Penny Johnson Jerald 24 Season 1 Interview

Well I'm playing Sherry Palmer, who is wife to Dennis Haysbert's character, David Palmer. Senator -- the President-to-be as I like to see it! She's a combination of Jackie O and Hillary Clinton. And what I get to do on the show is support my husband and to be a very strong... I think I'm going to be one of those great role models. Because they're going to see strength, hopefully they'll see sensuality and all those girly things, but most of all they'll see a real, real person. Just the nature of the situation, you can't help but be kind of family like and that's how we're definitely playing it. But I am certain, I'm certain that you're going to be wowed once we started airing, to see that family become what it will become during the series. I love it because I'm a married woman, I've been married for seventeen years. So this is kind of nice to play a married woman to a powerful man and get the affection in it, and get honesty in it, and respect in it, and uh... Dennis and I have played opposite each other before. We've been husband and wife before, it's great. So we do have a wonderful chemistry, something that's very real. And we know little buttons to push to get what we want out of the person as the actor, but I think that David Palmer and Sherry Palmer, our characters, I hope they represent everything that's good and all that's bad in a marriage. I think it's a great challenge but it's scary in that you are a part of really four different shows and that hopefully when they come together there's something very exciting about it. Let me tell you, I was busy shooting something else at the time, so I just flew in to shoot Sherry doing the pilot, and I gave little thought to wardrobe. uh... (laughs) So I get caught in something that I gave little thought to. Thought enough to do the pilot, but little thought in that "Whoa, I could be wearing this all year long!" So, quickly we remedied that, got me into something else and I think I get to actually change clothes again. So now I get to really think about what she should have on. So that's a goody! (laughs) It's like the best soap opera in the world. It's a serial. You come in and you find out "I did what?" (laughs) "We're gonna -- oh! Okay, now how did I play that last week?" So you get a little concerned about "I hope I played that last week so that this can enter and be real. But oh, it's so exciting! Oh it's really exciting to find out what you're going to be, or do, or what's unfolded or discovered. If you miss an episode, you don't fall out of the "fan-group" because you can pick it back up. I also think it's brave of them to choose to make David and Sherry Palmer and their family an African-American family. I think that's very brave because not only are you making and breaking new ground in that, you have an opportunity to have the best role models any group of people could possibly have. And of course that doesn't narrow it down or limit it just to the African-American population but for all people to know: If we can make it to the White House, so can they! And I think that is what's most exciting about it to me.