All language subtitles for 1.01 Get Me A Lawyer+AK.ak

Hi there. I'm Glenn Kessler,
one of the co-creators

and executive producers of Damages.

And I'm Todd A. Kessler,

also one of the co-creators
and executive producers

and brother of Glenn Kessler.

And I'm Daniel Zelman,
also one of the co-creators,

and one of the executive producers

and long-time friend
of Glenn and Todd Kessler.

And I'm Allen Coulter.

I'm the director of the pilot
and also a producer.

And I'm Glenn Close.
I play Patty Hewes.

So, this opening credit sequence

was one that we shot after the pilot,

but here we are
getting into the pilot,

so more on the credit sequence later.

So, this sequence actually
had an interesting evolution.

When I read the script,

it described the camera
floating into the building

where we see an event occur,

and the thought to me occurred
that it might be interesting

to do a series of still frames, rather still,

as we creep slowly into the building

and arrive at a certain point,
as you'll see here,

where there's a large opening
that we can't quite tell what it is,

and then there's this big reveal.

We were really trying to create

a sense of menace
and uneasiness in the audience

to signal that there's something
about to happen which is unexpected,

which is Ellen Parsons,
played by Rose Byrne,

exiting this building
bloody and half-naked.

Some of the sequence
at the very beginning,

you would have noticed,
was also run backwards,

which was something
that all the fellows decided

added to that sense of dislocation.

One of the reasons,

if you look back
and look at it more closely,

is that the smoke,
when it ran forward and rose up,

actually dispersed very quickly,

and we were trying
to have a sense of mystery

and keep the smoke
in the city all contained,

so we had decided
to play that sequence backwards.

You actually see somebody
walking backwards.

It was also very important to us,
you know, the show

was a show
that was about civil litigation,

and we very much wanted
to start the show off

in a world that was
more exciting than that,

that had a little more tension
and, as Todd said, menace

before we got
to the actual case itself.

One more thing about Rose running
through the streets in her underwear

was that was--
we shot the pilot in February,

and I believe it was somewhere
around 14 degrees that day.

You'll notice--
the pilot in particular--

there's some incredibly brutal weather
that we tried to hide

and make everything
seem spring-like.

But the series was shot

over the course of, basically,
from February through October,

so we tried to keep weather outside.

Although it went from about
7 degrees in February at one point

to 103 degrees in July,

we tried to keep everything
seemingly in a narrower range.

So, what we've just jumped to here
is the first time sequence,

which we've now jumped
six months into the past,

which the majority
of the first season plays out over,

leading up to
what the first images were

that were shot of Ellen
running out at the streets.

Well...good luck to you.

You might have
mentioned that sooner.

There was a choice
that Jonathan Freeman

the cinematographer and I made,

that I think has been
carried on since then,

which is that when we are
in the world of the police,

as you saw in a previous scene
and you'll see again,

there's a certain look to that
that makes that world

extremely different
from the world of Patty Hewes,

and the camera, also,
in that sequence

was much more unsteady--
it's hand-held--

whereas in these sequences
it tends to have a more solid footing

to kind of represent the world
that Patty belongs to and rules over.

This is Glenn again
to talk to you about the weather.

You'll see water
on the back windshield.

This whole sequence was originally
designed to be played in the rain,

the limo sequence that leads up

to the courthouse steps
in the next scene,

and we wanted it very moody
and kind of otherworldly

as we meet Patty Hewes and we see
her first negotiations as an attorney.

However, that day--

this limo scene was shot
on a different day than the courthouse,

and this particular day
was in the teens, I believe,

in terms of weather,

so we used some sort of substance
on the windshields

to try to emulate water,

hoping that when we actually
shot the courthouse steps

it would be warm enough
to create rain and all that,

which it wasn't.

So there's water on the windshield.

Looks like there's ice behind...

It's basically freezing, yeah.

This was actually our very first day
of shooting on the pilot,

and one of the coldest days.

This was the coldest day.
This was absolutely miserable.

Everybody had tears streaming
down their face it was so cold.

The ice and show have been
cleared off the steps,

and right around that car,
if we would open the frame,

you'd see piles of snow.

That poor girl was so cold,

because we were supposed
to pretend it was spring.

She was the coldest person
I've ever seen in my life.

- Poor girl holding the folder.
- I feared for her.

