MONDO EXTRAS

GL: Is she your favorite character?

SM: Yeah, well, House is, of course, and then after that...I always enjoy watching Cuddy's scenes. So yeah, I guess she is. I'm mad at Wilson this season, so he'd better redeem himself.

GL: He's uh, he's trying something. Which is all well-intentioned, but maybe going a bit awry.

SM: But on the other hand, you know, after two seasons of Wilson being a bit of a doormat to House, letting him get away with so much, maybe it's good to see him give a little back.

GL: I think so, too. It's sort of an opportunity Russel and I have never had because we've sort of bounced around, show to show, and frankly, most shows just didn't stick around long enough to do this, but tracking characters over seasons is a very cool experience. You can watch an evolution, you can track an evolution over the course of years, which is much more like real life.

SM: Yeah, definitely. It makes you more attached to the characters, certainly.

GL: And I think if Wilson [were] the same guy in Season 3 that he was in Season 1, people would be bored, so we try to make sure everybody evolves within the context of our case-a-week medical story.

SM: How do you see House changing? I mean, there are certain things I don't know that you can ever change with his character. I don't know that I would like him if he became a nice guy or lost the cane and the drugs.

GL: Yeah, that's a good question, and what we sort of explored in Episodes 1 and 2 here. Ultimately, we're not gonna have him turn into a nice guy and a bore. He is who he is. And we love him for it.

SM: How big a part of his character do you think the Vicodin addiction is? You know there are actually people out there who don't even think he's addicted to Vicodin.

GL: Uh...well...I would say that they're wrong without getting into too much, but I think we explored that in another one of my favorite episodes, "Detox." He admitted that he was an addict in that episode.

SM: Yeah, I don't know what more you can say there. That seems pretty definitive.

GL: And he seemed to break that addiction in Episodes 1 and 2 this year, but that was accompanied by, you know, the complete lack of leg pain. And when the leg pain returned at the end of Episode 2, it was a bittersweet moment for him to pull that pill bottle back out of his jacket, back out of his closet and reintroduce that into his life. And it's going to be a big part of his character still throughout Season 3.