Transcript of Tavis Smiley
This is a report of the "Tavis Smiley" talk-show, on air on PBS on May 15th, 2006. You can listen to the talk-show on the PBS site, with RealAudio.
[Clip]
Tavis: Ouch. (Laughs)
Laura Innes: (Laughs) (unintelligible)
Tavis: Eleven seasons of being the one they love to hate.
Innes: That’s me, baby.
Tavis: You like this?
Innes: I love it, I love it.
Tavis: Yeah?
Innes: Yeah, it’s a great character. It’s been an amazing job, and I first came on the show kind of to be the one who was the boss from hell, and was always kind of getting things going. But over the years, they’ve created so many different storylines for me, and layers of the character that it’s been great. Amazing.
Tavis: Now the word is you originally, way back when, like almost 12 years ago now, originally were going to audition to be one of George Clooney’s love interests.
Innes: Yeah, I wish. I didn't get that part. (Laughs) Shoot. No…
Tavis: You should be…
Innes: No, I know, I…
Tavis: You should be glad you didn't get that part.
Innes: I know, can you imagine?
Tavis: Clooney’s gone.
Innes: Yeah. I actually came in about a year before I read for Carrie to read for another part, like, one of George’s girlfriends. But luckily, I didn't get that part, so.
Tavis: Yeah, 'cause you're still around 11 seasons.
Innes: I know. It’s funny, I'm sure I was really disappointed. (Laughs) Little did I know that it’d work out much better for me.
Tavis: What makes this show work after 11 seasons? And I ask that specifically of you about this show, 'cause this show has had so many incarnations. And it is amazing to me that any show, much less "E.R.," but that any show stays as popular as it is for so many years. With cast changes, and I mean major cast upheaval. People you fall in love with, major stars like Clooney and others who are gone now, and Eric LaSalle. How does the show stay relevant, there’s the question I'm trying to get to, after 11 years? Twelve years?
Innes: I think the key for us has been our writing staff is incredible, and always has been. And John Wells, who’s our executive producer and creator of the show. He is constantly pushing and motivating the writers and the actors in terms of new storylines. And there’s always new medicine. There's always cutting edge situations. And the show was such a great recipe with this combination of kind of an action storyline with the very human medical stories.
And the kind of soap opera element of these casts of characters that hopefully you grow to love or hate, and are they gonna stick together and fall in love or fall out of love? And so, it’s a great recipe, and I really credit my executive producers, David Zabel and John Wells, with the writing and really smart cast changes. Whenever anybody left, they always brought on really wonderful people to replace them, so.
Tavis: There’s so many shows now, you think back 12 years, there’s so many shows now on that are, for lack of a better term, medicine-based, hospital-based, "E.R." kind of based. Science-based. You guys take credit for that?
Innes: Oh, sure, why not? We’ll take credit for it. (Laughs) I don’t know, I think we started the ball rolling. When we came on the air, I guess it was “Chicago Hope” and "E.R." were the two shows. And in recent, obviously now, with “Gray’s Anatomy” and “House” and then also the procedural shows. I think there's always an appetite for these shows, and it doesn’t hurt that "E.R.’s" just been such a phenomenon.
Tavis: Yeah. So to your character, you got your hip fixed?
Innes: I got my hip fixed.
Tavis: Yeah.
Innes: Yeah, that was pretty amazing.
Tavis: That was such an important, well, let me not tell you, let me ask you how important a part of your character it was, the fact that you had this physical challenge. How did that factor into the way you played the character, or how you viewed the character?
Innes: Well for me, it’s always been a very interesting aspect of the character, and when I was cast, she was described as using a cane. And then I got the part and I sort of said, well, what’s wrong with her? And at that point, they said well, we haven’t quite decided yet. We wanna kind of let it play out. And I actually worked with a woman who had polio, and I used this crutch with a cuff on it.