And in great New York City tradition
we cleared the snow,

and when we were done filming,

the city asked us
to put the snow back where it was.

...that someone punished
the company that made him sick.

And this is basically
down at the courthouse.

It's just all open space,
so it's just one enormous wind tunnel.

It was brutal.

This crew suffered terribly.

And technically we were not allowed
to use any kind of rain

to create the moodiness,
because when the temperatures too low,

they won't let you--
the city won't let you do a wet-down

on steps that are marble
because it instantly turns to ice.

There's an interesting moment
coming up.

Originally in the pilot script,

this attorney here, who gets bested
by Patty on the steps here,

tried to throw a punch at her

and tripped and fell.

And we decided in editing--
it would have happened right there--

we decided we didn't really need that.

We felt it was forced
and that it was stronger

just to leave that scene
on Glenn's last line.

And this shot here,
which just led into us

seeing Ellen Parsons
and David Connor

was kind of an establishing shot,
which we used very, very rarely

as transitions between scenes,
as just a style choice that emerged

but was very useful in that moment
as we entered Ellen and David's world.

There was a lot of discussion
about this scene

because in this scene,

this character played
by Philip Bosco, Hollis Nye,

shows up at the bar after Ellen
turns him down in her first scene,

and there was always
a sense of it being maybe a little...

unbelievable that he would
show up at her place, in her world,

and we always liked that there was
something incongruous about it,

and we always sort of thought--

later in the scene,
he warns Ellen,

and it always seemed kind of like
the witches in Macbeth to us,

not to be too highfaluting about it,
but there was a sense of--

it was okay to us
if it felt a little unnatural

or a little forced
that he be in her world.

It's this stranger showing up
to warn her about her own ambition.

It's interesting because actually
you find out why in the very last episode.

I think it really plays out well.
And he's--yeah.

He has an agenda
just as Patty has an agenda.

Also, it's worth noting--
Allen mentioned him earlier--

Jonathan Freeman,
the cinematographer,

just did a tremendous job all across.

That shot right here,
of the red light

next to Nye writing out the card,

and the lights all in the bar,
just a fantastic job.

We were shooting on HD,
which presents its own challenges,

especially in the winter
because the camera bodies freeze up,

but we were all game,

and Jonathan really did
a spectacular job for us.

So, that warning comes back,

and hopefully you'll have a chance
to see the season finale,

but it comes into play.

And here we are
with Greta Van Susteren,

who was so totally game
to be a part of this.

It was very exciting,

and we actually are shooting

on her actual set
in Midtown Manhattan.

I was really struck by
how completely at ease she was.

Glenn, what was it like
to work with her?

Was she just completely there?

Yeah, she was, she was,
but that's what she does.

She does live all the time,
so she said it's like what she does,

and if she makes a mistake,
she makes a mistake.

She was totally un--

I think she wondered
about learning lines

because what she does
is so different from having--

- But she made them her own.
- Yeah, she was terrific.

It was an interesting choice for us,
editorially, because we just saw

the first glimpse of Arthur Frobisher,
who's played by Ted Danson right there.

We thought of not introducing him there

and saving his intro to later on,
which we'll get to,

but we decided
that it made sense to put a face

to the name of Arthur Frobisher
at its first mention.

You have a girlfriend?

She teaches at your son's school.

This scene is shot right outside
of Greta Van Susteren's real studio,

and Radio City Music Hall's
in the back, there.

An interesting thing
about that walk-and-talk

was that was originally written
to be done in a helicopter

as Patty was flying
from Greta's studio back to her office,

but obviously production concerns
made us rewrite that for the street,

which we were to continue to do
over and over again.

This is an interesting location.

One of the big challenges
in preproduction for the pilot

was finding Patty's office

and what kind of law firm

and what the look and the feel
of the law firm would be,

and we had countless hours
of conversation.

Basically what we
ended up on for the pilot

was a high-end furniture showroom,

so the pilot set for Patty's office
was rebuilt for the series.

You'll notice some differences.

I don't recall the name of the--
it's a company called Hayworth,

and it was on 6th Avenue--
they've since moved--

but it was spectacular
because it didn't look

like anything we had seen
anywhere else,

so we used this particular area.

It's a pretty huge floor space,

and we used segmented areas
of it for different parts.

