Speaking of Daniel Hardman, I know that there’s a character called Monica that we will meet in a few episodes, who has a major past with them. Could you tell us a bit more about her and this rewind episode?
Absolutely. Well basically the rewind episode, the purpose of it is, we thought it would be interesting to shed some light on these characters’ pasts. So it’s a flashback episode but [it] also has implications for today.
We didn’t just want to go into the past. We wanted to move the story at least a little bit forward in the present day. So you’re going to find out a little bit more about Harvey’s past. You’re going to find out about everybody’s past because it flashes back to five years ago. It tells the story of Mike and Jenny, when they first met, and Trevor. And Monica is somewhat of a key component. There’s also Zoe, another woman. A couple of women from Harvey’s past are prevalent in the episode.
Zoe is played by Gabriel Macht’s wife, correct?
Exactly. Jacinda Barrett. But Monica is… I don’t want to give too much away, but Monica has a past at the firm. She left the firm under kind of cloudy circumstances and she plays both a role in the past and in the present. And she interacts mainly with Louis in the episode in the past and Mike in the episode in the present.
But she’s got a history with everyone at the firm and she left under cloudy circumstances. And her departure affects Rachel, Louis, Daniel, Harvey, Jessica, everyone. And then Mike has to kind of seek her out for some help in the present day.
Was it always planned to have Mike’s secret revealed in the premier or did you struggle to make the right decision with that?
Well there’s no doubt that I struggled [with it]. It was during the shooting of the finale last year where, up until the last minute I was like, “Are we really going to do this? Are we really going to have Trevor come in and tell Jessica?” And I wasn’t sure, but we thought we’d film it. We could always cut it if we didn’t want to put it in.
And I just wanted to assure myself that we’d be able to resolve it in a satisfactory way because it’s one of my, kind of pet peeves when I watch a cliffhanger and then you come back and they kind of ignore it or change it or something.
So I think I struggled with the decision but I was confident that we made the right decision. If I wasn’t going to reveal Mike’s secret to Jessica I would have taken out Trevor coming into the firm because then I would have felt that you got ripped off.
How much of a challenge is it to balance what’s going to happen with Mike amid what could happen to Harvey and Jessica with Hardman in the picture?
It’s a big challenge. I have to say, the writers that are in the room just do an amazing job of coming up with ideas and things to handle. They always come up with more ideas than it’s possible to fit into a season.
So we just try to balance, like you say, moving forward in a satisfactory way without going so far and so fast that you don’t still have a place to go. So it’s a big challenge, and the lion’s share of the ideas come from [the writers]. And then I’ll respond to those ideas and try to shape them as best I can while at the same time working on the episodes that are about to be shot.
With Louis feeling like he’ll never make senior partner how important was it to show some sort of professional aftermath from Jessica coming down on him?
From Jessica coming down on him in which episode?
When he started to consider leaving the firm.
Oh, from that? Oh, okay. Well I mean that was a setup. Look, Hardman coming back, in our minds, was like Hardman in the past had had kind of a hazy moral compass. And if any of our characters had been set up to have a hazier moral compass than the rest of them it’s Louis.
So we thought it’s a natural fit for them to at least flirt with, bonding together and Louis going over to that side. So yeah, you definitely have to pay off some form of Louis’s dissatisfaction with Jessica which really goes back. I mean it goes back to the pilot when she promotes Harvey over him. And then we made sure to lay it in again in the finale when he demands to be senior partner. And then here, Hardman comes back and he again wants assurance from Jessica that he’s valued by her.
So it’s definitely a theme throughout the season – what side is Louis going to ultimately come down on?
How did you create the Mike character? He’s very brilliant and he does his job well, but at the same time he has empathy for people, especially victims and people who are in a powerless position.
Well, I will just be candid. I mean, Mike is based on me. I don’t know if I have [his] empathy – obviously he’s an exaggerated version [of me]. When I was younger… I just did well academically. I had an excellent memory. I did not have a photographic memory. I couldn’t read and (recite) it to you. But I was able to do very well academically with little to no effort and it was both a blessing and a curse.
Like, in some ways I could do really well but it put this pressure on me to do really well without trying. Or I kind of put that pressure on myself to impress people and show them how smart I was.
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