Catherine Lidstone Previews Her Role on FOX Drama ‘Proven Innocent’ [Exclusive Interview]

The new FOX drama Proven Innocent offers a unique take on the legal drama, with the focus on overturning wrongful convictions. 

On the series, Catherine Lidstone portrays Isabel Sanchez, a recent law school graduate who is smart, fresh-faced, driven, and eager. While hoping to make a career in criminal law, Isabel works for Gore Bellows (Kelsey Grammer).

I recently had the chance to chat with Lidstone about her role on the new series and what makes the show unique.

Lidstone was excited to be a part of Proven Innocent for a few reasons. For starters, she was glad to be “involved with a show that is intellectually challenging.”

The actress described the premise of the series, which follows Madeline Scott, an attorney who takes on the kinds of cases most lawyers avoid “because the defendants are harder to defend.” Those defendants also struggle with the fact that they’re more often presumed guilty. “The media comes into play and can [influence] your view of a person before they’ve even had a chance to defend themselves.”

“It’s a really cool opportunity for viewers to see the inside psychology of a lot of the cases that we take on and people who have labels attached to them,” Lidstone explained. 

That idea is what makes this show about more than entertainment. The ideas behind it are worth thinking about.

“We operate in a justice-oriented world, right? So when we hear about cases, all of our facts are reliant on what the media presents to us and how they present it. And so it’s important to know your sources, know the biases that may be coming from those sources, and to be aware of how to really interpret what you’re listening to,” Lidstone said.

Lidstone continued by talking about the different kinds of stories this show is able to tell — another thing that makes is pretty unique.

“Proven Innocent provides a beautiful opportunity to tell stories that we do [not] frequently hear about. There are characters who come from all walks of life in this show. Some of them are in the [legal] teams that we have, these factions that are kind of fighting against each other, and some of them are the defendants that we take on in our cases and try to exonerate. I think the beauty of Proven Innocent is that no stone is left unturned,” she said. “A lot of different [groups] of people are all represented in our show. And I think it’s really beautiful to be able to see so many narratives.”

We haven’t yet met Lidstone’s character, but we will on the second episode (which airs tonight). Lidstone shared a little of what we can expect from Isabel.

“We have two major factions,” she noted. “Madeline Scott is one side of the story and Gore Bellows is the other. [Bellows] works in the State Attorney’s office and he’s got high hopes for a political career as well. He takes Isabel Sanchez under his wing. So you get to see her relationship with him. And you know, it’s a lovely episode where you get to go into her backstory and understand how she’s connected with these people.”

“Isabel’s been a really fun character because she is such a driven young woman. She’s got great goals and high aims for her life and her career. And she’s learning so much from this office and she’s giving her all to her boss,” Lidstone continued. She also said it’s been “an inspiring role play.” 

Learning what it takes to be a lawyer, especially when it comes to understanding the language, was one of Lidstone’s biggest challenges in preparing for this role.

“Every time [we] would get the scripts, they would come out, and I would be like, ‘Wow, I don’t know what half of this means.’ So I would just be all over Google looking up what are all of these legalese terms that I’m not familiar with. So that was kind of fun to navigate that language,” she said. “I’ve learned a lot. So that’s exciting.”

Lidstone gushed a bit about all aspects of the show, from the people she’s gotten to work with to the cinematography.

“I was very impressed with the cinematography on this show,” she said, noting how much she enjoyed seeing the “artful shots and symbolic shots with the camera.”

“I loved watching this crew work. I think they were just some of the most talented people and professional people I’ve ever worked with,” Lidstone continued.

“Working with Kelsey Grammer was extremely intimidating at first, and then very, very fun as we went along. He was just such a warm, welcoming, funny guy, and it was just great to be able to play off of him. And what a stellar actor. Every time he would deliver a line, it would always be different. So you always got to feed off of someone who was really just living the truth of the moment, and not a cardboard stereotype of whatever the character may be interpreted as to someone who’s less seasoned. So it was quite a pleasure to work with him.”

“I think the other thing that I was really in awe of was, here was this very accomplished, wonderfully well-known actor on the set and he was just one of the least demanding — I mean, in my experience with him, I just saw such humility,” Lidstone continued. “I just really loved and respected him for that.”

Before becoming an actress, Lidstone had actually thought about becoming a lawyer, and even volunteered at a law office.

“This is like a beautiful fantasy I get to live out in real life and play this highly educated, intellectual, driven young professional lawyer. So that’s really exciting.”

In addition to Proven Innocent, Lidstone has a few other projects coming up soon, including Dwight in Shining Armor. “[It] is a really cool medieval fantasy series meets modern times project that BYU TV is working on,” Lidstone explained. “I get to play a mythical creature, so that’s another exciting show that’s coming up.”

Lidstone is also a singer/songwriter, so you can be on the lookout for more of her music coming out, as well as her first music video for her single, “Benefactor,” which she recently wrapped. “It was also one of the most intimidating experiences of my life,” Lidstone said. Benefactor will premiere the week of 2/25 on AXS.com and Youtube.

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Be sure to catch Catherine Lidstone on Proven Innocent, airing Fridays at 9/8c on FOX.

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