Amber Tamblyn is known to many as Emily Quartermaine on ABC’s Day-time soap opera, General Hospital and co-star of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 1 and 2.
Tonight Amber makes her debut on Fox’s medical drama, House. She plays a play by the book medical student, Martha Masters and is sure to get under House’s (Hugh Laurie) skin.
RESULTS ARE ALL THAT MATTER ON AN ALL-NEW “HOUSE”
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 8, ON FOX
Guest Star Amber Tamblyn Begins Multi-Episode Arc
It’s election season, and in the midst of a tight campaign, an incumbent New Jersey senator’s campaign manager falls ill with liver failure and temporary paralysis. Cuddy pushes House to add a female doctor to his team by hiring brilliant third-year medical student Martha Masters (guest star Tamblyn) in Thirteen’s absence. House and the team are wary of the young doctor’s lack of experience and medical perspective, but are forced to give their new by-the-book teammate a chance to prove herself. After the campaigning senator makes a surprising announcement, House and the team look to the candidate to find clues about the patient’s condition. Meanwhile, Foreman learns that Taub has a past connection to Masters, and in an effort to save his patient’s life, House must make a critical decision that may compromise his relationship with Cuddy in the all-new “Office Politics” episode of HOUSE airing Monday, Nov. 8 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX.
Below Amber talks about her role on the series and her world outside acting.
Premier Guide Miami: We are used to seeing you as innocent Emily on GH. Now, I see you bare it all and betting spanked in SPANKED. Do you feel that you’ve matured as an actress? Will we see more of you pushing the envelope in your career?
Amber Tamblyn: I hope I’ve pushed them a lot. I hope I’ve come a long way since 10, 15 years ago now, General Hospital, but yes, I try to choose things that are fun and interesting and things that I enjoy doing. I would hate to ever be in a position where I’m going, “Why did I do this? I hate this so much. I’m not having fun. I’m not creating anything.” So, yes, it’s been a really fun experience. I hope I keep getting to push the envelope with it.
Premier Guide Miami: What was it like working with TV’s most obnoxious doctor? Will you annoy him throughout the season?
Amber Tamblyn: It was absolutely delicious. I annoy him. I fascinate him. The two characters both annoy and fascinate each other. House probably even sees a little bit of himself in her, except the opposite, except he’s usually mean. She’s usually overly nice. So, both would make for funny television.
_Daedrian McNaughton
Highlights from the Conference Call with Amber Tamblyn:
On Preparation for her Role as Martha Masters.
What type of medical research did you have to do for the role?
A. Tamblyn: I didn’t do any medical research. I did episode-by-episode research. So, if something was involving smallpox, then I would look that up. If there was a specific word I didn’t know, which is about 90% of the words, I would look up that and see what it meant.
As far as the on-set training when you’re trying to do something like draw blood and IV’s, they have a woman there who’s incredible who was a nurse for many, many years. She does all the teaching of how to—
There’s a woman named Bobbin who was a nurse for many years and then retired to come be on the show and help us learn how to do anything that we’re doing on that episode. So, if we’re giving someone a trach, if we’re taking blood, if we’re— Anything that we do, she teaches us and shows us how to do it and makes sure it’s the right way. That’s the training. There was no reading anything beforehand.
How are you with that stuff? Are you squeamish around blood?
A. Tamblyn: No, not at all. I’m not squeamish at all. It’s fun. It’s a lot of fun. It’s very fast-paced. You get very good at doing it. Then, you feel like, “Man, if one of my friends, if something happened to them, I might be able to actually help,” which is dumb and not a smart thing to think but I do think that way. I feel, in an emergency, I could probably give CPR now.
What was your impression of Martha Masters when you first read the script?
A. Tamblyn: The part of Martha Masters was originally just an idea. David Shore and Katie Jacobs had come to me and said, “We want to write a character for you. Are you interested?” I said, “Yes.” Then, it wasn’t until I had signed on and did a bunch of episodes that I finally got to see a script. It was a very personal thing to me because the character is based on my real life best friend who is a med student. Her real name is Martha Meredith Masters. In fact, they had made her sign a release saying she wouldn’t sue Fox. Pretty hilarious, but she is a med student. She’s very much like this character. I’m not saying anything out of turn or mean about her, but she’s incredibly brilliant, but sometimes she can be very socially awkward.
The fact that David Shore still has never met the real Martha Meredith Masters and has written this character so perfectly, so much like her, is pretty amazing. When they do meet, I think like a giant black hole will form in the sky where all human brains will get sucked up into. What? That didn’t make any sense. Let’s put it in the article though. Let’s just do it. See what happens.
What Attracted Her to House/She had never watched House before accepting the job.
I wanted to ask you just a little bit about what appealed to you about joining a series like House for a short period of time. What was it about that you were excited about?
A. Tamblyn: Well, the main thing was, of course, Hugh Laurie. I had never seen the show before, but as soon as they came to me and said they wanted to write something, I went, “Oh, I don’t want to do a medical show. That doesn’t sound very fun to me.” I started asking my friends. They all went, “Are you an idiot? It’s not a medical show. You’ve never seen it?” I went, “No.” I felt very stupid for ever thinking that.
So, I rented a bunch of the seasons. I watched it. I was blown away. It is not just Hugh, though it is him, but it’s the idea that you learn so much about these doctors and about these characters, not through long monologues about their back story or through their life and what they’ve been through, but you learn about them based on how they’re tested in their work environment. So, you put them in a certain environment; it creates a certain kind of person. That’s how you learn who they are.
