Lisa Edelstein with the TV Addict in Los Angeles, January 2009
When HOUSE returns to the airwaves this evening, Dr. Cuddy will have her hands full. Instead of one baby to soothe (House), she’ll have two! Will Cuddy be able to handle it? Will the added responsibility put the highly anticipated House/Cuddy hookup on pause?
To find out the answer to these these questions and more, we went directly to the source and are proud to present our exclusive new interview with Dr. Cuddy herself Lisa Edelstein.
Let me first start of by telling you that having recently put out a call for questions on my website, you’re shockingly popular in Brazil. Have you spent a lot of time there?
Lisa Edelstein: Really? I’ve never been. I’ve always wanted to go though. It’s on my list.
Moving on to what fans are dying to discover, how is motherhood treating Cuddy?
It has been rough for her and it’s going to get a lot rougher. We’re not done with the torture.
I guess a happy Cuddy doesn’t exactly make for compelling television.
Exactly. Cuddy has a hard time getting happy. There’s going to be quite the struggle in Cuddy’s future because I don’t think she was really prepared for what it meant to be a mother. She takes care of that whole hospital, she takes care of House. How? Where? When will she take care of this baby? I think at first, she’s very conflicted as to how she spends her time and she feels that she can only do one or the other. The hospital versus the baby is one of the conflicts that comes up. The other conflict that comes up is, is she capable of being a mother? Is she the kind of person that really can be a mother? Those are huge questions that Cuddy will have to deal with.
And I suppose House himself isn’t of much help.
House of course is really unsupportive and really jealous of the baby. Super jealous.
That’s shocking! You mean House doesn’t offer to babysit?
Yeah you’d think so right! It will be really interesting to see what happens over the next couple of episodes.
It seems as though Cuddy has really stepped up into the forefront this season? Are you pleased with the increased screen time?
I’ve gotten some really juicy story-lines this season and I’ve loved it. I like my job, I like working, I think Cuddy is a wonderful character and it’s a great show and the more they [the writers] write for me I’m happy.
Does Cuddy’s baby story-line put her relationship with House on the back-burner for the time being?
Maybe for a minute. But really I don’t know, they [the writers] don’t tell me. And you know how they do the show. They’ll focus on one character for a little while and then shift the focus to another character. I definitely think this arc is about the baby
Did Cuddy’s kiss with house live up to expectations?
I loved that kiss. It was so beautiful the way they did it. I really didn’t know how they’d get to that place where these two characters could finally kiss. But I loved that they got there through pain. That’s a very real way of connecting with somebody. There’s no way of erasing that connection.
Can we talk about your big strip tease for a moment. How did you react when you see a script that has you stripping for House in a school girl outfit?
I just laughed. I laughed because I have a really great relationship with all of the writers and they just know how pervy I am anyway. So I just imagined the script meeting where they [the writers] were like, let’s put Cuddy in a school girl uniform and see how far I’ll go and how comfortable I am. So it was funny, but then I was mad because they didn’t tell me far enough in advance so I could make sure that I was in really great shape. But ultimately it was fun, scary, but fun. Marisa Tomei is now doing it far more intensely that I had to do [in The Wrestler]. Now those are serious strip scenes.
I imagine the paycheck helps you get through it as well.
Yeah, we get paid a lot more than actual strippers.
Well, unless they’re really good.
Reeeaaaallllyyyy good.
Don’t miss a brand new episode of HOUSE Monday January 19 at 8PM on FOX (Global in Canada)