A very fortunate thing
was a lot of it was just showroom,

so we had built-in offices
that were empty.

We didn't have to empty them out.

This shot we refer to
as 'the two-bridge shot',

as defined by Allen Coulter
and Jonathan Freeman.

We just went from the Manhattan Bridge
to the Williamsburg Bridge, there,

also on our first day of filming,
which was one of the coldest,

and was supposed to be spring,

but underneath
those clothes are multi-layers.

- In their sneakers are foot warmers.
- Can see their breath.

Yeah, I think it was 7 degrees,
but it was 20 below with the wind chill.

We're ready for your briefing
in Conference Room 1.

Thank you, Felicia.

I'm sorry...

I remember having a conversation
about whether I knew who she was,

and we decided that yes,
of course I knew who she was.

I was just making her uncomfortable.

Yeah, it's a nice little gambit.

I also tried to take advantage
of her confusion

by having her start off
the wrong way here,

because everybody's
going the other way.

It just added to the sense that Rose
does not really know what's happening.

And the man in the shorts
is Allen's assistant, Michael.

Excuse me! Sorry.

Tom Aldredge, who I did
plays with on Broadway years ago.

He's a very loved actor in New York.

One of the terrific things
and challenges

that Allen really helped us with
is creating a sense of a law firm--

that it's not
a newspaper press room,

it's not a cop station--

that it has its own energy
and its own feel,

which is a huge challenge
to create in very little time

in a practical location,
which was this furniture showroom.

And this, of course, is Tate Donovan,
who plays Tom Shayes,

and he is an incredibly
important character

to the series
and especially to the pilot.

He's sort of Ellen's gateway
into the character of Patty Hewes.

We were so fortunate
to find him for this role,

because he puts such
a pleasant sort of veneer

over the experience
that is Patty Hewes,

and he's instantly likeable,
which was very important for us

given where his story
and the story of the pilot was going.

Also, production-wise,
it was important to us

and our production designer,
Ed Pisoni,

that we have flowers
in Patty Hewes's office,

Hewes and Associates,

and here we made
the distinct choice to put cactuses.

Throughout the pilot

and also into the entire season
you'll see flowers,

which just give a slightly different touch
than most law offices.

There's also a hallway--
we passed it just before

with Tom Aldredge
and the dry cleaning--

which was bamboo shoots.

So, it was an interesting motif,
these non-flowering plants.

Do you want it or not?

There's a great shot here
we weren't able to use

that will hopefully be
in the additional scenes

of Tom Shayes playing golf.

Oh, yeah.

Playing golf?

With 6th Avenue as his fairway,

practicing his golf swing.

One of the things that we just saw
are these two dogs,

and dogs obviously play a large role,
if you've seen the series,

but animals in general,

and the animal nature of attacking

and how animals function

as compared to how
the legal world functions,

and trying to put,
you know, metaphors in there.

I've always liked that moment

when Glenn apologises
for her dog's behaviour but then shrugs.

Which was not in the script.
The 'sorry' was not in the script.

She said 'sorry' a couple of times,

and then I think I approached her
on the set and asked her not to,

and she didn't do it one time,
but of course she was right.

Well, 'cause I walk my dogs in the park,

and if my dog humped another dog,
I would apologise.

Sure, but I like the fact
that Patty just shrugs.

She doesn't really care.

There's been a lot of talk
about the look of the show

and New York as a backdrop,

and, you know,
to varying degrees of success

we chose locations
that feel like New York

and some that don't
necessarily feel like New York.

This scene was shot
on 18th Street and 2nd Avenue,

and it feels more neighbourhoody

than what most people
think of as New York.

It could potentially be
Boston or other cities

that are not full of skyscrapers
the way that Midtown Manhattan is,

but it was important to us
to put an environment--

that this is where Patty Hewes lives,
and she takes her dogs for walks,

and people bump into each other,

which is very much
the New York experience.

Back to that moment where Glenn
said 'sorry' about the humping.

That's one of those moments

that's both humbling for us
as writers and incredibly exciting,

because that really was
a character-defining moment

in the pilot for us,
and it was not in the script.

It purely came from Glenn's instincts.

So, when that happens

and the actors just bring
something completely unexpected

and yet totally character-defining,

it's a thrill for us.

I was just looking
at that scene with Ray,

and if you don't have any sound,
it looks like they're best friends.

