In the Spirit World With Jake Weber and Kelly Preston
by Troy Rogers
 In the final four episodes of Medium, the show has been filled with both the supernatural and marital conflict as Kelly Preston guest stars as a venture capitalist who decides to independently fund Joe Dubois (Jake Weber) and become a business partner while Allison (Patricia Arquette) helps a family ease their concerns that their new house is haunted in the season finale "Drowned World," airing Monday, May 12 at 10pm on NBC. With Medium about to wind down for the season, The Deadbolt caught up with Kelly Preston and show regular Jake Weber on a recent conference call with a select few outlets to talk about his solar powered business endeavor, their belief in the supernatural, whether there's an open door for Kelly's character to return, and more supernatural goodness as the season comes to a close.
THE DEADBOLT: Jake, I was wondering what exactly is the function of your solar power-based invention?
JAKE WEBER: I have no idea.
THE DEADBOLT: You don’t know what it is?
WEBER: It’s something that Glenn [Gordon Caron] came up with at four in the morning. It’s some sort of a solar generating system that can take solar power and magnify it or make it more efficient, make it more - I guess, kilowatts or watt or kills...
KELLY PRESTON: You know, those.
WEBER: You know, those units of power that we all enjoy and live with. Somehow it makes it more efficient, I’m not sure. I don’t think there ’s an exact science in this. I think this is more of a sort of TV invention than anything that actually has utility.
THE DEADBOLT: For both of you, what are your personal views on the phenomenon in Medium or the paranormal in general?
WEBER: Well, I have more of a Philistine view on this than Kelly. What I don’t know would fill a book. That’s all I really can say because I really know very little about this and I have - I know that people have had sort of paranormal and psychic experiences. I have not. But I’m open to offers.
PRESTON: And for me, I just know that, you know, spiritually I’m not my body, that I am a spiritual being and I’ve lived before, and will live again. So any sort of thing in that realm, I know that there are a lot of people who are able to perceive other things. And I think it’s very cool.
THE DEADBOLT: Kelly, your character’s story arc spans four episodes. Did they leave a door open for you to return?
PRESTON: They did leave the door open a crack, I guess. I mean, she does do something that’s pretty - seemingly final. But, there are always so many possibilities in Medium, even if in the future that it was discovered that [I died] - because I don’t die, just so you know. But in Medium, that’s never a closed door.
THE DEADBOLT: Good point. On a show like this, if you did die, you could come back.
PRESTON: Exactly. It gives you another whole arc.
Conference Call Highlights:
 Preston on whether she likes short stints on TV:
"For sure. I had always heard that an hour drama was definitely the hardest gig in show business. And these guys really are amazing. And everybody - the cast, the crew - everybody works so hard on them. I mean, they’re producing these little mini movies every week and the writing is so strong. It’s a lot, but I hand it to them. They’re all doing an incredible job."
Jake Weber on what he liked about his character this season:
"Well, I always like it when he works a lot of conflict into the storylines between me and Allison, because I think that even people who are just crazy about each other and have been together forever, and know each other and have worked out a lot of the kinks in their relationship, there’s still always going to be conflict. And I think that that’s always what I enjoy the most - he built in that sort of inherent conflict in that we’re all out of money. Nobody had a job and we were kind of at each other because we both were struggling to provide for our family. And my guy’s whole identity as a breadwinner was getting challenged. And he’s more practical than she is, so he was more comfortable with her sort of pedaling her wares as a psychic than she, perhaps, was. So I think he set up an environment where there was a lot of potential conflict and that made it fun as an actor to play.
Kelly Preston on the challenges of playing a TV character with a four episode story arc:
"I would say just not being as used to the format. Everybody was so welcoming and it’s really - Jake was just wonderful and who I thought was a really incredible actor before I joined the team, as well as Patricia. I think [she] is just brilliant on the show. So I stepped into a really wonderful atmosphere and a crew that really works beautifully and seamlessly together. For me, it was just because of it being a little of a different format where you’re getting the pages - you’re getting them sort of last minute or because Glenn rewrites the scenes. And they’re always getting better and better. You don’t have as much time to learn them as I’m used to. And these guys are a lot more used to getting things with not that much time prior. So I would say that was one of the biggest challenges for me. But it ’s almost like a muscle where you’re exercising it and it’s getting stronger, and you’re getting more able to do that. But ultimately, I had a really, really great time on the show - even better than I expected to."
Jake Weber on playing the real Joe DuBois:
"You know, both Allison and Joe are sort of springboards for Glenn Caron’ s imagination. So they’re not directly modeled off them, although their lives are sort of a framework in which he built all those stories. So, we’re not actually playing real people. We’re just - we’re playing people, not those lives - if that makes sense."
Kelly Preston on playing an evil character:
"Yeah, I’m wicked. I love it. It’s fun. Glenn really created - when he first called me to tell me about it and ask if I wanted to do it, I said, "Okay. So what’s the fun? What’s the interesting? What’s going to be fun to play? And when he told me, I said, "Okay. I’m in definitely." The way his mind works, it really made for a fun character to play.
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