House is obviously a well liked and well respected show from the outside part of the viewers. Olivia believes the cast and their work ethic is a large part of that. Such as, when Mira Sorvino was there shooting her episode, all of her work was done in a room by herself. Mira and Olivia both mentioned how Hugh Laurie would go and sit just off-stage while she was filming her part to help support her. Olivia had great things to say about the House cast work ethic and about Mira’s time on set.

That’s sort of the rule of thumb for House. You would never make someone do a phone call or any scene like that without being off camera for them. I think everyone takes rehearsal very seriously and really is there for each other to work through the scene as many times as anybody wants before shooting, even though that can be time consuming.

We’re known as having one of the hardest work schedules of any TV show. And we don’t do a lot of location shoots; we’re often inside the hospital. But the reason we take so long is because people are willing to work really hard for each other. And even if you have one line in a scene and you feel totally comfortable with just winging it and going back to your trailer, but someone else really wants to work through it for a few hours and get it rehearsed properly. So that it’s up to par for the shooting of the show, then you do that for them, because they’d do it for you.

Hugh is constantly like that and I was really pleased to see that Mira Sorvino was like that as well. She at one point, missed a flight home to New York, I believe, because she was willing to stay and do off camera for us. And I thought that that was unbelievable.

She’s an Oscar-winning actress and she has a family at home and a young kid wanting to see his mom and she really had enough respect for everybody that she waited. And I just remember being so blown away by that. She was fabulous and that’s the rule of thumb on House.

Olivia is taking advantage of the writers’ strike and is beginning this week filming The Year One with Jack Black and Michael Cera (Arrested Development, Juno & Superbad). She said,

It’s a Monty Pythonesque journey through biblical times. And it’s ridiculously hilarious. I mean I died; I read the script and just fell over on my floor laughing. So I’m really excited to be a part of it. And the character couldn’t be more different from Thirteen, so that will be fun to shake it up a little bit.

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