Perry Mason: Cast Members and EPs Talk Complex Characters and Perry’s Origin Story | ATX Television Festival

Coming later this month to HBO is Perry Mason, a new drama series based on characters created by author Erle Stanley Gardner that will follow the origins of American fiction’s most legendary criminal defense lawyer, Perry Mason and his involvement in the case of a decade.

During the ATX Television Festival’s virtual event this weekend “ATX… From the Couch!” the creators and cast members participated in a virtual panel to discuss the upcoming series. The pre-recorded panel streamed on Friday, June 5th.

Moderated by Jim Halterman, the conversation included co-creators and executive producers Rolin Jones and Ron Fitzgerald, executive producer Susan Downey, executive producer and director Tim Van Patten, and cast members Matthew Rhys, Tatiana Maslany, John Lithgow, Juliet Rylance, Chris Chalk, and Shea Whigham.

The project wasn’t always going to be a limited series at HBO. Susan Downey revealed that Team Downey had initially been approached to do the project as a present-day feature adaptation. “We played around with it as a feature, but quickly realized that, in a great way, there was so much material. Like we couldn’t contain it in two hours. So we decided to pivot,” she said.

Once the decision was made to do a prequel, Fitzgerald said they started researching Gardner’s original novels.

“The guy was writing what, 5,000 words a day? Something crazy like that. 80 Perry Mason novels, tons of other novels. And we started looking at all of his stuff. He wrote for the cheap detective magazines; he had tons of contributions to those, and that’s where we pulled. We pulled the name Pete Strickland from that, we pulled the name E.B. Jonathan from that. We tried to make as many names as you encounter in this world something that if you wanted to do a deep dive you’d come up with somebody.”

Matthew Rhys, who stars as Perry Mason on the series, said when he was told Team Downey and HBO were going to do Perry Mason, he knew right away that it was “not going to be the Perry Mason a number of people know and love.” 

“I was immediately intrigued as to who they were going to present,” Rhys said, adding that the producers “pitched this very dark Mason that came with a lot of baggage” and who was “very much an outsider.”

“What’s great is so much of the backstory is presented is given to you. You’re very much introduced to an enormous amount of backstory of his time as a WWI veteran, his family problems, his inherited land problems, the kind of encroaching modernity of the new Los Angeles emerging. He has a lot on his shoulders, hence the choice not to smile,” Rhys explained.

The decision to have Rhys play the role, incidentally, was an easy one.

“Literally everybody came up with the name at the same time,” Downey recalled. “We were all fans of his work from different places.”

In addition to Rhys, the series also stars Tatiana Maslany as Sister Alice McKeegan, the leader of the Radiant Assembly of God, preaching to a hungry congregation and a radio audience across the country.

“I just remember laughing out loud reading the first two or three scripts in response to Alice just because she was so unpredictable and surprising and I didn’t know where she stood. I had so many questions about her, and that always feels like a good indication that there’s something really there to dig into. I’d just never read anybody like her,” Maslany shared. 

Another key character in the limited series is E.B. Jonathan, played by John Lithgow. E.B. and Perry have what Lithgow described as a “Father-son, sort of mentor disciple relationship, and it’s also a kind of exploitive relationship. I absolutely rely on Perry Mason’s skills because they make up for an awful lot of my ineptitude. What I loved about the character was that you learn so much about him scene by scene and episode by episode, like peeling an onion. It’s great credit to both Ron [Fitgerald] and Rolin [Jones] that they’ve done that for literally every character.”

Lithgow also confirmed that E.B. was a character that would come with some surprises, which was especially fun to play.

“I thought he was a funny character. In fact, I think the whole tone of this series has a lot of wit and crackle and snap to it in the manner of His Girl Friday, the mode of 1930s high energy both comedy and drama, and yet it’s got this wonderful modern sensibility to it. All those things are what drew me to the whole project but to the character of E.B. in particular. He has mysteries.”

One familiar name that should stand out is Della Street, played in the new series by Juliet Rylance.

“I really loved the original series and I used to watch it as a kid, and then in my teens again with my dad. We had a real thing about the show, so when I first got the scripts, I was thinking, ‘How on earth are they going to do this?’ There’s something about that show I feel that is kind of in the fabric, the DNA of American storytelling, so it felt like a tall order. And when I read it, I felt all of the essence of all of those characters, but it felt completely new and all of the things that felt true to the thrust of that original show,” Rylance said. 

As for the character of Della, Rylance called her an “enigma.” 

“In the same way that Della Street in the original is a bit of an enigma, we don’t really know much about her life. We never really see her at home. We don’t know if she’s got a husband, a child — nothing. She was really enigmatic to me. And I loved how gradually in this story you uncover this quite profound and extraordinary woman is capable of much more than she seems at the beginning.”

She also spoke a bit about what Della and Perry’s relationship will be like. “At the beginning, Della doesn’t really have much time for Perry. At least on the surface. I think underneath she’s sort of intrigued and much more curious about him as a person. He’s a mess. To Della, he’s a bit of a mess, and yet he has this incredible potential as she sees it. I think it’s really frustrating to her. He seems to constantly get himself in one mess after another.”

Chris Chalk then discussed his role as Paul Drake, a beat cop with a knack for detective work, and his relationship to the original series.

“I grew up watching reruns of Perry Mason and a lot of old black and white stuff, and I liked it but I didn’t love it. And I didn’t love it because I wasn’t in it, and I wasn’t represented in any way shape or form. Nor was my mother, my friend, my cousin, anyone at all,” he said.

“So when I got this script, and when you get to see how they investigate Paul, when you get to go home with Paul, and I don’t know if you know, but you don’t get to go home to a lot of Black people’s houses in TV. You don’t go to their home. They don’t exist. They’re props. And this show has done such a lovely job of showing you how important race is in LA in the 1930s. Not just Black people. Everyone. They’re so inclusive inside of the story, which makes it such a relatable story but also makes it an honest story.”

“It doesn’t just stop at Perry’s story,” Chalk continued. “It moves on and says, but this is what this Black male is dealing with in the 30s too, which makes this show powerful. It makes this show more than entertaining, it makes the show important because now my mom can watch this show and give a shit.”

Shea Whigham also shared a few details about his character, Pete Strickland, and the relationship the character has with Perry. Pete is hired by Mason as an extra set of eyes on his various investigations.

“When we pick it up initially, we’re trying to just track down some money and take some photographs, and earn some money. I think that Perry likes having Pete around for that,” he said. 

This version of Perry Mason will also feature female characters with a bit more depth and highlight what things were like for women at that time. 

“I fully took inspiration from the time,” Maslany said of her character. “These are themes that continue today. It doesn’t feel like such a leap to go.”

“The thing that struck me right at the beginning is she is such a capable woman,” Rylance said of Della. “She’s proficient, she’s courageous, she’s got a really good legal mind, and yet she’s banging her head against a door, E.B.’s door, repeatedly, trying to be heard, listened to.”

Rylance added that there were moments where it felt “some things haven’t changed that much.”

The panel ended with a fun surprise: an appearance from Robert Downey Jr., who had been listening in the entire time. He took the opportunity to share when the show would premiere, which is June 21st at 9/8c on HBO, before stating, “I actually understand the show now!”

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Perry Mason premieres Sunday, June 21st at 9/8c on HBO.

Check out all of our coverage of the ATX Television Festival’s virtual event right here. There is still more to come!

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