Monica Potter talks about cancer awareness, her character in Parenthood and why family strength is needed in bad times
Can you talk about how you handled the news when you learned of the new directionIJ
I was on-board, I actually emailed Jason over the summer, I went for my first mammogram in April. And I thought, I just had mentioned it to my husband, “This would be a great storyline.”
And knowing that it touched Jason personally, I just reached out and said, “What if we tried to do a storyline on KristinaIJ” And he emailed me right away and said, “I got the chills,” because they had been working on that storyline already, which was kind of cool. So I thought, “You know, I’d didn’t real know what it would entail.” But I was scared. I’ve got a lot of friends that have gone through it. And, you know, knowing how they write and as long as like Jason said, “We could keep some (unintelligible) in the storyline, that would great.” And so I was on-board as soon as he said that they were doing it.
What kind of research did you do when it was time to start showing the storyIJ
What I did for the Asperger storyline was that I talked to my sons. But as far as doing research and going online, I did nothing. I wanted to experience it as a person, doing it for the first time because there are so many different aspects of it and there are many stories that I can pull from.
But having a fresh perspective on it and feeling those real feelings of being scared and hearing the news, and you know, we were on set looking at the different websites while Peter was walking in the room for the first time. Doing that and not interviewing 10,000 women, it actually came at a time, I had gone to get my mammogram, and this was in April and they said that there was a blip or something on the screen, so I had to go back.And those real feeling came out in the performance as well because I have to go again to check and see if it’s gone.
How was working with Max BurkholderIJ
I love him like he’s my own. He reminds me so much of my son, liam. He’s so weird in the best way. Kelly and I, his mom, were really close. We’ve gotten to be really close in the past four years. And he’s just so smart. I was drinking alkaline water the other day and we were doing a scene in the mini-van, and he’s like, “You shouldn’t drink a lot of that because of health issues.” He’s intuitive and loving.
Cancer is like an epidemic. Is that something that’s going to be addressed in the showIJ
Yes! They’ve asked me to do a lot of things, shows and what not about breast cancer and to talk about breast cancer. I’m so supportive of breast cancer awareness and especially this month. But I don’t have it, I’m an actor playing a character that has it, so for me to go on a talk show and talk about my experience with breast cancer would sort of cheapen it in a way. If you follow what I’m saying, although I’m really supportive of it.
I have a lot of friends and family that have gone through it. I think it’s about bringing awareness to women to get checked and screened at an early age. And those points that I will be talking about, you know, here and there because of my own experience with that.
When is Kristina going to tell the familyIJ How will that goIJ
I love the way Jason wrote this episode, where it was staged and how it’s so — it’s done in a place that you wouldn’t normally say, “Do something,” or tell people news like that. It was just so sudden(bam). It was perfect, it was just great and so real.
We have already seen the frustrations are getting to Adam. Can you talk a little bit about how this is going to affect Adam and Kristina’s relationshipIJ
I love the moments between the two of them. I had to do a makeup test this week and was just thinking about the character’s future, ahead of what is to come between the two of them. When certain things happen and the cancer progresses or gets better or doesn’t — you know, the moments between the couple are so loving.
What can you reveal about the difficulties and choices Kristina is going to have to make in her medical treatmentIJ
I’m excited to see what happens. I don’t know too much, which is actually good in a way. It keeps us on our toes and like Jason said, “It comes at you out of the blue.” As an actress, it’s great because you do it week by week and you learn different types of treatments and different types of feelings and situations that the family goes through.