Aisha Tyler’s gone from her breakout gig as the host of
E!’s “Talk Soup” to a different kind of chatting--make
that whispering, now that she’s starring in CBS’s
supernatural fall hit Ghost Whisperer as spirit
talker Jennifer Love Hewitt’s best friend and business
partner. And in an exclusive sit-down with Hollywood.com,
the actress tells about the good times both on the set
and especially off, where--with apologies to Bonnie
Raitt--she and Love gave a karaoke crowd something to
talk about.
How excited are you about what’s been going on
with “Ghost Whisperer”?—It’s only October and you’ve
already got the full-season pick-up!
Tyler: “[laughs] It’s great – it’s
really exciting. I think everybody at the show was
really excited that the show won that first weekend, and
then the second weekend and we’re confident now that the
show is winning its timeslot every week. And now we can
just relax and focus on the show. It’s really fun for
everyone there.”
What’s been the best part of the show’s breakout
success this year?
Tyler: “What’s great about the show is that
people are responding to it so well so early, the show
just gets better every week and it’s only going to get
better. At first you’re just trying to get established,
and now we have the confidence to do some more
challenging storylines, scarier storylines. And also
some more paranormal stories that I think people are
going to love. It’s a blast. Just have so much fun on
that show--it’s so fun to go to work every day. We keep
waiting for something awful to happen. ‘It’s going too
well,’ so we keep waiting for something to catch on
fire.”
You’ve always been something of a secret weapon
other shows pull out--Friends Nip/Tuck,
and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and 24.
What’s it like to have your own show now? To have a
regular gig to show up for every day?
Tyler: “[Laughs] It’s nice. I’ve always
been the crazy guest star that comes in. It’s nice to be
on your own show and it’s nice to play the same
character, because you really get to spend some time
developing the character and figuring out who she is.
But I think in the end it’s nice because it feels more
like a family to me--and I’ve been really lucky to be on
shows where the casts were amazing, really easy to work
with, really fun, really sweet, but now it really does
feel like family. We’re so close on the show,
and Jennifer and David (Conrad) are just amazing. And of
course now we’re able to relax. During the first couple
of weeks we were like ‘Oh no, are we going to stay on
the air?’ And now we can breathe a sigh of relief and
now we’re all planning to put racing stripes on all our
golf carts, and we’re all going to get bicycles with
little tassels on the handles.”
Have you and Jennifer Love Hewitt done much
girly bonding off the set?
Tyler: “We spend waaaay too much time
together. We get together all the time. The very first
night that the show aired and the next morning we knew
that we had a huge hit, we went out that night and a
bunch of from the show had a huge steak dinner and sang
karaok--and got DVDs of it. We watched them the next day
and we were CRYING.”
What’s your song?
Tyler: “The song we did together was
‘Let’s Give ‘Em Something to Talk About,’ and then I did
a Marvin Gaye song—very over the top. I had to remove
the DVD immediately because I was afraid it was going to
get duplicated and sold over the Internet. But our
tradition now is to go out and do really goofy, bad,
girly karaoke once a month and then watch it Monday
morning and laugh at ourselves.”
What else has been going on in your life lately?
Tyler: “I’ve been working like crazy,
so I haven’t had much time to do anything besides the
karaoke badness. God, what have I been doing? It’s awful
to think like that. I’ve been working on a screenplay. I
can’t talk about that too much, but we’re hoping it’s
going to go right after we wrap the show in the spring,
so that’s been taking up all my free time. Honestly, it
sounds so lazy, but if I’m not working on the show or
writing, I’m sleeping!”
