discussed her career with a great moderator.  I’ve been to these types of events before and the moderators haven’t been the greatest, but anyone there could tell Lisa was hugely respected by the person asking her the questions.

The main focus of the event was Edelstein’s acting career, so House wasn’t discussed until about the last twenty minutes of the conversation.  This was actually fine, as Lisa was plenty entertaining dishing stories about her awkward reading for The Doors which included acting out various crude sex scenes, her early club days where she was named Lisa E, her dueling managers when she first got into the biz, and how much she hated her MTV co-hosting job, although she was grateful for it because it got her foot in the door and facilitated her move to Los Angeles.

She vibrantly discussed the creative aspect of her job and I was interested to hear that she couldn’t imagine herself doing anything different than acting even though her parents were always worried about where her career was going.  “There is no direct path to acting,” she said.  “It’s not like a career path.  There is no ‘right way.’”

She mentioned that she’s been with her agent and management for eighteen years now.  When asked what she was looking for in a manager, she said she wanted people to support her and believe in her.  There shouldn’t have to be any schmoozing of the management.  They should know her creativity and what she can bring to the table.

One question about the difficulty of guest starring got a huge laugh.  Apparently on a particularly famous guest spot Lisa did, all of her costars ignored her except for one rather famous ranter.  He liked her a bit too much, unfortunately.  That’s all I’ll say since I don’t want to start a feud between the two and we definitely don’t want to make him angry.

During this interview, Lisa did say many things I already knew about her, but I did find out a few things that surprised me.  I certainly had no idea she tested for Desperate Housewives and the role Felicity Huffman now plays.  She got the role of Cuddy a week later and found out only two months ago that Bryan Singer had handpicked her for the role.  When asked about a breakthrough role, she said she wasn’t even sure what that meant and that with her, more work just led to more work.  Lisa did offer up this tidbit though:  “It was between me and Marisa Tomei for My Cousin Vinny.  That could have changed my life.”  Then, as a joke, she said, “But it didn’t.”

So what about House, you ask? When asked about the evolution of Cuddy, she cited David Shore and talked about how characters are revealed, rather than changed because if characters are changed, the show is over.  Lisa was worried about Cuddy’s character at first because she thought the writers and creators might become bored with her character so she put the pieces together of Cuddy’s back story (youngest woman dean of medicine, etc.).  Edelstein said she was lucky that Shore was receptive to what she brought to him because it could have gone entirely in the opposite direction. Shore told her that he always had a place for Cuddy in mind throughout the series.

When asked about the last scene in “Help Me,” she said that the scene wasn’t in the script.  In fact, she said goodbye to the cast and crew at about 2 AM, and then came back to as few crew members as possible and Hugh to film the last scene at around 4 AM.  After the event, I stayed and talked to her and she seemed concerned about really nailing the last scene.  Don’t worry, I told her it was perfect!  She made mention of the rest of the cast possibly not knowing how the season ended if they didn’t watch the show.  Apparently there were two different ways the end could have gone and her and Hugh’s script had the version we saw.

The moderator then asked about her favorite part about working with Laurie and she mentioned how disciplined he is as an actor and that his work ethic is rare.  Regarding his direction in “Lockdown,” she cited how happy he was to be just him behind the camera in his clothes without a limp and with his British accent.  Lisa only worried that he loved her work so much that he might think she was brilliant even if she wasn’t.

Regarding “5 to 9,” Edelstein said it was very exciting to do for her because she was able to set the pace that the lead typically gets and that Laurie does so well.  She was also thrilled when they asked for her notes, but she recognizes that they wouldn’t normally ask because she’s not typically featured as a lead role.  Her hardest scene to shoot that she could remember was screaming at the baby during “Big Baby” in season five.  Edelstein was worried that her screaming wouldn’t be convincing because it was so difficult to do, but then countered herself by saying it probably wouldn’t have been easy for Cuddy either, so maybe it worked.

As for season seven, she has no idea where its going, but is positive it’s going to be a lot of fun!  She told me afterward that the story had to go there and that she’s ready for whatever *u*ked up direction it goes in.  She loves her role and keeps it fresh by enjoying the dialogue she is given because the smarter the dialogue, the easier it is to memorize.  She can’t wait to see where the love affair goes and she’s always interested in the medicine as well.

The evening ended with the audience (of about fifty) singing her “Happy Birthday” and her telling us that the most important thing that she does as an actress is to express herself.  At the end of the evening, I was nervous, but I went to talk to her and she was extremely receptive and kind to me.  I told her I was completely thrilled about the ending to the season and then the person next to me said something in front of her about the show jumping the shark!  We both rushed to the show’s defense and discussed how we loved that she show would finally explore their relationship.

She’s exactly as I would have guessed.  Animated, generous, funny, entertaining, and down to earth.  Not to mention stunning.  I’m thrilled I was able to attend!

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