And so it was very significant to me, and still is, because there are no real role models, or there’s such a dearth of disabled characters on TV. It’s a little better now, really, with “House” and there’s an actor on “C.S.I.” who’s disabled. So that’s always been very meaningful to me. And I think for Carrie, it was part of what made her very enigmatic. The disability wasn’t explained for many years, and people kind of speculated, "Oh, is that why she has this intensity," or, "Is that why she has this difficulty with intimacy and connecting?"
And so I think all those things are compelling for the audience, and kind of draw them in. And for me, it definitely was something like a little motor for the character. I'd kind of strap on my crutch and go. And now, with this storyline where I had this fall and had the surgery and went through this sort of tortured process of deciding whether or not to have the surgery, it’s kind of weird.
Because I get on the set, and I really am kind of like, okay, what do I do with my hands, and. It was a thing that fueled the character, and now it’s interesting also to find out well, who is she now? How does she feel now about her body, and being in the world? And so I think it’s a really interesting story for me.
Tavis: I wanna talk about your marrow donor work here in just a second, speaking of real life science and medical issues. Before I do that, though, over the years, these 11 seasons, you’ve gotten, you’ve heard, over the years, you’ve communicated with people who have disabilities who appreciate the character, I assume?
Innes: Yeah, yeah, definitely. We get a lot of mail, and we get a lot of response from people over a lot of the storylines we do, but we definitely, especially when the character first came on the show, there was some controversy, because I'm not actually disabled. So, there are many actors who are disabled, and you're always trying to use people who are actually disabled.
But I was cast in this part, and what it kind of did for me was raise my awareness about those communities. And I actually just directed an episode that was on a couple months ago that the storyline was about a character who was deaf. So I pretty much insisted that we actually cast somebody who was deaf. So you sort of try to broaden your awareness, and hopefully do good in some other way.
So, I think ultimately she’s been a great role model. She’s somebody who was never about the disability. She was just about being expert at her job, and being excellent, and having a lot of power. So, I like that.
Tavis: So there are so many people around the country who are doing all kind of good work around Mother’s Day, just a couple of days ago. Over the weekend, I should say Mother’s Day weekend. Your work was marrow donor-based.
Innes: Yes.
Tavis: How did you get involved in that?
Innes: Let me see, it’s a bit of a long story. I have a daughter who’s four. I have two children, but my daughter, who’s Mia, is adopted from China. And so we've become involved in an organization called “Families With Children From China.” And it’s an international organization, and we just exchange information. And one of the things we found out is we became aware of a little girl named Kaylie Wells (sp?), lives now in Wisconsin, who was diagnosed with a disease called aplastic anemia about four years ago.
And when her parents were finding treatment for her, she required a bone marrow transplant. And they found that there were very few minorities in the bone marrow registry. So her parents are amazing, and they’ve just worked tirelessly to raise awareness of the bone marrow registry. And Kaylie now has gotten a transplant. She actually found a donor in a doctor in China.
So she’s doing really well. And so that’s how it all started. So we have mutual friends, and her dad, Owen Wells, called me and said would you kind of be a casual spokesperson for this? So that’s what I did, and Sunday, yesterday, Mother’s Day, I went and got on the registry myself. And it’s great. It’s an amazing, amazing cause, and it’s really important that people become more aware of it.
Tavis: Yeah. Well, I'm glad to have you on the program to talk about it.
Innes: Thank you.
Tavis: And I appreciate the work that you're doing. So, you wanna give me any tips about what this finale’s gonna hold for us?
Innes: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me see. (Laughs) What am I allowed to say? I can’t, there’s all these restrictions on what we can give away.
Tavis: Yeah. You know what? I don’t wanna get you fired. Never mind, don’t tell me. (Laughs)
Innes: (Laughs) It’s really good. It’s really good. It’s amazing.
Tavis: That’s all you gotta say, it’s really good. I don’t want you to lose your job. (Laughs) See, you stay on the show for 11 seasons, you come on my show, you run your mouth, and you get fired.
Innes: That’s right. I'll get the phone call. Out. (Laughs)
Tavis: If you hadn’t come on the show, you might have a job for another couple seasons. I'm glad to have you here.
Innes: Thank you so much. It was a pleasure.