Showrunner/Series Director Ted Humphrey talks to The Inside Reel about environment, characterization and humo in regards to the 3rd season of his series: "The Lincoln Lawyer" on Netflix.
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00:00I'm going to find who did this, I'm going to find him and I'm going to bury him.
00:24The essence of the character is almost, which it's funny, I talked to Michael about the
00:30Wonderland documentary he did a couple of months ago, and it's always about geography.
00:36It's interesting because him being a crime reporter for the Times, but also you being
00:41trained in law, I think that's the perfect marriage of understanding how environment
00:47and geography play so much into how people react.
00:51And this is true of season one, season two, and obviously season three.
00:56Could you talk about the essence of environment as a character reflection?
01:03Obviously it's called The Lincoln Lawyer, so the Lincoln's part of that.
01:05But the entire geography of Los Angeles, the fact that I love using the Roosevelt, using
01:10these back alleys of the valley, all these things paint into what, even Coles, the use
01:17of Coles in that specific scene to show the meditation and the moment of silence in Mickey's
01:23brain is so key.
01:25Can you talk about that sort of conglomeration of environment and how it affects character
01:30specifically in the series overall?
01:33Sure, environment has always been incredibly important to me in my work.
01:43Really going back to the earliest things I've ever written.
01:47What was that?
01:48What was one of the earliest things you wrote?
01:49Well, I'm talking about things that you would never have seen.
01:52It's like those scripts that you write when you're first starting out that never get made,
01:56but that help you along your way to whatever you're becoming basically, right?
02:05And it's clearly very important to Michael.
02:07I think it's interesting, Michael is like me, a transplanted Angelina, like most Angelinas
02:11I think.
02:12Michael does not come from here originally.
02:14He moved here many years ago because he worked for the Times.
02:17He was born in Philadelphia, I think, and then grew up in Florida.
02:23And this city has an interesting hold on people, and it's such an interesting geographic place.
02:30I mean, literally just the physical landscape of the city, the hills and the valleys, and
02:36this idea that like, to some extent, like the lords of the universe live up in the hills
02:40and look down on the rest of the city.
02:43And to me, it was a very romantic place.
02:47I've always felt that LA is so much more romantic at night than during the day.
02:50During the day, it can be kind of washed out, and at night, it really comes alive with all
02:54the glittering lights and seeing the lights up in the hills and everything.
03:00Proud of yourself, counselor?
03:01I was happy to get out of here in time to pick up my kid.
03:06Excuse me.
03:07Your client's a killer, and you know it.
03:10You should have thought about that before breaking the rules.
03:13That's on you, detective, not me.
03:15And you follow the rules?
03:18All you lawyers do is bend them to get what you want.
03:21Yeah, well, I'll mix two of us.
03:23Now, please get the f*** out of my way.
03:26These tricks you play, Hauler, somebody's going to end up dead because of you.
03:32Maybe you should think about that.
03:38So, we definitely try and make use of that.
03:42The books, LA is such a character in the books, and the books draw on this rich history of
03:46LA noir from Philip Marlowe and Chinatown and, you know, whatever examples of that you
03:55want to point to.
03:56I love, personally, that we have cast Elliot Gould as Legal Seagull because it harkens
04:02back to The Long Goodbye and, you know, that, again, a great example of that LA, you know,
04:09sort of sun-baked LA noir tradition, right?
04:11And these books very much live in that tradition.
04:14And having a character who works out of his car is a huge part of that as well because
04:20it gives you this vehicle, literally, to traverse the city and see all these different nicks
04:24and crannies of it.
04:25And we do that with food.
04:28You know, the character, he writes a lot about food in the books, and we've expanded that
04:32in the show.
04:33We actually have a line that we're playing with that, you know, working out of your car
04:39gives you the opportunity to eat all over the city.
04:43And so we take very seriously the responsibility to show the city, and it's not just a responsibility,
04:47it's really a privilege and it's fun, to show the city, you know, this incredibly diverse
04:54city, majority Latino population, but also tons of other ethnicities and groups of people
05:00represented here, and to show all these different neighborhoods and all these different types
05:04of people and their different cultures and their different foods and their, you know,
05:08and here's this guy who kind of fits in everywhere, a criminal defense attorney, in a weird way,
05:13it's a passport to going to any neighborhood because of who you are, you know, you could
05:17be representing Trevor Elliott, who's like sort of an Elon Musk, like incredibly wealthy
05:23tech titan sort of guy in season one, or you could be representing the chef in season two,
05:29or Julian Lacoste in season three, or the many sort of like, you know, bottom of the
05:33rung people that Mickey represents along the way, and you fit in just as well with any
05:38of them, and in any of those environments.
05:40Wait, wait, hold it.
05:48Wait, what the?
05:53Son of a...
05:59It's just four fights in four inch heels.
06:02It's fine.
06:03Everything's fine.
06:05And my last question, thank you so much, Ted.
06:07I mean, you know, you were talking about like, obviously, the food defines it, the environment
06:12finds it, but it's interesting, because having lived in LA myself for a long time, it also
06:16has to do with the aspect of how you interact differently with each character, obviously,
06:21the way that Mickey interacts with Elliot, you know, as Siegel is one thing, but then
06:26with Cisco, with Lorna, with Maggie, with Izzy, all these people, they, it's, it's,
06:32it's interesting, because you have to create this tonal balance.
06:35But also, it has to do with the humor, the humor with Gould is so different than say,
06:40how it plays with Cisco, or even how Cisco plays with Lorna, or Lorna with, with Mickey,
06:47could you talk about finding sort of those character notes in the writing, but then overall,
06:51when you when you're not writing or directing, to supervise the other writers, and make sure
06:56it goes can get goes across the board, where it plays like that.
07:02So it's really an organic process that I mean, first of all, humor is the, I would say it's
07:08the secret weapon of our show, and it's not, it's not really secret.
07:11I mean, we don't hide the fact that there's humor in the show.
07:14But it is it is such a huge part of what makes the show engaging, I think, because a show
07:18like this could become very plunderous otherwise.
07:21Well, stakes, it balances the stakes, it balances the stakes, and it balances, you know, what
07:26are otherwise obviously very dramatic, you know, I jokingly say, Mickey is the most dangerous
07:34attorney in the world, right?
07:36There's somebody who's always trying to harm him in some way.
07:40And so you have to balance that.
07:41But the process of extending it across the different characters is very organic.
07:45And it's this great thing that happens in TV on on any show, where you cast someone,
07:51and then you start to write to that person's strengths and write to that person's voice.
07:55And so Elliot Gould has a very specific voice, and, and it's perfect for that character.
08:01And so you just sort of write to that and Mickey, you know, as kind of the lead in the
08:05show, I was saying that a criminal defense attorney has a passport to go anywhere, Mickey's
08:08kind of a chameleon, he can he can interact in different ways with these different people,
08:13because it's his job, and it's also sort of who he is.
08:17So that's, that's a process that I've had a lot of fun with in my career, not just on
08:22this show, but on other shows, which is that that that feedback loop that comes when you
08:27cast somebody, and then you start to instead of just writing words, you start to hear their
08:31voice in your head, and you write to them.
08:34You're dealing with people that play a very dangerous game.
08:38We're not backing down without a fight.
08:43This is a war, Hollywood, and you have to choose which side you're on.
08:47The job is to find out information one way or another.
08:53If you go for it, you better not miss.