After the tragic and untimely passing of actor Stanley Kamel who played Adrian Monk’s psychiatrist on the hit USA series Monk, the production enlisted veteran actor Hector Elizondo to fill the void as Monk's new doc. Given Elizondo's memorable role as Dr. Watters on Chicago Hope and his many stints as other doctors over the years on TV, Elizondo's presence seems like a natural fit to handle Monk's obsessive compulsive tendencies.

With Monk about to make its seventh season debut on July 18 on USA Network, we checked ourselves into a conference call to get some Season 7 Monk related medical advice from new series doctor Hector Elizondo and star Tony Shalhoub.

THE DEADBOLT: What keeps you motivated to continue playing Monk?

TONY SHALHOUB: Well, you know, it has a lot to do with the people, the writers, the group of directors that we have through the system. The crew is great. The guest casts that we are able to draw in. I never really dreamed when we started that we would be [in] a seventh season and approaching our 100th episode.

I didn’t know if this idea of this character in this situation could sustain itself for that long. But I’m always amazed the writers keep coming up with interesting twists and that’s why I keep showing up. I just feel like I have not exhausted it completely and I feel like there’s still some new territory to explore. There are new dragons to slay in the world of this character. I don’t know that it would be healthy for me to do it for forever and ever. But I could definitely see doing it for another year after this.

THE DEADBOLT: Hector, how is stepping into a role like this different than just jumping into another show for one or two episodes?

HECTOR ELIZONDO: That’s a good question. Well, entering in a situation that’s really a family and a well-oiled machine like this is always a bit of an adjustment, and there’s a little apprehension. And Tony mentioned something that’s quite true. It didn’t take long for us to have a sense that we had worked together. I’m talking about ten seconds, actually. That helped a great deal. But still walking into the family unit and finding the place, a seat the table, is not always easy.

This one, this has been incredibly easy, mainly because of Tony [and] because it runs so very well. They’ve got this down to a science. And when it comes from the top, it kind of comes from Mr. Shalhoub. So you have an environment that’s quite workable. You know, the fish is fresh. There’s a saying that the fish stinks from the head, right? Well, this is fresh. And they feed you. They give you water and food, and everything. They cart you around in electric carts. It’s a lot of fun and you almost hit people. It’s white-knuckle time getting to the set. It’s very energetic, very buzzy and everyone’s been there forever. So it’s very comfortable.

THE DEADBOLT: Have either of you two ever been hypnotized?

ELIZONDO: Yes, I have.

SHALHOUB: I don’t think I have ever been - I think not successfully. I think attempts have been made but I’ve always wanted to really, you know, have a sense about going under.

ELIZONDO: I was hypnotized watching Serena Williams play tennis. I was hypnotized.

Other Conference Call Highlights:

Tony Shalhoub on seeing more of the character’s back stories this season:

"I think we always try to do a little more - you know, go into the back-story of a lot of these characters. So I think we’ll be seeing more of that this year certainly, too. I know we’re doing an episode coming up called 'Mr. Monk Gets Hypnotized' and you get put back - he’s asked to go back to a time in his life when he felt good and was happy. And there was a brief period when he was about nine or ten years old until he sort of gets lost back in the hypnosis into being a young boy. And so I think we’re going to see a lot of glimpses of him as a child again, as we have in the past. But yeah, they’re always exploring different relationships and family histories so I’m sure we’ll continue with that."

Shalhoub on whether the idea of a romantic interest for Monk would ruin the Trudy murder arc:

"Well, we were doing an episode now actually called 'Mr. Monk and the Pretty Face', which isn’t necessarily a model, but just an Eastern European woman that he becomes captivated by. And it’s a real crack in the veneer, really. Frankly because it’s the first time that he’s entertained the idea of any kind of attraction or romantic interest in a woman since Trudy’s death. And it’s troubling to him, but at the same time it’s exhilarating. And so I would not rule it out that somewhere down the line they will take the next step and then the next step."

On whether Hector Elizondo’s character will be getting involved in any of Monk’s cases:

HECTOR ELIZONDO: Who knows? We’ll take it a day at a time. One of the perks of doing something like this, meaning a long-running show... is that you get a chance, unlike the motion picture most of the time, to unpeel the onion. You still get a chance to go into the details of the character. Now that’s the positive side of playing the same character for a while. So who can know?

TONY SHALHOUB: I can tell you though, that I came in. We’ve done an episode recently which will air this summer called 'Mr. Monk is Under Water' - Monk has to investigate a crime on a submarine, which is, of course, parked at the docks and above water. But then because of a drill, it has to go while he’s on board, has to go under water. And so it’s a terrible, terrible ordeal for him and he has such a difficult time that he basically hallucinates Dr. Bell onto the sub with him so he can talk to him and help. And because he has no other recourse and no other way to survive. So in that sense, in a fantasy sense, Hector was there helping me solve this crime as a hallucination.

On what type of OCD tendencies Hector Elizondo would bring to the part of Monk:

ELIZONDO: Oh, lovely. It would be a plethora of tendencies.

SHALHOUB: Well, one would be his compulsion to talk about eating. That would be the first.

ELIZONDO: Yes, yes, I love that. How do you chop parsley, really? T here wouldn’t be much difference. I wouldn’t - for my Monk, the thing would be TO wear comfortable shoes. I’m on my feet a lot. Find the right shoes, make sure that collar stays unbuttoned. I think it would be interesting how - now that’s an important thing. I just thought of that. Would the psychiatrist ever try to convince Tony to unbutton his top collar for just a little bit at a time, for ten seconds a day to see how it feels and then keep expanding that? Things like that. You know, and make that a hurdle that you can’t unbutton my button? Just because - wait a minute, we’re talking story here. There wouldn’t be anything different I would do. First of all, I like brown. I would find the right hairpiece and Tony would have to shave his head.