PENNY JOHNSON JERALD NEWS, INTERVIEWS & UPDATES



News for 12/07/2003


Get wound up, '24' fans: Devious Sherry will return

By Robert Bianco
USA TODAY


Watch your backs, boys. Lady Macbeth is on the clock again at 24.


"I'm having too much fun. This is scrumptious," says Johnson Jerald.

When we last saw Sherry, she was running for her life from a sniper, having double-crossed the folks who helped her sneak a nuclear weapon into Los Angeles. And what is she up to this time? A little bit of everything, Johnson Jerald says — most of it trouble.

Because secrecy is the core of 24, Johnson Jerald can't say exactly where Sherry fits in to this season's virus-on-the-loose plot. All she can promise is that "the moment Sherry comes on the scene, all hell breaks loose in all areas."

Johnson Jerald's commitment to 24 is for "a handful of episodes plus a few others." But she's open for more. "Sherry's like that Jason character that never dies," she says.



Penny Johnson Jerald Interview w/The BBC



News for 6/30/2003


The following news item appeared in the May 26, 2003 issue of People Magazine.





The following news item appeared in the May 26, 2003 issue of US Magazine.





News for 6/19/2003


'24' First Lady May Not Be Back


LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - When viewers last saw Sherry Palmer on "24," she was being led away in handcuffs for her role in the war-mongering conspiracy that fueled the show's second season.

As things stand now, there's a chance it could be the last time they see her.

Penny Johnson Jerald, who plays the ex-wife of President David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert) on the FOX thriller, was promoted from guest star to series regular this season, but her contract for next year hasn't been renewed. That puts Jerald, who's been receiving an Emmy push for her role, in a sort of professional limbo.

FOX isn't commenting on the status of any "24" cast members other than star Kiefer Sutherland, who will be back for the show's third season. The network says it wants to maintain "storyline secrecy."

Jerald is open to returning to "24" if she's not committed to another project, a source tells Zap2it.

A network spokesman says the fact that Jerald's contract wasn't picked up doesn't necessarily mean the actress won't be part of the show next season. He points out that Sarah Clarke, who plays turncoat agent Nina Myers, was in a similar situation prior to this season and still appeared in several episodes as a guest star.

On the other hand, Leslie Hope's contract status at the end of Season 1 was an indication that she wasn't returning.



News for 5/15/2003


24's Bad Penny


By Coeli Carr

NEW YORK — The Lady Macbeth of 24 is back.


As 24 brings its season to a fiery close, the larger-than-life, snake-in-the-grass Sherry Palmer, played by Penny Johnson Jerald, has suddenly in the thick of things.

As if accumulating a track record of conspiracy against her husband, the President, weren't enough, Jerald's character now finds herself head-to-head with Jack Bauer (played by Kiefer Sutherland) who pulled a gun on her in last week's episode, uttering "Don't try me, Mrs. Palmer."

It was a confrontation that had die-hard Penny fans smacking their lips.

"Kiefer and I did look at each other right before [shooting the scene] and we just said, 'This is going to be fun,'" Jerald told The New York Post. "Sherry's . . . not used to anyone standing up to her."

Last year's Sherry was power hungry, but this year she has really lost control, says Jerald.

"It's very important she finds herself in good graces -- no matter what it is she needs to do to make that happen -- and prove she's not delusional or amoral," she said.

Sherry groupies have followed the character's relentless fall from grace, from her days as the wife of Sen. Palmer ruthlessly orchestrating his presidential campaign (and ultimately ticking him off so badly, he divorces her).

That seemed to be the end of her until she popped up again this season trying to bring down her ex-husband's presidency. Oh, and did we mention she's just been stabbed by a double-crossed conspirator?

Jerald suggests that in a more ethical world, the politically aspiring Sherry Palmer would have been more like Condoleezza Rice.

"Condoleezza Rice is what Sherry Palmer has desired her entire life," says Jerald who, in a glorious twist of fate, will portray Rice in Showtime's production of DC 9/11, scheduled to air in September.

Jerald says in playing Rice, whom she believes could well be the first woman president, she has "found a hero."

