"Canterbury's Law" Star Julianna Margulies Talks

The star is Julianna Margulies, late of "ER" and (briefly) "The Sopranos." Joining her as an executive producer is Denis Leary ("Rescue Me"). And the pilot was directed by Mike Figgis ("Leaving Las Vegas"). So it's right to expect a lot when "Canterbury's Law" bows Monday night on Fox.

Margulies stars as Elizabeth Canterbury, a Rhode Island defense lawyer known for pulling out all the stops. She's got demons, she's overly fond of drink, but she gets the job done, if in unorthodox fashion. She's like a female version of "House." She's got an ethnically assorted support team like him, too.

The demons? Well, she and her law professor husband (Aidan Quinn) are still tormented by the unsolved disappearance of her young son. In Monday's pilot, she finds herself defending an accused child killer in toe-to-toe confrontations with the victim's hot-headed father. But what havoc will the case wreak on her life outside the courtroom?

Earlier this week, Margulies got on the phone with reporters and bloggers to talk about the show. An edited transcript follows...

Question: I’m calling from Rhode Island.  You portray a Rhode Island lawyer.  You don’t speak with a Rhode Island accent, but you do act unethically.  I’m wondering if that’s the Rhode Island connection.
J. Margulies:  (Laughing.)  No, I don’t think so. That’s very funny.  No, I do not speak with a Rhode Island accent, which was a very conscious decision.  I think it would have taken away a little bit; people would have been like, huh?  But I don’t think Rhode Island lawyers are unethical.  Now we’re going to get into all sorts of trouble, aren’t we? I just think that this woman ended up there; she’s not necessarily from there.

Question: Why was it set in Rhode Island?
J. Margulies:  Honestly, you would actually have to ask the writers that.  But I honestly think it was – Boston has been done, New York has been done – they’ve all been done.  Let’s try Rhode Island. And you can double New York as Rhode Island anytime.

Question: I’m wondering if you thought it was in keeping with your character, to have her walk into the men’s bathroom (to demand answers from another lawyer).
J. Margulies: Oh.  It was written in the pilot and I liked it, so we kept it in.
Question: Why did you like it?
J. Margulies: Because it’s what’s important to her.  To me, it’s nothing’s going to stop her from getting to the point.  And if you’re in the men’s bathroom, I don’t care.  I personally, as Julianna, would have waited and waited, and then the moment goes by and then the person comes out and then you forget your whole point, you know?  This is a woman who gets what she wants.  She’s diligent; she’s unbelievably pushy and bossy.  She doesn’t care if anyone is in there; she wants to go and get what she’s after.  So I kind of loved the idea that – it’s just a bathroom, it’s just a guy peeing, who cares.  This is what’s important; there’s a man’s life at stake.  I love that about that character.

Question: Watching the first two episodes, my immediate reaction is that this show feels more like a cable show than like a network show.  It feels like it’s a TNT show or like an FX show.  Could you talk about why FOX is the right place for the show?
J. Margulies:  I’m glad you have that feeling.  What FOX said to me when I asked them why they would do this show and if they would keep true to its pilot, which I felt was a cable show, they said they wanted to bring cable to network, and they wanted network watchers to know that they could get the same quality in terms of a mature show for mature audiences that isn’t just sort of the formulaic network drama, that they could bring a little FX to FOX.

Question: You did just say it’s a cable show on FOX.  So what do you think the difference is these days?
J. Margulies:  I think the difference is that it’s a little bit more realistic.  Things aren’t tied up in little packages.

Question: Can you talk about how you balance being a producer on a show like this and being in virtually every scene?