When you think of how we end up,
it's amazing.

Yeah.

I love that character he played.

Ellie's always been...

And here is Ellen Parsons's sister,
played by Miriam Shor,

and unfortunately,
we didn't find a great opportunity

to use Miriam in the first season,

but we plan to use her
in the second season

and further explore Ellen
and her family life

as she's dealing with the trauma

that she has experienced
in the first season.

She's such a good actress,
Miriam Shor.

Yeah, I love her in this sequence.

Every time I watch this I laugh,
because she's so filled with anger

even as she's trying to be, like, sweet--

you know, that little gesture
she makes with her hand.

- She's a great singer.
- This was an incredibly long day.

We had two huge scenes
to shoot this day,

and she really
only had, I think, two takes--

- You're kidding me.
- Yeah, to do that speech.

That was great.

This is a bathroom set
that we ended up building

based on the bathroom
that was in the original location,

and the production designer
did a terrific job

duplicating the signs
reminding people to flush

and also the broken sink.

It seemed like a pretty good
meeting place for Patty and Ellen.

Some people have thought
that Patty was waiting in the stalls.

Let's clarify that.

We should be very clear
that Patty, in fact,

was not waiting in the stalls
for Ellen to come in.

Some people told me that they
had intimations of Fatal Attraction

with her appearing in a bathroom
and being reflected in a mirror.

- They found it so frightening!
- Really?

- Yeah!
- Well, that's good.

I just like the idea of Patty Hewes
being multiplied three or four times.

Also, the addition
of Patty drinking bourbon

was another thing that Glenn
brought to the character,

and it really has reverberated
throughout the entire first season,

and just feels so appropriate--
and something we hadn't thought of.

And we get to the finale
and they're having another drink,

- and it's their--
- It's bourbon.

I got that, actually, from one
of the lawyers I did research with,

that how does she
get rid of her stress,

and she says,
'Have half a glass of bourbon.'

What's interesting, though,
is at the end you hand the glass,

you know, to Ellen,
which was a really nice thing--

Right.

You love them,
you'd do anything for them.

And there's a call-back to that
in the second-to-last episode--

And the last episode.

...where Ellen hands the glass to Patty
and walks off on her.

And here's Patty
kind of spinning her web

of, in some ways,
entrapment for Ellen,

but is dead-on in her assessment
of Ellen and her family

and her ambitions,
and all reverberating with Patty

and her memories of herself
as the young Patty.

It's an interesting choice.

And one thing thematically
that's very important to us

as we move through this season

is trying to assess the balance
between professional and personal life,

and here's young Ellen faced
with a tremendous opportunity,

and it will ultimately take her away
from her personal life.

I found this scene very, very difficult.

I didn't know how to do it

until I got into that she
was telling the truth

about knowing
about this kind of a family.

Once I locked into that
it started working,

but for some strange reason
I found it tricky.

So, this is gonna be
the introduction of Arthur Frobisher

and it was very important to us
both in script and in filming

that we had these
very stark transitions.

We went from the wedding
to this motocross scene,

and you have no idea
what you're following.

It will reveal itself
to be Arthur Frobisher,

but it reverberates
with the previous transition

into the dog park.

There's just a tremendous
amount of viciousness

and you don't exactly know
what you're doing,

and for us that's a style choice

that is potentially atypical
to television,

but here Ted is so fantastic
and entertaining...

Yeah, this is another
character-defining moment.

This scene is pretty much as written,

but what Ted brought to it
was unbridled enthusiasm for the racers

so that whoever
was gonna win that race

was more important
or as important to him

as the whole trial
that was going on in his own life.

When we shot this,
we were losing light, again.

There was not a lot of time,

and I think for all of us
who were there,

it was one of the most
thrilling moments on set,

because Ted was just dialled in
from moment one,

and he just gave us so much
to work with, with so little time, really.

It was always important to us
to see Frobisher as...

out of a board room
and not as a businessman and all that.

In this scene, which is
the first time we ever see him,

you see just how childish
he is in certain areas,

and it was thrilling to watch.

And this is a...

I was going to say
this one thing we did

was we intentionally hid
from the audience

the fact that his brother-in-law
is lying there this whole time

while he's on the phone
and enjoying the race.

That was another ad-lib of Ted's,

which was, hang on, you know,
I'm coming with you,

but I have to see who wins.

We don't have a case unless...

That was also--the ATV track,
just location-wise was...

That was a tough thing for a while.

We weren't sure
if we were gonna find a place

where we could shoot that scene,
and it was a very important scene to us.

But we ended up pairing it--

We shot that on Long Island,
and ended up pairing

with the beach house
that appears at the end of the episode.

One of the great challenges of a pilot
is you're always facing budgets,

and we were able to do
the ATV track and the beach house,

but weren't able to build
an office for Ray Fiske,

played by Zeljko Ivanek,
so in that scene

he's on the phone with Arthur Frobisher
and we never actually see his office,

so the city is his office
as he walks through the streets.

Another constraint in the pilot
were these three flashes:

the golf swing, the steak,
and the hooker.

As scripted, it was flashes
to Frobisher's Florida weekend,

so you actually got to see the context
for what he was doing down there

and the life and lifestyle
that he was living,

and one by one,
the elements got scaled back.

We were thinking
about cheating some--

either on set, cheating Florida
in the middle of February in New York,

trying to figure out ways to do it,
and slowly, production-wise,

we just had to scale back
to those flashes.

I think when we ended up there, too,
the only way I could think of

was just to refine it
down to its purest essence,

which was just
essence of golf,

essence of food,
and essence of sex.

So we ended up
with these extreme close-ups.

We also have to give Allen credit
for insisting we keep those in,

because with production constraints,
we kept being tempted to cut those,

but Allen really insisted it would
make the scene better,

which it clearly does,

so thank you, Allen.

You're welcome.
It was fun to shoot.

I was drawing on
my commercial experience.

So, this is the first moment now
where Ellen has seen her office,

and we're going to flash forward
for the first time

into the investigation story,

and this card of Hollis Nye

plays a very important role
throughout the first season.

And these detectives, as well,
are with us through the whole season

and just did a terrific job with roles

that they were able
to bring their personalities to.

There wasn't much
on the page for them.

Are you her lawyer?

No, friend.

You have a current address?

Yes.

I think that they captured,
these two, exactly the attitude

that seems so common
in New York policemen,

you know,
this kind of sense, almost,

that everyone is guilty
until proven innocent.

Right.

There's just a kind of cynicism
that grows, I think,

from having been through
such terrible situations in a career

that they just begin
to be very sceptical of what they hear,

and these two really
capture it perfectly.

One moment that we're in now
is relying heavily on sound design,

and stylistically,
we made the choice

that we would use sound design
in these investigation scenes

but not score
other moments in the show.

We stayed pretty consistent to that
throughout the series.

- Is that a real location?
- That was.

In the pilot, Ellen and David's
future apartment

is a real location
on the Upper West Side

which Ed Pisoni
and his team recreated--

- Unbelievable.
- ...down to the last, you know...

for the series.

But this was a set that we built

on our stages in Brooklyn
in Steiner Studios,

and one of the great challenges
of shooting in HD

is to have daylight
seem like actual daylight,

because, in the technical term,
the windows get blown out,

and it's very difficult
to hold the details.

Jonathan Freeman
just did such a fantastic job

creating daylight for us on our stages

that I would have no ability
to deduce that this was a set

if I didn't know that it was one.

- Yeah, he's really masterful.
- This is a set?

Yeah.

His lighting
is really masterful that way.

This is sort of a character-defining moment
for Ellen--and Rose--

the way she plays
receiving this ring,

because she really brings it down

and makes it a very intimate moment,

which, she could have been...

She could have screamed
with excitement and been exuberant,

and the fact that she
brought it down

to such an intimate, close place

created this great lead-in
to this scene right here.

As so beautifully shot by Allen
and directed by Allen.

It's a scene that is about intimacy

and these two people
whose lives are entwined,

and, you know, as the story progresses
and the fate of David unfolds,

to just have this moment
in the pilot

which emphasizes
their intimate relationship

was just crucial.

Allen did a beautiful job with it.

I also think Jonathan
really deserves a lot of credit,

because it's just so exquisitely lit

and has a sensuality that's,
I think, rare on television.

It was a great opportunity
for me because...

the writer/producers were so open
to however we chose to do it.

We should also mention
our music supervisor,

Mark Wike.

