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Jennifer Morrison
Honor Roll, Early Emmy Thoughts
June 01, 2006
By Jenelle Riley

Note from admin: This is an excerpt from a Backstage interview with Jennifer Morrison. Please follow link to see it in it's entirety.
Jennifer Morrison, in a primarily male ensemble, has enjoyed a spectacular second season as Dr. Allison Cameron on the hit Fox medical drama House. The compassionate--some would say naive--Cameron is often the voice of humanity among the posturing physicians, but Morrison never plays her as preachy or dull. This season has been a rough one for the young doctor, who has been faced with an AIDS scare, a colleague who plagiarized her work, and, of course, going head to head with the infuriating Dr. House (played by Hugh Laurie).
Back Stage: How did each of you land your role on the show?
Jennifer Morrison: I went in and met with [executive producer and pilot director] Bryan Singer for a normal audition. I didn't realize until I was in the car, on my way, that Bryan Singer was directing. And I don't think I've ever told anybody this, but I hadn't read the script. I had other test offers already and was so deep into pilot season and there was so much material. I knew it was supposed to be a good script and I had seen my scenes and they were so good on their own, I didn't think I needed to read the script to be able to hit them. On the way over when I found out about Bryan, I freaked out and realized I wasn't prepared. In addition, it had been raining for 14 days and I was totally drenched. The plan was to get there, clean myself up in the bathroom, and pull it together. I walked in, and Bryan was sitting right there in the lobby. It was tragedy. He said, "Come on in. You're the first one." Then he said, "I don't give people direction in auditions, so just go for it." So I said, "Can you direct me before we start so I know what you want?" I kind of just did it and sort of felt horrible about it. I loved Bryan and the producers and the casting people, but I didn't feel like I had really given my best.
So I went home, depressed, thinking I was stupid. No one told me that he had called immediately and said, "I love her--she's Cameron." I had no idea. The next morning, my phone started ringing off the hook because he had asked for footage on me. The producers had told him he needed to take more than one girl to network, so he went and looked at a bunch of tapes and came back and said, "Okay, here's a tape of the girl I saw yesterday who I really like, and here's a tape of another girl who's good. I'm fine with either one of these two girls." What he didn't realize was the other tape was me, blond.
So I went to network, right in front of the Fox executives, and it was the most unusual thing because normally it's a hellish process and this was so pleasant. Everyone was so lovely, and I read for them and they were like, "Welcome to Fox”