J. Margulies: That was hard.  It was hard, and I’m learning.  It’s the first time I’ve produced, so I’m learning.  The luck of the draw had it that I got to work with Apostle Films, and basically Jim Serpico [executive producer] and Tom Selletti [supervising producer], who run Denis Leary’s [executive producer] company, were so fantastic; they really helped me along the way as the executive producers, so I had a great team.  But as an actor producing, the challenge was not to get too caught up in everything – every aspect, from making sure hair and makeup was treated well, to the actors, to the wardrobe, to guest stars coming on.  I would worry that they were getting home properly and that there was transportation from these strange places we were in Brooklyn, so – I think next time I’ll have to figure out a way to not take everything so literally and think that I have to make sure everyone’s okay. 
Question: At what point during the production did you figure that out?
J. Margulies:  Probably I would say around the third episode, when I was realizing that I was going to drop from exhaustion – just because, also being in all the scenes, you’re coming home and – my day might start at 4:30 to get up and get going and blah, blah, blah, and you’d shoot for 12 hours, whatever, and – but then you come home and you have to learn nine pages of dialog or a three-page closing summation.  So on top of caring about the show, I have to – and also the producers and the writers said this – we have to figure out next time when hopefully we get picked up that there has to be a B storyline, because it’s virtually impossible without running someone ragged to the point of over-exhaustion.  It’s just silly, and the work will suffer if we don’t figure out a way to do enough B storylines that my character gets a little bit of a break and I get a little bit of a break, and I can both produce and star and learn my lines and have a life.

Question: Sometimes an actor will study a role of a character she’ll play, and I’m wondering if there was any basis for you being this Rhode Island lawyer.
J. Margulies: I did follow a federal defense attorney, but here in New York, actually.  I didn’t follow any attorneys in Rhode Island.  Rhode Island is just sort of the backdrop of where this takes place and where someone could feasibly have a law firm, as opposed to New York City and Boston, and we didn’t want to make it New Jersey. But I had the privilege of following a few lawyers around for three weeks before I did the pilot, and I sort of based her on a few different people that I met along the way.
Honestly, also, aside from being able to slip into courtrooms with this one federal prosecutor that I followed, you can go to the – I went to state courts and just sat in on jury selections and trials in that state, and learned a whole new dialog for who these people are.  So all the resources are at your fingers; you just have to find them.

Question: How did this exposure inform you, that you didn’t know prior to this exposure, on portraying a lawyer?
J. Margulies: I’m not a lawyer, so I never knew what it was like to prepare for a trial or to show up in court or to – by the way, there were a couple of cases I went in on where this federal defense attorney lost, and to see what you put into something, and then I would say, “Oh, my God, I’m so sorry; that guy seemed like such a nice guy.”  And she’d turn and look at me and go, “I’m so glad I didn’t win that case. That guy was an” – oh, I can’t say.  But, you know, that guy was scum of the earth and should be behind bars. 
And I would go, well, wait a minute, how do you then deal with it?  “That’s my job.”  There’s no emotional – she couldn’t get emotionally attached to some of them.  Some of them were just her job.  Others of them went home with her at night. 
One of the things – I followed a couple around, but their relationships were very, very difficult to maintain.  They’re always at work.  Always.  And they’re always preparing, and they’re always coming home late.  And there were a couple of women I had met who were divorced, whose husbands had been lawyers, and it was just very interesting; I was seeing a pattern with these women who, you try to do it all.  We try to have a husband and a family and a – you know, you try to do it all.  It’s not always feasible.  Especially if you do get too emotionally attached, which is the case with my character in this show, things are going to fall. 

Question: We were just talking about the difference in preparing for a show based on doctors as opposed to lawyers.  I was just wondering, as an actor, is it harder to throw in legal jargon or the medical – you know, “stat” – terms?
J. Margulies: Oh, medical, by far.
Question: Medical, why?
J. Margulies :  Because I don’t – I can’t quite understand – I would look up in the medical dictionary what I was saying.  I didn’t know what Demerol was until I tried it, you know?  I mean, you don’t really know what you’re talking about, whereas with law you can sit there and understand, oh, okay, you do this, you get this. You understand what a sentence means, you understand what – it’s much more feasible to me than the medical profession.
Also, by the way, when I trailed nurses in hospitals, I usually ended up in the hallway with my head between my legs because I was so nauseous from watching an intubation or smelling the – with law, I was just fascinated, also because it has to do so much more with the psychology of the human being, as opposed to medical. 

Comments

[Takera]

I'd like to know where she gets those fabulous shirts she wears on the show. I would love to have some like those.