"I put the gap in my mouth and the freckles on my face and shortened the hair," said Jerald, who also did extensive research to discover "why this African American is a Republican. I don't want to make a mockery or try to imitate Condoleezza, so I went for the visual change."

Jerald also professes a fondness for Hillary Clinton who has also infiltrated the Sherry Palmer mythology.

Sherry has been affectionately called "Brillary Palmer, the black Hillary Clinton" by many fans, says Jerald.

So how does the Sherry saga end?

Jerald won't reveal whether she's on board for 24 next season, but hints that over the next two weeks "Sherry does have an 'Aha!' moment," as she puts it.

"But whether she does something about that is yet to be seen," says Jerald.



News for 12/4/2002


Sherry is back, and Jerald has her in fine form


By Bill Keveney, USA TODAY

LOS ANGELES — If terrorists, a nuclear bomb and staff deception weren't enough to upset David Palmer's day, tonight the 24 president encounters another great challenge: his shrewd, scheming and now ex-wife, Sherry.

Penny Johnson Jerald, who plays the formidable Sherry, is happy to see the return of one of the past television season's most interesting characters, a supportive spouse whose chilling evolution earned her the nickname Lady Macbeth.

When she got the role last year, "I was definitely not thinking of that. I thought of her as a very powerful, mentor type of a woman, with strength, confidence and sensuality. Of course, she became this conniving person" who drew comparisons to Shakespeare's calculating lady, Jerald recalls during an interview at Behind the World Productions. She runs the in-home studio with her husband, musician and professor Gralin Jerald.

If 24 was hard on Sherry Palmer, it has been kind to Jerald, a veteran of The Larry Sanders Show and ER who moves up to series regular, which means a higher profile and more money. Executive producer Robert Cochran credits the Juilliard-trained actor with helping to shape her character, which, like much of 24, was a work in progress last year.

"We knew we wanted her as Palmer's wife, but we didn't have any idea of the story lines we would develop. But watching the way she played things and seeing how great she was at certain types of scenes, we thought, 'Hey, we've got to write to that,' " Cochran says.

Jerald, 41, says Sherry has redeeming qualities, including toughness, intelligence and even a conscience. But last season, another side became apparent as she not only lied and stole to cover up her son's involvement in a killing to protect him, but also, in a calculating manner, to shield the candidacy of her husband (Dennis Haysbert). Later, to gain control, she tried to manipulate her husband into an affair and also put White House ambition ahead of the safety of CIA operative Jack Bauer's daughter.

Although the Palmers have split on-screen, their relationship is compelling because of the "great chemistry" Jerald says she feels acting with Haysbert. The pair worked together in Absolute Power and in a 1994 German miniseries where they played a couple "who were very much in love."

Although Palmer won't be happy to see his ex-wife tonight (9 ET/PT), fans have been asking Jerald when the love-to-hate Sherry is coming back.

"What I did hear, the newest thing, is Billary MacPalmer — Black Hillary/Lady Macbeth," she says, referring to comparisons with Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Jerald, who grew up in Baltimore as one of seven siblings, says she shares some traits with her character. She feels protective of her husband and 19-year-old daughter, Danyel, likes to get her way and can be "a drill sergeant" when producing plays for the couple's theater company, Outreach Christian Theater Company. (In between 15-hour shooting days on 24, she is directing the company's play, The Tinker, which will benefit the Jeralds' church. On this Friday, she also is helping Gralin, who sits nearby in the music studio, with his album of black spirituals, 400 Years.)
But Jerald doesn't want people to think she's Sherry Palmer, either. She remembers being a bit taken aback when a fellow churchgoer said, "I'm trying to figure out how could this nice lady I know, Mrs. Jerald, be this nasty woman on television?"

As she speaks, Jerald, clad in a light blue Nike sweat suit, looks too relaxed to be her 24 alter ego. She occasionally puts her stockinged feet up on a desk and says guests are asked to take their shoes off so they can feel free to do so, too.

"On screen, I don't appear to be somebody who even wants you in my house," she laughs.

As to what awaits Sherry after she arrives at her ex-husband's compound in the Pacific Northwest, Jerald isn't saying what she knows, while adding that much hasn't been scripted yet.

"Just like Sherry evolved into someone we didn't know she was going to become, I think the writers are so good that they're not going to let you down," she says.