When Jennifer Love Hewitt read the pilot script for CBS’ Ghost Whisperer, about a newlywed who helps dead people pass into the afterlife, she knew the lead role had to be hers. “From the time I read the script, there was no way I couldn’t do the show,” Hewitt says. “I thought, whoever gets to be a part of this series is going to be so lucky. I would have been absolutely heartbroken if I had turned on the TV six months from now and it wasn’t me.” Fortunately for Hewitt, the producers of Ghost Whisperer, including John Gray and medium James Van Praagh, felt the same way about her. “There was always a divine plan for the show,” Van Praagh says. “Jennifer’s a Pisces, so she’s very intuitive, very sensitive. And she’s a compassionate person.”

“Since I was a little girl, I have wanted to help people,” she says. “I’m empathetic to every hurt dog and every crying child. It’s just who I am and have been for a long time. The show allows me to have a really comfortable outlet for that big, huge part of me every week. I know who Melinda is because I know that hunger, I know that need to make the world you live in right.”

In many other ways, though, Hewitt and her character are nothing alike. “Melinda is a lot braver and stronger than I am,” she says. Her empathy for people is inspiring.” But Hewitt also wishes Melinda would stand up for herself a little more, even though she admires her ability to allow people to be fully themselves, taking the bad with the good. As a medium, Melinda routinely has to confront the living with messages from dead relatives, friends and lovers. They often don’t believe her and treat her badly. “She has an amazing capacity to not judge. I would have a problem if people were constantly hanging up on me and slamming doors in my face. She takes all that from people because she has empathy for where they are in the moment. But that’s easy to do in the world she lives in because she’s a television character. In life, that’s harder to do. “I’m waiting for Melinda’s breakdown, for her real, raw human moment where she says ‘just because I have this gift doesn’t mean I have to be the one who is stepped on in the process.’”

The Lifelong Actress
Hewitt has been working on her craft for most of her life. Born Feb. 21, 1979, in Waco, Texas, Hewitt’s parents divorced when she was young and her mother, Patricia, raised her and brother Todd. Hewitt started singing at the age of 3, and the family moved to Los Angeles when Hewitt was 10 so that she could pursue a singing and acting career. She appeared in more than 20 TV commercials before getting her first big break on the Disney Channel’s Kids Incorporated from 1989 to 1991.

After shooting several unsuccessful TV pilots, Hewitt finally got her big break playing the sweet, sensitive and seductive girlfriend of Bailey Salinger (Scott Wolf) on Fox’s breakout hit Party of Five. The show, which lasted four seasons, also made stars of several of its leads, including Wolf and Lost’s Matthew Fox, but Hewitt, playing a smaller role, managed to catch fans’ attention with her romantic portrayal of Sarah Reeves.

As a result of her popularity on Party of Five, Fox created a spin-off for Hewitt called Time of Our Life, on which she starred and executive produced, but the show only lasted a few months before it was canceled.

In the meantime, Hewitt’s talents weren’t confined to the small screen. She made two blockbuster fright flicks, I Know What You Did Last Summer in 1997 with Ryan Phillippe, Freddie Prinze Jr., and Sarah Michelle Gellar, and its sequel, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, in 1998. The films’ success made her a household name and led to Heartbreakers, with Sigourney Weaver, and The Tuxedo with Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan. She also co-starred in the Bill Murray-voiced Garfield and Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, based on the wildly popular comic strip.

A Triumphant Return Hewitt jumped at the chance to return to regular series television when she read the Ghost Whisperer script. The show was inspired by the work of a real-life ghost whisperer, Mary Ann Winkowski, who lives in Cleveland, but consults on the show and is booked far in advance to help spirits cross over. Playing Melinda, though, hasn’t fully convinced Hewitt that live people can talk to dead ones, but almost. “I do believe there are spirits, energies, souls that aren’t done, that stick around and have things that they want to say. I believe that there are people put on earth to help them say those things.

“I’ve been around James [Van Praagh], and I’ve watched what he does. I’ve seen him take a person into a room who was completely against all of it, who was determined not to walk out of that room a believer and within a half-hour the person is completely sobbing, talking to his grandfather and believing 100 percent that his grandfather’s arms are wrapped around him.”

Even though the show is about people who have died, Hewitt says it’s much more about life.

“I initially thought that the show was going to be dealing with death and dying, but it’s really not,” she says. “The crew is full of wonderfully light and energetic people. All we do is laugh and have fun and try to inspire people to be excited about life.”

What’s Love Got to do with it?
At the core of the show is Melinda’s romantic relationship with her new husband, Jim Clancy (Relativity’s David Conrad). In real life, Hewitt, who was once linked to former MTV VJ Carson Daly and singer John Mayer, has been dating actor Ross McCall since January 2006.

This season, Jim, a paramedic by trade, has become a sort of ghostbuster himself. “The couple that ghostbusts together, stays together,” Hewitt jokes. “One of the fans’ favorite part of the show was Melinda and Jim’s marriage, so we wondered how we could get them together more. That meant incorporating him more into her world, because that’s what the show is about. It’s been a really fun way to go with the marriage.”

Another key component of the show focused on Melinda’s relationship with her best friend, Andrea (Aisha Tyler). The character died at the end of the first season, giving Melinda firsthand experience in coping with the death of a loved one. “That experience did tremendous things for Melinda,” Hewitt says. “It awakened her to the fact that no one is safe from the grieving process. Having to do a crossing over for her best friend, it’s made her even more empathetic.”

The Practice’s, Camryn Manheim joined the program at the beginning of this season as single mother Delia Banks, though the bereaved Melinda isn’t sure if she’s ready to allow a new friend into her life.

The Next Chapter
Hewitt, who spends 14 to 16 hours per day shooting Ghost Whisperer, finds little free time, but she does play guitar and write songs in her trailer whenever she gets a chance (Hewitt has released three albums in the U.S., including the acoustic-pop BareNaked in 2002). She’s also working on putting together a new project to produce during the show’s hiatus, and she’s involved in raising awareness for St. Jude Children’s Hospital.

While she has lots of talent and ambition, Hewitt is perfectly happy spending her days as the Ghost Whisperer. “The show has taught me that death doesn’t have to be a dark cloud,” she says. “I was always a person who never wanted to talk about it. I like to live my life in the sunshine, but this show takes a really uncomfortable thing and difficult subject matter and adds hope and light to it.” The show allows her to do something a bit bigger with her work. “One thing that people everywhere in the world really wish they could do is go back to one moment and do it differently. Melinda Gordon gives people the chance to do that every week.”