Tony Shalhoub shares some Monk scoop!

8 Written by Rosy on July 30, 2009 – 10:01 pm

I had the distinct pleasure of speaking to Emmy Award winner Tony Shaloub earlier this week about the upcoming final season of the USA hit Monk. After 8 seasons, Shalhoub and those involved with the creation of this multi-generational show have decided to hang up their gloves and close out on top.

You best believe this show which has not only garnered the devotion of its many loyal fans but that of the critics, will go out with a bang!

Tony explained what was the deciding factor for the team to make Season 8 the final one.

To make a long story short, we all kind of agreed that the eighth season would be it for all of us.

I think it will have 124 episodes by the end of the eighth season, and I think we’re all ready to resolve the storyline and move on to other things. We certainly don’t want to go too long and have the quality start to wane and just limp to the finish line. We want to go out while we’re still really, we feel really that we’re doing great work and delivering really strong episodes. We want to go out on a high.

As a fellow fan, I knew many of you had the same question I had about Sharona. There have been many rumors about her return for the final season and at last we have confirmation!

There’s been a lot of publicity about Sharona coming back. Bitty Schram is going to come back for episode – I believe it’s episode number 12, which will start shooting in September. And they want to bring that character back and kind of wrap it up and kind of give that a good send off. A lot of people really missed that character and the dynamic between Monk and Sharona. And so we’re all looking forward to that.

The second biggest question about the wrap up of the show is whether or not Monk would get closure with the murder of his beloved Trudy. Would the show end with the solving of the case? And if it is solved, would his OCD begin to fade?

I really think it should be solved. I know there are people who say that maybe it shouldn’t because that would mean that there would be life for this character beyond the series and that possibly the solving of Trudy’s murder would cure him in some way or take down his OCD symptoms, and then the character wouldn’t really be the character that we’ve come to recognize. But I really feel that we’ve worked this storyline so delicately and for so long that I think we owe it to not just the audience and to ourselves, but to the character of Monk and to the character of Trudy that we’ve created. I think we should solve it.

It will give him some kind of peace and some kind of – and in that peace, his OCD symptoms will begin to, you know, significantly drop away. And when that happens, I think he’ll be able to move forward in his life. You know, he won’t feel so paralyzed. He won’t feel so – he won’t have such an aversion to being with other people. He might even, who knows – I don’t know because the writers haven’t revealed this to me, but he might even be able to find love and romance in his life again. All those things, I think, remain, you know, all those things are on the table and are good possibilities.

After some time, would Tony consider bringing back Monk via another network?

You know, I’ve given that a lot of thought. I feel like I’m ready to put this character to rest, but by the same token, I never say never, and circumstances could change, and I could change my mind. Certainly I’ve been known to change my mind. I just think time will tell. I would never ever rule something like that out.

Regarding a potential tv movie,

I don’t really see that being so likely just because I think I’m going to be – I’m hoping that I’m going to be busy with other things. Maybe I’m diluting myself.

With all this free time, what does Tony plan to do after Monk? A nice long vacation maybe?

Well, I don’t want to take too long a vacation, although I do think I need a break. I start to – whenever I take too long a break or don’t work a while, all my demons start to resurface, and I go a little nuts. And I did work on an independent feature this past winter, which I hope will be coming out soon called Feed the Fish, a movie that I acted in, but also co-produced, and a really nice … so we’re looking for distribution to sell this picture, so people should look for that.

But beyond that, I want to really, really take some time for myself to decide which direction to go next. I might do some theater for a year before I do any more television. I think I need a break from hour long episodic for a while.

Having been a producer on Monk, does he have plans for some more behind-the-scenes work?

Yes, actually, because I’ve been a producer on Monk from the very start, and that’s been such a great education for me, I have a couple things in mind that I want to produce that aren’t necessarily vehicles for me. But I think it’s time for me to branch out into producing. And then I would also like to do some directing. I’ve done a little of that in the past, but it’s something I’d like to do more of. But, of course, I would never consider giving up acting. I still want to keep that alive. But because of the experience that I’ve gained and the contacts that I’ve made now, I think producing is definitely in my future.

For any of you out there who have not watched this brilliant show, Tony tells you why you should tune in this season.

. I think people will be really gratified and startled maybe to see that the quality remains really, really high, that the stories are interesting, that we do a bit of what we’ve tried to do every season, which is kind of break our own rules and do some unexpected things. We always have interesting guest stars. We try to bring in people to do things that they may not be necessarily known for. We try to do our guest casting so that it isn’t completely on the nose. For example, we have Jay Moore coming in an upcoming episode that we shot recently. He plays a sort of super lawyer, a super kind of … Johnny Cochran super lawyer who never lost a case. And it’s really an interesting turn by Jay Moore. I think we keep it kind of just off center enough to make it interesting. I hope we do.

To end, Tony shares what he hopes the audience will take after watching the show.

I think, if I had to choose one thing, I would say that I would want people to take away this idea that sometimes people’s problems or neuroses are really the things that are kind of a blessing in disguise, and even though there’s, you know, sometimes there’s pain associated with these things that sometimes in the face of adversity with obstacles to overcome, people can really kind of soar and find their higher selves and I think that’s what we’ve tried to do on the show is we’ve portrayed this character as someone who turns his liability, his liabilities into assets per his life. And that there’s – and I hope that when we get to the end – I don’t know this for sure, but I hope when we get to the end of season eight that we’ll have seen some real healing from Monk, and I believe in that. I believe that there is healing and that there is change, and that all of those things are – they are just really, really key to all of our lives.

Tune in to watch the eighth and final season of Monk on USA Network on Friday, August 7th.