Jennifer Love Hewitt says boo

Jennifer Love Hewitt plays the spirited Melinda in Ghost Whisperer.

Jennifer Love Hewitt's back-teased hair is almost as scary as her dress, which plunges at the neckline and sprouts at the waist like an umbrella. To top off this ensemble, her eyes are framed by a rock-star layer of false, black eyelashes.

Anyone else in this outfit, presumably part of her wardrobe for her new drama Ghost Whisperer, would look like they were auditioning for the gothic version of Grease.

But the minute Love Hewitt smiles, she looks as sweet and nice as she comes across on screen. She could probably wear a barbed wire scarf to the same effect. "I think you can be as nice as you want to be," she says of an industry that is often perceived as the opposite. "The more you send out good energy to people and kind thoughts, the more the universe gives that back to you ...

"I've always been the person who, if my friends have problems, I take them on and I need to fix them. I'll see a person on the street who has just been in a car accident and even though I should not be there I will pull over and make sure that someone called 911 and that they're okay. I just worry about people all the time and that's very much my personality."

So it makes sense that the 27-year-old actress was cast as Melinda, antique store owner by day, soul mate by night.

Rather than find the sight of a decaying human repulsive, and despite coming across as a complete loon by talking to the air in public, Melinda just can't seem to turn those pesky earthbound spirits away.

She'll even pitch in to help them by door-knocking their families to say, g'day, you don't know me but I'm hanging out with the guy you buried last year.

Naturally, her new husband, Jim (David Conrad) has concerns about her occupational health but Melinda takes a load off by discussing her dead friends with her best friend, Andrea (Aisha Tyler).

The show is based on the alleged experiences of James Van Praagh, a real-life "ghost whisperer" who convinced husband and wife TV producers Ian Sander and Kim Moses of his unearthly abilities. But they weren't about to cast the lead as a portly, flamboyant, middle-aged man in a bow-tie. They wanted a female with "trusting, accessible" eyes. How else would they pull the wool over the viewers' eyes if need be?

"Because it's not a cop show, a lawyer show, a doctor show or a franchise that we're all used to watching on television, [the eyes] are important," says Sander. "From a commercial sense, it is not hard to see why Jennifer is appealing to men. And to women, there is nothing threatening about her."

It wouldn't be the first time Love Hewitt has played up her sweet, girly side. She had a goody-goody sex appeal in her breakthrough role, playing Sarah Reeves on Party of Five. She was the perfect damsel in distress in the horror flick I Know What You Did Last Summer. Then came sexpot roles in Can't Hardly Wait, Heartbreakers, Enrique Iglesias' Hero video and her pop album, Barenaked.

So when she got the chance to play a bitch in the TV movie Confessions of a Sociopathic Social Climber last year, Love Hewitt "had a blast. But I like to play characters that I feel I can bring something to. I don't necessarily pick them because they are good girls. I try to pick good people because I like to play good people."

Even in Ghost Whisperer, playing a woman who deals with a daily dose of darkness hasn't tarnished her reputation as one of Hollywood's most considerate stars. The night before Gwyneth Paltrow won an Oscar, Love Hewitt sent her idol three dozen pink roses and a long, gushy letter.

"In real life she is remarkably likeable," says Sander. "What you see on television is who she is. She is a wonderful, caring, warm, sensitive person. And I think that comes across on screen. So you absolutely believe that she is open to this gift and at the same time you are willing to go there with her."

Love Hewitt is not so sure she believes in the gift, despite the one-legged man who apparently turned up in a frame of film. But now she doesn't find it so terrifying on location at the cemetery.

"Before this series I was afraid of death and it was very hard for me to get used to how comfortable Melinda is about speaking about it. I was a chicken. But the most challenging part for me is when we cross people over into the light."

For the supernaturally challenged, that's when the ghost feels ready to kiss Earth as we know it goodbye and walk towards the glowing spot in the corner of the TV screen, aka heaven.
Aside from Melinda watching wistfully, family members of the deceased are usually there too, sniffling away into their tissues.

They're not the only ones.

"Every single time we had to cross somebody over I started balling," says Love Hewitt. "And the crew was like, 'Come on. What's wrong?' And I'm like, 'Sorry'. Because that's not fun for people to watch, like, every Friday. I have to really try to control my emotions during the show ...

"I do think sometimes it gets sickeningly mushy. But what you are dealing with sometimes just has to be. And our most emotional stuff is the stuff the audience has responded to the most so far."

It's not the only thing they're responding to. There's a sexy element to the show in that the apparitions often appear, rather conveniently, when the ghost whisperer is clad in a lacy, low-cut nightie.

"People want to see eye candy," she reasons. "They don't just want to see me in turtlenecks and sweat pants for an hour and I'm very comfortable with that." 

* Ghost Whisperer, Friday, TV2, 8.30pm