Real Medium Inspired Arquette
Patricia Arquette, who portrays real-life psychic Allison Dubois in the NBC supernatural series Medium, told journalists at the network's winter press preview that she appreciates having Dubois as a consultant on the show, but that her performance is not a direct impersonation. "I chose to actually not play her like herself," Arquette said in a news conference. "We had that whole discussion beforehand, and she was very cool with it. She was like, 'No, I know what my real life is and the life of this character, how different they are.' Also, she's much more comfortable with who she is today than I wanted my character to be."
Medium is based on Dubois' life and career as a self-described psychic consultant on unsolved criminal cases. Arquette said that although the cases depicted on the show are based on true stories, the details have been changed out of compassion for the victims. "[There] are certain things that we change about our show," she said. "I wouldn't want to do a show that was specifically about this child and really what the parents had to go through and how that child was killed and what that murderer looked like, because I wouldn't want to make gross entertainment out of someone's trauma and pain." Medium airs Mondays at 10 p.m. ET/PT. NBC is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.