We originally had a different song

over the sex scene
between Rose and Noah

which we couldn't afford,

and our music supervisor
did a great job

of finding a replacement song

that had the feel
that we were looking for.

Katie's restaurant is a real location,
a real restaurant in Brooklyn,

and it was important to us
to try to cover a large section

of what it's like to live
in New York City,

and living in the boroughs
is a huge part of it.

It's not just Manhattan.

This restaurant is
a real location in Brooklyn.

This is something that we
have to give credit to Allen for.

When we were initially discussing
Katie's restaurant,

it was a Manhattan restaurant,
it was a higher-end thing,

and actually,
in conversations with Allen,

he had the really smart idea
to scale it back

and let her have
her own place in Brooklyn.

It's a small thing--she can have
her hands on all sides of it--

so that you understand
how they placed her out of the way,

set her up,
and then tried to control her fully

as opposed to making it
a higher-scale thing

with a bigger team around her.

Some of that, too, came from the fact
that now it's just not possible

for people that age to really,
virtually, live in Manhattan.

You know, they all
head for Brooklyn now,

and that was
another source of that idea.

Yeah, absolutely.

And as written,
this scene is one of intimidation,

and Zeljko Ivanek,
playing Ray Fiske here,

just pulls it off so fantastically,

where it's difficult to ascertain--

is he intimidating her,
is he not intimidating her--

what the actual play is, here,

because the power
that Ray Fiske represents

is one that he's in complete control of

and doesn't have
to throw around harsh words.

I think Anastasia really plays
that scene perfectly, too.

She just--oh!

Oh, here we are.

I just introduced that scene
with the gun to throw the audience off.

Anyway, I was saying Anastasia
plays that scene beautifully

and really captures
the sense of her uncertainty

about whether or not
she's being intimidated or not.

I hear you know your way
around a rifle, Larry.

Boy, this story, this relationship
has an amazing journey.

This is Victor Arnold,
who was phenomenal...

And just pushed and pulled
in so many directions as a character,

as a man who lost everything

and at 70 was going to have
an incredibly difficult time starting over.

He had certain choices
presented to him

and he made some bad ones.

I grew up with nothing.

One of the terrific contributions of style

that Allen brought to this
through all of our conversations

was that it didn't need
to be tricky camera work,

and we could let the actors
play the scenes

and let the scenes
stand on their own

and figure out the best way
to capture the scenes,

but that the camera
didn't have to be a character

helping to motivate the drama.

It's really there
to capture the performances.

I've worked on shows
where you were doing

everything you possibly could
to hide the writing.

In this case, I didn't have to do that.

Really, on the contrary,
just tried to get out of the way,

because the characters are so rich

and the writing is so good

and then the acting is so superb.

It's really our job
just to try to capture that,

and Jonathan and I tried to stay out of the way
and let these actors do their work.

I've always loved in this scene--

this is to no one's credit,
it's just luck--

but in the wider shot of this scene
behind Ted you see the window,

and there's an American flag
sort of blowing there.

It's otherwise a pretty static scene,
and it was meant to be.

You can sort of see the flag going now.
Earlier you could see it more.

There's just something great about
that little motion going on in the back

and that flag that calls back
to that flag shot in the opening.

Also, the character of Arthur Frobisher, to us,
was always someone who, in a way,

embodies the American dream.

He's a self-made man
and he's become very successful,

and the corruption that has always
the potential to appear with that success...

There's a little moment there
that's worth mentioning.

I'm thinking about the lighting of Jonathan.

I always liked this--
he casts a shadow across Ted

so that only his hands are lit
when he raises his hands in that gesture.

That's all I want.

Just his hands are lit.

This is also, to me, a great thing
that Allen brought, as well,

that last scene in the dog park
with Zeljko and Glenn.

The way Allen brought Zeljko
into that scene on the back of his head,

it just created
that sense of menace.

From the very beginning,

Allen read our script and said,
'What I love about this show

is nothing is as it seems,
and you never know where it's going.'

So, Allen worked a lot
on the transitions in and out of scenes

in a way that just brought

a tremendous amount
of texture to the pilot.

You want the truth?
We're broke.

Now, this is a terrific scene
with a guest appearance

by a few people who are...

We have Mark Baker,
the line producer.

Who you'll see in a moment,
and also Glenn and my father,

Joseph Kessler,
playing the angry employee.