To me, that’s incredibly interesting and very smart writing. I think that’s a great way to create a character. So, I felt that I was in good hands to have a character written for me by David Shore. So, it was a combination of all of those things, of working with Hugh, of having David write something for me, just all of that. I felt very flattered by the whole thing, and fortunate.
Just a little bit about what we’ll see and learn about Martha as your episodes unfold.
A. Tamblyn: I think you’re going to see someone who had been so much in the world of academia and knowledge and accumulating knowledge that she never progressed or matured in a social sense. So, you’re going to see someone that has a hard time communicating on some of the most basic levels, which I think is very common for people who are highly, highly, intelligent functioning people. I think that Martha may even have Asperger’s. It’s something that we’ve talked about. I know that Hugh’s character does.
So, it’s potentially like she’s a young version of him, only she believes so strongly in the ethics of truth telling to the point of a fault. Just in the same way that he believes so much in that lying can help you find the truth to a fault. So, the two of them have distinctive ideas about how to get to the same thing. You’re going to see her try to come into the real world for the first time. It’s going to be pretty intense for her.
Do you see yourself wanting to get more into series TV in the future, starting a new show off again, one day soon, or do you want to get—?
A. Tamblyn: I’m always open to everything. The only thing that I for sure know I want to do is write a third book. I’m also an author. I write poetry and some short story stuff. So, that’s the thing I know. Everything else, I always leave all my doors open. I never shut them and go, “Well, that was a bad experience. I’ll never do that medium again.” I just leave it open. If an idea pops in my head, I’ll try to develop it, or something will come to me, but I love them all equally. They’re all my children.
I see that you’re going to be performing poetry at GiRL FeST in Hawaii here in a few days. How is being on stage and doing your poetry— Is that like being on stage, can you imagine, like in a rock band, or is it being on stage like in a play, or is it something that’s completely different for you?
A. Tamblyn: It’s all of those things, especially because I often— I took four months off last year and I toured for my book that came out, Bang Ditto. I did a big tour for it, which was very fun for me. My mom went with me and played guitar, so we kind of were a band. We were a comedy duo of sorts because a lot of the poems, too, are about family and growing up with a father who was in the business. Just a lot about family. Mom and I would often have a lot of banter onstage. Then, you get … involved and the whole thing turned into a different kind of show, but it’s more of like a variety show, mixed in with poems, with a modern kind of poetry, very loose and easy-going and funny and musical and dark and all of those things together.
That’s probably what we’ll be doing at GiRL FeST as well, I’m guessing. It’s a really fun, exhilarating experience, performing on stage. It’s often interesting to see because the people that come to see me know me as an actress. That’s changed the last couple of years. More people are reading my stuff now, but in the beginning, when I would perform, you could just see the look on people’s faces going, “Why is the girl from Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants using the F-word so much?” It’s very confusing for them to separate it, which is fine for me. I don’t mind them seeing an actress that they think they know and then suddenly realizing they don’t know her.
What’s your advice to actors?
A. Tamblyn: I try not to give advice because I feel like you can really lead someone astray. All I tell actors is that it’s really a very, very difficult industry. You need to be ready to be rejected 5,000 times, over and over again. The rejection part of it can be rough. I think I often tell people to think about looking at soap operas first, audition for soap operas. It’s one of the best mediums to sort of get your foot in, as long as you don’t start having like soap opera-ish acting. You have to be very careful to stay out of the melodrama of it, but as an exercise, as a way to be on a set every day and exercise your emotional intelligence and do all that, I think it’s a very, very, very good way to start off in the business. They do open casting for that all the time, too. I think getting out of soaps is the hard part, but if I did it, I feel like anybody could do it.
What surprised me that I found really refreshing to have two strong, interesting women interacting on a show that’s usually more centered on men. The Cuddy/Masters scene, they’re really great. I may see Masters as a young Cuddy in sorts. You seem to have chemistry with Hugh, of course, but also with Lisa. How is the dynamic with her behind the scenes? Will we see more of you guys working together?
A. Tamblyn: Well, so far, she and I have only had that scene and one other scene that we just shot a couple days ago. So, not really. No, but perhaps that will come up more, but I do think she is sort of a young Cuddy, an extremist version of Cuddy in a certain way, which is probably why Cuddy brought her on. I think House says that I remind her of herself, but yes, Lisa’s amazing. She’s great. She’s very funny. She’s very health-oriented. I’m learning a lot of health things from her. She’s a very interesting woman and incredibly gorgeous. I mean, she’s gorgeous on screen, but in real life, she is the real deal. Her skin is insanely flawless.
How did you get into the character so easily? It seems to flow so well. I was just wondering, is the character spoke to you right away?
A. Tamblyn: Well, the character did because it’s based on somebody that I know very well whose real name is Martha Meredith Masters. My friend, Meredith, is similar to this character, but this character is in a very exaggerated version of her, but she is in med school. She often makes jokes that I don’t understand that are about Euler’s Number or something that I bet I, and most people in the room, don’t know what she’s talking about. So, she can be a little socially awkward sometimes, which is what the character, Masters, is like on the show. I feel like I’m very fortunate to have at least the building blocks to create this character. Then, everything else, I just ran with it.
Of course, it’s David Shore’s writing, too, that allows me to play those things. When he actually writes in, “Martha using her period as a metaphor to get someone to donate a kidney to her sister,” the fact that Martha does that kind of stuff, she doesn’t know what’s appropriate and what’s not. She doesn’t really know how to socially integrate herself into society to help herself not look like such a dork. She hasn’t learned that yet. She’s too much in her intellectual brain. She hasn’t socially grown yet. I think that’ll be a great thing to watch her learn how to do and sometimes learn it the hard way in a lot of cases.
“Office Politics” episode of HOUSE airing Monday, Nov. 8 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX.