Ghost Whisperer provides happy medium

By Marcus Casey

August 22, 2007 10:20am

It's one of several shows, such as Medium, which present psychics and ghosts as a run-of-the-mill part of life.

It seems they succeed for a reason - because people believe them.

The show is inspired by celebrity US medium James Van Praagh (who is also the co-executive producer of the series) and Hewitt says they regularly get strange letters.

"I get invited to funerals a lot. People want James and I to go to funerals to just sit there and help them out, and that's a very odd thing," she says.

"I'm not really sure what I would do there for them. Sometimes it actually makes me really sad. I wish I had a gift beyond just being able to go on television and convince people for an hour every week.

"I wish that I could be just like James and actually go there and offer support and words and loving thoughts from the deceased and all of those things.

"And I just can't.. So there's part of it that's funny and part of it that kind of breaks my heart. Those people can be so lost and in such a grieving process that I wish I had the gift."

The show has been a moderate success in the US and has been popular here as well.

It can be a little repetitive, but is also emotionally touching, as most of us would like to believe that Hewitt's character's powers are possible, and indeed some do believe in psychics.

Hewitt says playing Melinda is a privilege. "I love everything about my character," she says.

"She's my hero. You can't have a better role model than Melinda Gordon, because she's just so non-judgmental.

"She's loving, she's incredibly empathetic and she never, ever, ever turns people away unless they're bad, scary guys.

"Other than that, she's there for everybody. She believes that she can do a thousand things in one day and still have time to get home for dinn er with (husband) Jim, and be OK with that.

"I just think she's like a fairy, this little ball of fantastic light, just gorgeous. And I just love her. It's a real honour to get to play her every day.

"I hope that I can be half the person she is when I finish this show."

The obvious question is, does Hewitt believe in ghosts and all that stuff? Turns out that working on the show has, if anything, dulled an interest she dabbled in before joining the series.

"I had always gone to psychics because I think that's really fun, and I've always read my horoscope and things like that," she reveals.

"I think it's fun to do and to wonder if on, say, November 12th, some big thing is going to happen. And it normally never happens, but it's fun to live for a month thinking that it might.

"But, no, I'm not more into it now than I was before.

"In fact, now at the end of the day, I don't want to do that stuff because I get so much of it at work. I'm like, 'If somebody talks about a ghost right now, I'm out of here'," she laughs.

Co-star David Conrad, who plays her husband, Jim, is not so taken with the whole scene and says he too has received strange letters - such as one from a Kentucky gravedigger.

"This guy wrote, 'This is what it's like when people come to the funeral. When a kid dies, it's much sadder. This is how you dig a grave'," Conrad says.

"And then he wrote, 'You know, I really want to thank you guys. In a small way, maybe you bring a little peace to these people who I see all the time'.

"And I was just like, 'Us?'. You know, it's just a TV show."

* Ghost Whisperer, Thursday, Seven, 7.30pm

Copyright 2007 News Limited.