This scene was also shot
on the same day,

which was a long one,
of the wedding.

God, I can't believe we did
all that in one day.

...but it's less than 5% of...

That was a huge line day for you,
in terms of script. Huge script day.

Yeah, it was.

And one of the challenges for us here

was to give a sense of the employees
that Patty is representing, who her clients are...

and to be able to do it
in a very short-hand way to...

have the audience understand

that it's not just those five people
that were around the table in her office,

that there are many more
of the 5,000 employees

that had worked for Frobisher

that are currently hiring
Patty Hewes to represent them.

And I wanted to convince
the extras to vote

to stay with Hewes and Associates,

and it was really funny,
'cause when they came to the vote,

a lot of them wanted
to stay with Patty.

I think there'll probably be a scene
in the additional scenes,

but there's a moment
where Patty Hewes is speaking...

This is our father right here,
Glenn and my father.

But one of the background actors,

I guess, had fallen asleep.
It had been a long day.

It was heading towards
the wedding scene later on--

He was in the front row.

So you should look for that in the--

It was very funny.

...additional materials on this DVD.

All due respect, Miss Hewes,
I say we end this here and now.

And this is a moment that, as scripted,

Patty had a much longer speech.

In editorial, in editing it,
we realised that

it would actually be
much stronger, potentially,

if Larry Popler there
just cut her off.

We, as an audience,
know that he's in cahoots with Frobisher.

Patty doesn't know it;
Tom doesn't know it there.

It's just much more shocking
for a man like that

to cut off the indomitable Patty Hewes.

I was also trying to block
her face here at the end

just so that we had
a natural fade to black,

and that was another way
of saying that she had really lost--

you know, lost out in that moment,
or, I hoped, dramatic way of saying it.

One of the great challenges in television
is that there are many scenes,

and transitions between scenes
are so crucial.

It's really like a textbook on elegance

the way the Allen Coulter put
these scenes and the transitions together.

Over and over and over again,

these transitions don't allow an audience
to know where we are for a beat or two,

which is pretty unusual,
I believe, in television,

because we're not allowing an audience

the comfort of knowing
where the story is heading,

and Allen, in the pilot, set the template
for how we just keep moving...

and an audience has to trust
that they'll catch on.

...you're a hero.
But if Frobisher gets off...

That all really does come
from the script,

because the script really suggests

that we're in a world
where nothing is what it seems.

I mean, that really is what I would say
if I had to boil the show down.

It's, you know, who can you trust,
and "trust no one',

and so I took that attitude as a director

and said I didn't want
the audience to trust us,

to never know
where we were going,

to know, 'Oh, where in one scene
there's somebody there

we didn't know was there
all of a sudden',

and to make the audience wait
and never be able to second-guess us,

and so all of those thoughts
were inspired by

the desire to make
the audience uneasy

and to make them--
to force them to follow the story

and not think that they
could ever get ahead of it.

That last scene, with a very good friend
of ours, David Costable,

playing the Bearded Man--
that emblematic--

that scene of him simply standing
outside the restaurant smoking

is emblematic of the type of menace
that we were trying to go after in the pilot

and then continuing into the series,

which is--the only thing wrong about that
is he's looking at her too long,

and when she turns away and looks back
he's still looking at her,

and we wanted that kind of menace
and discomfort to permeate,

because it was a character
you had never seen before,

you don't know whose side he's on,
what he's up to.

And here we have the introduction
of Phil Grey, played by Michael Nouri,

and it was very important to us
to have a personal life for Patty.

We only see glimpses of it in the pilot.

Her son will be referenced later,
but he's never met,

and it was something that we held on to
because production reasons and story reasons.

This one half of a phone call
for each of them

takes up very little screen time,

but we felt it was very important
to dimensionalize Patty.

What is she waiting for?

Michael also captures something

which you guys particularly
talked about a lot,

which was how do you have someone
who can be a match for Patty,

and it was very hard
to find someone

who could hold their own with you, Glenn,

I mean, as an actor and as a personality.

And I really believe,
and that's a tribute to both of you,

that this is a relationship
that's valuable and interesting,

and he could not be shoved aside easily--
at least, that's the way he comes across.

Yeah, but he also knows
how to support her,

and I think that comes across very well
as we go into the series, as well,

that he knows when to kind of...

invade her space
and when to give her her space.

It's very believable.

