Who's News

LL: The most amazing thing on your résumé is that you are a real-life doctor? Why aren't you on ER?
JP: I actually did audition there a few years ago.

LL: I know they hire real nurses.
JP: Well, they don't hire real doctors. So there you have it.

LL: So how did it happen that you switched to acting?
JP: It was more of a gradual transition. Halfway through studying medicine, I got a little disillusioned from the creative point of view. I started looking for other avenues. One that came up was acting.
I never did anything about it until I graduated. Then I started working full time and taking acting classes at night.

LL: But you spent all that time in school and ...
JP: 10 years of my life.

LL: I still don't get why.
JP: It wasn't even a rational thing. I knew in my heart it was what I wanted to do. To be honest, I didn't think about it a lot at the time, I just did it. I quit being a doctor and moved to N.Y. and started studying acting full time.

LL: That must have been scary.
JP: I had a lot of sleepless nights.

LL: Well, I guess you could always figure being a doctor would be Plan B?
JP: I didn't allow myself to have a Plan B. If you have a Plan B, you don't try as hard as Plan A. I said to myself I had to achieve something before I went back. There were times it was tough psychologically. But I dreamed about acting for so long, I thought I should do it, I didn't want to reach the age of 40 and say, "Why didn't I do it? Why didn't I try?"

LL: Did your colleagues think you were crazy?
JP: Doctors my own age said, "What do you think you're doing?" Whereas all the older ones were, like, patting me on the back and saying, "Go for it. I wish I'd done it."

LL: Your brother was acting. Did that have anything to do with it?
JP: He was definitely an influence. What inspired me more than anything else was that he was happy. Creatively, he was happy. I found that fascinating.

LL: But show business is not always such a creative business.
JP: Now, I have found that out.

LL: And medicine wasn't creative?
JP: I was convinced that you couldn't be creative in medicine. Now that I've taken a huge step away from it, I see it is. It can be harder.

LL: The two seem so opposite -- science, the arts. Which were you better at?
JP: I definitely had an aptitude for both things. I had an aptitude and love for science, but also for art. And fine arts was something that, when I left high school, I was going to pursue. In fact, I had enrolled in a fine-arts college. They give you a week to change your mind and I don't know why, I was 17 at the time, but I did. I had no great desire to go into medicine. I just wanted to go to university. And I had more friends going into medicine than anything else.

LL: That's one way to make a major life decision!
JP: I've made major life decisions without thinking about them too much. I spend more time deliberating over a pair of shoes than making life decisions. Maybe it's because they come from the heart. I don't know.There is no right, there is no wrong. There's a lot of gray. The only way you're going to find out about things is if you throw caution to the wind.

LL: So you're not the kind of guy who has a five- or 10-year plan?
JP: If you asked me five years ago if I would be doing this, there's no way in the world I would have dreamed it. In medicine, I grew up with people who had those five- and 10-year plans and I hated that. How do you know what life is going to throw you?