From executive producersDavid E. KelleyandJonathan Shapiro, the Amazon original seriesGoliathis the ultimate David vs. Goliath battle. Billy McBride (Billy Bob Thornton) is a down-and-out lawyer who has to go up against the big firm that he helped establish and that his ex-wife (Maria Bello) still works for, and do so in a world where the scales of justice seem to tip toward the rich and powerful.
During this exclusive phone interview with Collider, show creators David E. Kelley and Jonathan Shapiro talked about exploring one singular story arc over eight hours, the advantages of doing a series for a streaming service, examining the mechanics of litigation through storytelling, being able to use natural dialogue, why Billy Bob Thornton was the right actor to center this around, what made eight episodes the right amount to tell this story, and how future seasons would be structured.
Collider: Taking one singular story arc and exploring it over eight hours is not typically something you can do on broadcast TV. Was this your answer to that grind, or was this something you’d been thinking about for some time and just hadn’t found the right home for it, before now?
DAVID E. KELLEY: We had been thinking about it, generally, for a long time. We both worked together onThe PracticeandBoston Legal, and loved doing those shows, but we always were a bit constrained by the fact we had to start with a blank page, every week, and had 41 minutes to tell a story. We were always enamored with and a little bit envious of those shows that were allowed time to be more myopic. There was just no way to do any kind of storytelling with a sophisticated civil case and cram that into 41 minutes. This series allowed us to do two things. It allowed us to really examine the mechanics of litigation and the smaller components that go into prosecuting and defending this kind of sophisticated case, and it also allowed us to see how those mechanics could corrosively wear on the litigants. A trial can be a tough thing. When you fact greed and ambition and money into the work load that’s already there, it can wreak havoc on people’s emotions and judgement. That’s also a deeper kind of storytelling that we just were never allowed to dip into, in the broadcast format. Here, we have a full 60 minutes per hour. And the viewer is probably going to watch the episodes in close proximity of each other, so there will be a real working familiarity with the layers of these character and you can go further and deeper into the storytelling. We enjoyed it.
When did you guys start to see streaming as a viable option for getting an original series out there? Was there something specific that got that on your radar?
KELLEY: The first thing that I saw wasHouse of Cards. I loved the willingness to really commit to character. There was certainly a plot going on in that series, but the willingness to allow character to be as big a part of that series as it was got my attention. You really get jealous of the format, very quickly. There are no commercial interruptions. Because it’s a shorter season, they were able to attract a great talent pool with their cast. We did the same. We’re quite thrilled with the actors we were able to bring into this series. It’s the new frontier, and for writers, it’s a really exciting one.
JONATHAN SHAPIRO: For years, I would be in a TV writers’ room and we’d all be talking about PBS and the new British drama we were all watching. We’d all think, “They’re so lucky, they only have to do eight or ten episodes and they can really dive into these characters.” And so many of those British shows were based on 19thcentury novels, which in a strange way, for all the technological changes and streaming, it’s allowing us to do what Dickens did. All of his novels were serialized. You read one chapter, and then the next week, you read another chapter. And unless the chapter ended in an engaging way, or with a cliffhanger, or you were really connected with those characters, you’d stop reading. He didn’t have to worry about commercial pods or having eight minutes to tell a story. And what’s great about Amazon is that it’s allowing us to tell stories the way I think you’re supposed to tell stories, and how you learned to read stories and appreciate them, from the classics.
Aside from not having to write to commercial breaks, it must be nice to have the freedom where, if you need to use the word “fuck” you can and you don’t have to find a replacement.
KELLEY: That word surely was scripted, but I think it showed up in the episodes even more than it was scripted because it came so naturally to our gifted cauldron of actors. I think what you touch on is absolutely right. People can speak the way they normally speak. You don’t have to figure out a way to change natural dialogue to words that people don’t really use.
You’ve always assembled tremendous casts of actors for your shows, but Billy Bob Thornton is so great for this. What made him your guy to center this around?
KELLEY: We did not write this character as likeable, and certainly not likeable, all the time. He’s probably right more than he’s wrong, but his batting record is pretty average, at best. He’s done a lot of bad things. He doesn’t treat people well. He’s certainly not a character that intrinsically cultivates loyalty with his words or behavior. But there’s a human core to the character, and that’s what Billy Bob brings out so well. That makes you drawn to him. You do feel for this man, even if he’s behaving badly. You don’t doubt that his core of humanity is underneath there. That’s stuff that you can try to write, but at the end of the day, you’re really relying on the actor to bring it to the fore. We didn’t write this specifically for Billy Bob Thornton, but after the first week of shooting, we couldn’t imagine anyone else in the role.
All of the characters are so colorful that it seems like you could follow any of them home and there would be an interesting story there.
KELLEY: That’s where we had to cut some of the story short. We hope to follow more of these people home. Every time we’d look at what was shot, it would give rise to new avenues and directions that we could go in because they were all so complicated and nuanced. Sometimes you’re blessed with a great ensemble, and sometimes less so. But up and down the line here, we’re pretty thrilled with these characters and actors.
How did you decide on the episode number for the season? Was it simply about how many hours you needed to tell this specific story, or was it more a question of what the budget would allow you to do, so that you could still maintain the quality you wanted?
KELLEY: We originally thought it would be ten episodes because we thought that’s what the plot would sustain. The original conception and outlines talked about where we would want to get to, in the course of litigation, and how many episodes it would take us to play that out. What you can’t really anticipate are some of the ancillary stories that start to crop up, as these characters come into being. Eight episodes felt like a really right number, in terms of the legs that the case itself had. We could have gone further, in terms of some of the side streets and alleys of the personal stories. It’s a best guess, at the beginning, how many episodes it will take to tell your story. I think we guessed right, in terms of the actual plot, but we were also rubbing our hands together, a little bit, at the end of eight hours going, “If we only had more time, we could have gone home with this character, or learned more about that character.” They all invited us to want to know more about them, which is a good thing. Should we get the luxury of going forward, some of these characters will be back, and we feel a lot more potential for further exploration in them.
If you do future seasons, can you do more than eight episodes, if you feel the story needs it?
SHAPIRO: Yeah, absolutely. What’s great about eight is that it was the exact right number to tell this story. There’s no flab on the bone. It’s all great stuff. The reason why we think the series works beyond Season 1 is because it’s based on a reality where every trial becomes a universe unto itself, with the people who have been drawn into the vortex of litigation and who are impacted by the conflict. As a trial lawyer, I could see how every single trial affected every single person involved, from the smallest witness to the most important party. The impact didn’t end when the trial didn’t continue. That’s something we’d like to explore in upcoming seasons, with how this trial affects how people behave, how they view the law, and how they view themselves and their relationships. It’s all connected.
KELLEY: I think the goal is to have this case impact the characters for the entirety of the series, but to focus next season on another case, and we have the case in mind. It’s just that the characters are now transformed because of this case.
