Marilu Henner Talks Her New "Unforgettable" Role

[JamesG]

Marilu Henner on Her "Unforgettable" New Gig
Sep 16, 2011
by Joyce Eng


Marilu Henner has a rare condition, highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM), that gives her the ability to remember everything. Only six people are known to have it in the world.



She has a new gig: as a consultant on CBS' new show "Unforgettable".

Starring Poppy Montgomery as Carrie Wells, a New York City cop with HSAM (which was formerly called hyperthymesia), the drama is based on J. Robert Lennon's short story The Rememberer.

The pilot script had been shelved for a few years until Henner's "60 Minutes" report came along.



"They took it off the shelf and said, 'This is going to be a great show now that people know what this is and it's being explored,'" Henner says.

"[CBS Entertainment President] Nina Tassler, who has known me for a long time, asked me to be part of it. I said, 'Oh yeah, I'd love to be a consultant.' The show shoots in New York and I live in Los Angeles. I get to go in and talk to the writers and give them some ideas, read all the scripts."









But most importantly, she gets to put her memory to use and fact-check.

"They sent me a preview, so I go online and it says, 'Hyperthymesia! Six people in the world have this! These people remember everything!' Then you see someone say, 'Hey, Carrie, show them that thing you do. March 27, 1998.' And so I'm thinking, 'That was a Friday, I flew back from New York to Los Angeles,'" Henner says.

"And she goes, 'It was a Tuesday.' And I go, 'No! No! It was a Friday!' I start texting Ed[Redlich, the show's creator]! ... They ended up changing it because they had to.

I said, 'You have to establish right from the beginning that she's good at this. Not the first thing out of the box and she's losing it.' ... So I'm always catching things like that in the script. Or there was a reference to a piece of music. They said it came out in 1983 and I said, 'No, it came out in 1985.'"









Taking a more poetic license with the show: The only thing she doesn't remember is the night of her sister's murder.

"Certainly I never had anything traumatic like that that was blocked out, but this is television, so we have to make it interesting," Henner, 59, says.

"I have no idea if the others with HSAM have blocked something out. We didn't get into group therapy. But it's a major story point."






One thing she was adamant about was how to portray Carrie's flashbacks. People with HSAM see everything through their own eyes again. In other words, they're not watching themselves, à la Scrooge in A Christmas Carol.

"But you can't have an actress with a camera on her forehead ... so they do it in a very interesting way," Henner says. "You know she's in her body in present time reliving it, being inside of herself. They show her, for example, kneeling over the body and she remembers, and you get the idea that she's back at the crime scene."






Henner will guest-star on the show, most likely during November sweeps.

"Unforgettable" premieres Tuesday at 10/9c on CBS.

http://www.tvguide.com/News/Marilu-H...e-1037390.aspx

[catlover79]

Great to see Marilu back on TV - and I wish her all the best!!!

[Marvo301]

I loved Marilu in Taxi. Loved her on Evening Shade. I'm glad she has this gig now where she can put her special talent to use. And I'm really happy she's going to appear on the show!

[jehobden]

Originally Posted by JamesG

But most importantly, she gets to put her memory to use and fact-check.

"They sent me a preview, so I go online and it says, 'Hyperthymesia! Six people in the world have this! These people remember everything!' Then you see someone say, 'Hey, Carrie, show them that thing you do. March 27, 1998.' And so I'm thinking, 'That was a Friday, I flew back from New York to Los Angeles,'" Henner says.

"And she goes, 'It was a Tuesday.' And I go, 'No! No! It was a Friday!' I start texting Ed[Redlich, the show's creator]! ... They ended up changing it because they had to."

I'm glad that she spoke up about the date and got it fixed. While I don't have HSAM, I would have recognized that the date fell on a Friday instead of a Tuesday and would have yelled at the tv set about that error. Especially with the Internet now, there's no reason for any tv writer to mess up on a date/day error. One thing I always appreciated about all the Back to the Future movies was how the writers matched up every date mentioned in all the films, from 1885 to 2015, with its proper day of the week.