Almost every subgenre in television has its master. Political dramas? No one is going to argue it’s Aaron Sorkin. 

Never-ending medical dramas? Oh, that’s queen Shonda Rhimes. Agatha Christie murder mystery adaptations? The BBC’s Sarah Phelps remains undefeated. 

For nearly four decades, David E. Kelley has stood tall as the reigning King of legal dramas and thrillers. 

He’s the mind behind seminal legal series such as Ally McBeal, The Practice, and its spin-off Boston Legal. In recent years, he’s turned his talents towards miniseries.

He’s the showrunner behind the colossally successful Big Little Lies, which brought together some of 

the most powerful actresses in Hollywood in an adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s book about trauma, abuse, and murder. 

He’s also adapted Anatomy of a Scandal and The Undoing as miniseries for Netflix and HBO, respectively.

In a sense, Apple TV+’s Presumed Innocent combines Kelley’s two great interests — book adaptations and legal thrillers. Kelley gives us an eight-episode miniseries based on the bestselling 1987 book by Scott Turow, which many will know from the 1990 movie adaptation starring Harrison Ford. The new series takes the basic plot of the book: chief deputy prosecutor Rusty Sabich (Jake Gyllenhaal) who is accused of the murder of his colleague (Renate Reinsve) whom he was having an affair with right up until she died. The miniseries focuses on Rusty but follows all the other lies in this web. From Rusty’s wife (Ruth Negga) who knew of the affair and thought it was over, to Tommy Molto (Peter Sarsgaard), the pathetic lawyer sniffing after Rusty’s job, everyone has secrets and everyone has a motive.

For the premiere of the first two episodes this week, Collider spoke to Kelley about adapting a bestselling book after a movie already did it so well, what it’s like to write a protagonist that you want the audience to be suspect of, and what his reaction is to what Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon have been saying about Big Little Lies Season 3.

David E. Kelly Stuck Close to the Book For ‘Presumed Innocent’

DAVID E. KELLEY: Probably neither. I really loved the book and wanted to be faithful to the book. I love the movie, too, but I started really with the book. I did go and watch the movie again. I’d seen it 30 years ago whenever it came out and loved it, but that wasn’t the source when we started the miniseries. It was more the book. I thought that the opportunity that the limited series would offer us is just the chance to mine the various pathologies of the characters in a way you can’t in a two-and-a-half-hour movie. 

So, there was no thinking on our part, “Oh, man, they kind of botched this or did that wrong, and we can make it better.” I’m a fan of both the book and the movie. I just thought there was an opportunity for more storytelling, which is probably a credit to Scott Turow because he crafted such complicated and nuanced characters that there was more story to be told with exploring them.

KELLEY: Yeah. I remember reading the book again, and I love the whole thing, but there were scenes with Rusty in therapy where he was trying to get at what drove him to commit infidelity because this is a guy who believes in fidelity, who is a devoted family man and loved his wife and yet acted in a very self-destructive and family-destructive way. And in the therapy scenes, Rusty was struggling to figure out, “Who am I? And if I know who I am, what happened to me?” I thought those were just great questions and jumping-off points to explore character. The whodunit part was fantastic in the book. We made some changes and zigged and took some zags here and there to make it different, but I thought as a legal psychological thriller, the book was very tight, and I wanted to live up to that. The character development was where I thought the opportunity lay, not that they weren’t done well in the movie, but again, in the book they were so specifically drawn, and the invitation to dive into them was there, so it just got us excited as storytellers.

KELLEY: Good question. I don’t know any more about Rusty. I may know a little bit more about him, but I couldn’t explain him today, nor could I explain him at the beginning because he is a man of profound contradictions. He does believe in the truth, and yet we see him lie; he is committed to law and justice, and we see him subvert justice; he is a devoted family man, he betrays his wife; he is a loyal, loyal friend, he betrays Raymond. None of that is to say that he doesn’t cling to all those principles we just talked about. He does believe in them. He just has struggles in living up to them from time to time. It was a complication of trying to figure out what drives him that was, I think, the initial attractant of, “Okay, let’s get into this guy. Let’s figure out how he can be and convey the multitude of contradictions that we’re asking the audience to jump on board with him.”

Casting was hugely a big challenge, and we were lucky to get Jake because he has that blend of intensity and inscrutable subtext that causes you to lean in and want to figure out this guy. We love the idea that the audience could be both repulsed by him and feel for him in the very same scenes, as we see Barbara do. So, it’s that kind of character complexity that I think really offered us the chance to make something distinctive with him and with the series beyond that. That’s what probably propelled us to dive in.

Collaboration Is Crucial on a David E. Kelley Project

KELLEY: They probably weren’t finished. And generally, in two episodes, you kind of see what the beast is. You see who the character is, not that it won’t be developed, but that’s enough to make a decision, “I’m either in or out.” Just as a pragmatic sense, if someone reads it and they’re out, you don’t want them having read all five, six, seven episodes and giving away plot points on their Instagram account. So, you tend to be proprietary about plot.

But then the other thing that goes to my process is it’s very much a collaboration. Even though we’re not in the same room together, I’m looking at film, I’m looking at dailies, and I’m seeing. You start off with a character, you conceive, you see what’s being conveyed on the screen. They’re not always the same, sometimes they are, and sometimes they’re a little different. Sometimes the version I’m seeing on the screen reveals strengths to me that I didn’t anticipate, other times deficits. So, you’re tinkering as you go along, trying to maximize the strengths and minimize those weaknesses in the characters. You’re also letting the characters in the film speak to you. I’ve said it before, and people think that I must be somewhat schizophrenic, but I start off writing characters in the story, and I’m in charge of them, but at some point, the story and the characters become in charge of me because they become real on the screen to me and I like to listen to them.”

Is David E. Kelley Coming Back for ‘Big Little Lies’ Season 3?

KELLEY: Well, I’m sure lucky to have Reese and Nicole out there pounding the pavement while I’m busy doing this. They’re ferocious bulldogs. There’s a lot of logistics, but if anybody can get it done — I mean, when Reese and Nicole are joined together, let no industry try to tear asunder. We all love the show and love the project, so never say never.

The first two episodes of Presumed Innocent are out now on Apple TV+, with the remaining six released weekly.

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Source: Tampa Bay Times