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The face of epilepsy and the Epilepsy Foundation’s work made an exciting change in December 2007, at the annual convention of the American Epilepsy Society in Philadelphia. Actor Greg Grunberg (star of TV’s Felicity, Aliasand now of NBC’s Heroes) prepared to deliver a dinner speech to a roomful of the world’s top epilepsy doctors. He planned to share his own personal connection to epilepsy and how it affected his family.

Greg’s oldest son Jake had been diagnosed with epilepsy when he was 7 years old and, since then, the actor and his family had experienced a world of learning what epilepsy was and wasn’t, going through numerous treatments, dealing with difficult-to-control seizures, and seeing how people in Jake’s life—schoolmates, friends, teachers—reacted when Jake had a seizure. And many did not react very well. The experiences were at times heartbreaking, at times overwhelming, and, at times, inspiring and motivating.

During the years since Jake’s diagnosis, Greg had unique opportunities as a celebrity to help raise awareness of the condition. He also formed a celebrity band, Band From TV, featuring some of the top stars of the top shows on TV today—each with their own charitable cause that received recognition and donations from the band’s performances. Greg’s cause is epilepsy awareness and research.

That night in 2007, Greg planned to share this story. But as he walked through the convention halls, he heard one thing over and over and over again, from doctors, from people with epilepsy, from everyone: “We all need to talk about epilepsy more… People need to talk about it… to talk about it…” Maybe then, the misunderstandings about epilepsy and how to react to seizures would end.

Greg had been talking, but now he started thinking about a way to get the whole worldtalking about epilepsy. That afternoon, he went on the Internet to do some research.

His dinner speech changed when Greg announced he had purchased the Web address TalkAboutIt.org and planned to get all of his celebrity friends to appear on the brand-new Web site delivering important messages about epilepsy—including proper first aid, the need for better treatments and the need to work faster toward finding a cure. The room exploded in applause. And right then, Greg asked the Epilepsy Foundation to help him.

From that night forward, Greg and the Epilepsy Foundation have been united on a mission: to get the world to talk about it.

Immediately, Greg put the call out to all of his Hollywood friends. He carried a videocamera with him everywhere—from soundstages to award ceremonies to restaurants— and asked his friends to say “Talk about it!” And everyone did—a wide range of celebrities from Gary Oldman to Ozzy Osbourne; from Hugh Laurie to Stan Lee; from Teri Hatcher to Jennifer Garner.

“I enlisted the help of all of the celebrities that I know,” Greg said. “I of course went first to the cast of Heroes, and then to the other shows that I’ve done—Aliasand Felicity. And everyone said yes, and everyone has embraced this. They know the personal situation, where our oldest son Jake has epilepsy and we deal with seizures sometimes on a daily basis. But it’s been a tremendous response.”

And, while no one was publicly defining the “it” as epilepsy yet, videos started popping up all over the Internet—and the buzz began. “TalkAboutIt.org, launching in early 2009.” It was all part of a stealth marketing campaign that made people start to wonder what their favorite celebs were asking them to talk about.

While Greg was recording his celebrity friends all over Hollywood, the site production commenced with the help of the Epilepsy Foundation and Web developers who had worked on sites for television shows familiar to fans of Greg and his oldest friend, JJ Abrams. Eric Scott, president of Day For Night Multimedia in Los Angeles, had worked on many high-end sites, including one for the television show Alias. The Talk About It!site was also being developed with the help of Booeep, a content asset firm that hosts many celebrity Web sites.

Huge support came from NBC, home of Greg’s current television series, Heroes. NBC offered up a full day of production on the Heroessoundstages in Hollywood, with state-of-the-art high definition cameras and crew. More than 40 celebrities from television, film and music came to the studios throughout the day to record messages on a wide range of topics including proper seizure first aid, education, seizure identification, new treatments, the need for more research, information for parents of newly diagnosed children and tips on how teens with epilepsy should talk to their friends.

Another Hollywood-style video production took place in Seattle on the first anniversary of Greg’s Talk About It!announcement. A talk show set was created where Greg interviewed the top epilepsy doctors and other epilepsy specialists.

When the site launched, Greg’s interviews with the doctors would be introduced by the Hollywood celebrities. “Someone like Jennifer Garner or Kristin Bell or John Mayer or Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine from Star Trekor Hayden Panettiere from our show,” Greg said. “They’ll come out and they’ll introduce a topic, and then we freeze on them and go to the experts talking about the cold hard facts and exactly how to deal with and address these issues. It’s a resource that I wish we had when our son was diagnosed, and I’m so proud of it. I just encourage people to go. We’re putting up more and more celebrities all the time, and more issues, and linking to other resources.”

Visitors to TalkAboutIt.org are encouraged by the celebrities to make the Talk About It! Promise, which is, simply, to talk about epilepsy. So far, people have uploaded songs about living with their seizures, images of their families, even original comic strips and art about life with epilepsy.

The Epilepsy Foundation will be expanding the Talk About It! Promisebeyond the Internet. One new program that Epilepsy Foundation affiliates throughout the country will be participating in is called Talk About It! @ Dinner. Talk About It! dinner hosts will be inviting their friends to a meal and, during the socializing, will be able to fulfill the Talk About It! Promiseby learning about epilepsy with their guests. A special video has been created for the hosts to show at their dinner events.

In addition, this November—National Epilepsy Awareness Month—the Foundation will be encouraging the entire nation to be a part of the Talk About It! Promiseduring National Talk About It!Day. People will be able to learn more about how to participate in this unifying day of epilepsy awareness by visiting their local Epilepsy Foundation affiliate or by visiting the Web sites TalkAboutIt.org or EpilepsyFoundation.org.

Events like Talk About It! @ Dinnerare just the tip of the iceberg. The site—and everything that goes with it, including the concept and the Promise—will continue to grow and continue to unify people with epilepsy and their loved ones, friends, families and caregivers with celebrities, medical professionals and everyone else in the country to truly start talking about epilepsy in a huge way. As Greg says, “I just hope it becomes a place where [people everywhere] can just learn more about this. You don’t stick anything in someone’s mouth if they are having a seizure, ever. You turn them on their side and make sure they’re comfortable. Make sure you put something soft under their head so they’re not scraping their head on the ground if they’re having a tonic-clonic seizure. You know, these simple things—call the paramedics, call the EMTs or a doctor if it lasts longer than, I say, two or three minutes, or if you get nervous at all, call. Know that the person’s going to come out of it a little confused, maybe aggressive, maybe sad—these are emotions; it’s a brain we’re dealing with. There are so many simple things that, if somebody can glean a little bit of information, again, it’s so empowering and it makes it not such a scary thing.”