[Interview] House star Lisa Edelstein and Greg Yaitanes

Greg Yaitanes, director of the House episode Bombshells, airing tonight, and co-star Lisa Edelstein, talked with the Media on Friday about the unorthodox episode, featuring singing and dancing. Tension reaches new heights when Cuddy faces sobering news that propels her to reevaluate her priorities.  While House is distracted by his concern for Cuddy’s well-being, the team treats a teenage patient whose worsening symptoms and suspicious body scars indicate more than just physical illness.  Sensing the teen’s troubled emotional and mental state, Taub turns to the patient’s personal life for clues and uncovers disturbing home videos that could put the lives of his peers in danger.  Meanwhile, Cuddy remains hopeful that House will be fully present when she needs him most, and a series of dreams including a musical scene choreographed by Mia Michaels provide glimpses into her life and her relationship with House.

Without further ado, here’s a brief excerpt from that conference call, featuring a humorous story about the training for the episode:

H. Hanks, CNN.com: We’re hearing a lot about this sort of dance sequence, choreographed, I believe, by Mia Michaels from So You Think You Can Dance.  I’m wondering what that was like to work with her and how much rehearsal was involved?

G. Yaitanes: I was a fan of the show and had met Mia a couple months prior to getting the script to this episode.  The second I had read the script, which basically said House and Cuddy sing a Housean version of Get Happy, and there was a couple of story points that happened within that dance sequence, and I texted Mia to see if she was going to be around and available.  She was, and we made a deal.

What was interesting about this is, that I think is so different than so many other musicals, is that the arrangement, the choreography, and everything about it was happening simultaneous to each other.  So Mia was influencing the musical arrangement.  The musical arrangement was influencing the choreography, John Erlich’s work.  John Erlich, our composer, and Mia Michaels were incredibly collaborative, and then once they kind of got the ball rolling started some pretty intense rehearsal sessions with Hugh and Lisa.

L. Edelstein: We didn’t have so many rehearsals, but they were long and involved and it was really fun.  I’m a big admirer of Mia Michaels, and I also watched that show religiously.  So I was really excited, not just to—

G. Yaitanes: It was like a Mia Michaels fan club here.  I don’t think we’ve had anybody either on the show or around the office in which more people were lined up to want to meet her and talk to her, and it was everything you could imagine.  She was fantastic.  She really directed that sequence, and that was the thing we wanted.  We basically stuck a straw in her head and sucked out what her idea was.  She created that world that takes place in the choreography; worked on the costuming, set design.  It’s like within the episode I directed, that these two and a half minutes were directed by Mia.

H. Hanks: Do either of you have another favorite dream sequence that you guys did and why?

G. Yaitanes: I love the “Butch and Sundance” sequence.  Mostly because if you take the original film, I mean down to Hugh and Lisa’s choices of the way that they approached the scene is very much with the same intention that Newman and Redford went at it.  Just from a shot for shot technical standpoint, we recreated the sets and recreated the staging and the shot design and all the technical aspects, but I just love seeing—Lisa playing Redford, I just can’t get over it.  Every time I see it, I just love it.  She just does so many great things.

L. Edelstein: It was pretty funny.  We were shooting guns.  They had blanks of course, but it’s always scary when somebody’s handling a weapon on the set.  It’s dangerous even if it’s blanks, and every time you put the gun back in your hand they have to check to make sure it’s just blanks and that there are blanks.  It’s a whole process you go through.  Still when we ran out of the building to fire, people ducked.  So they really didn’t trust me that much.