You trusted me.

In this scene we're
about to experience

the first true viciousness

that Patty Hewes
exposes in her personality,

and it's one that is built up to

and we hopefully
understand why it's happening,

but it, again, adds another
dimension to her character.

We've all experienced bosses--
Glenn, Daniel, and myself--

who are unpredictable in this way

and can lash out
and then improvise their way

back into taking advantage
of what they've done.

This particular--l have to say,
I've never said this before,

but this was rehearsed inside
in the Explorer's Club

where we shot Ted and Victor Arnold
and the bribe scene,

and when Tate and Glenn
rehearsed this scene

and Glenn unloaded on him,

it was one of the most
uncomfortable things I've ever seen.

I mean, she was saying
the lines that were written

and I knew they were rehearsing,

but it was unbelievably uncomfortable
and vicious--it was thrilling.

It was thrilling to see
Glenn's power unleashed.

We made the decision--l kept saying,
'Do you want it this big?"

We made the decision
to actually shock people.

I mean, I know we shocked
the crew by the power of it,

and then just go...
You know, it was just a fleeting moment,

just to give people an idea
of what could be there.

Right, and also the terrific ad-lib

that Glenn threw in
at the end of that scene.

You know the
place I'm thinking of?

'The place around the corner'
or 'the place on 70th Street,

whatever the line was,
but just everything's back to normal after--

The one thing I asked Tate to do

was to shoot her the bird
right at the end.

I thought it was such
a weak rejoinder to this powerful--

It was so adolescent.

And also there's--
I think it's in the pilot--

when I say to Ellen
I've learned how to use my anger.

And this is--she's definitely
doing this for effect.

Absolutely.

You know, those moments
where Patty explodes,

there are really only
two, three in the season, I think,

but it doesn't take
much more than that.

Once you know
that she can go there,

you just never know
when it's gonna happen,

and that's scarier
than seeing it all the time.

And you don't want it
to happen to you.

And for us, character-wise,
it's really a person who's driven by appetites,

and the filters don't apply
as they do to many other people,

and she's living a life
that's uniquely her own.

With power, one's given
the licence to do that.

But there's enough
in the script to warrant that,

because she had just been told
that they were gonna want a settlement

and that very rarely happens,

so there was enough
brewing underneath.

And Tate's character
had messed up, you know.

He had fallen short.

And here we just repeated--

- There's Todd.
- ...that motif at the beginning.

- Harry the Doorman.
- There I am.

I think this is a performance
that's not been given it's due, I have to say.

So, here's a whole sequence, now,
where production demanded

that we make some
very significant changes script-wise

in a very short amount of time.

That previous scene in the lobby
as well as this scene

were initially scripted
to take place in Patty's apartment,

and that was one of the first locations
that we had tried to find--

that and Patty's office--
in preproduction,

knowing that they were both going to be
incredibly significant locations.

Two days before these scenes
were supposed to be shot,

we lost the apartment we were going
to use as Patty Hewes's apartment,

so there was a mad scramble
of several different departments

trying to figure out
the best way to solve

production questions
and story questions,

and ultimately what we decided to do
was have Ellen show up in the lobby,

have Patty's maid waiting for her,

tell her that Patty had already left
and was waiting at school

because Patty had a conference
with the principal about her son,

and then this scene takes place,

obviously, in the waiting room
for the principal.

In reality, that turned out
to be a brilliant stroke,

because it makes perfect sense
for Patty to be talking about her son

while she's waiting
outside the principal's office.

I have to say,
this was the key scene for me.

I think I really felt
I got to know Patty in this scene,

because it's that wonderful dynamic
that you all created

of her basically telling the truth,
but you don't know if it is the truth,

and at the end, she doesn't want Ellen
to know if it's the truth.

All that she says
about her son, I think, is true...

...to keep him alive for 17 years...

...and yet she pushes it away...

I am not a good mother.

...to keep Ellen off-balance
and not let Ellen get too close

or, you know, have too much of a window
into who she might really be.

It was your idea to also have
some papers to be signing.

I mean, she brings the papers,

but then you very specifically
want her to be signing stuff,

and I think it's her way of hiding--
from not having to talk about it.

She's doing something
while she's saying this truthful thing.

This scene actually had
a fascinating evolution,

just from the writing standpoint,
because it was originally--

these things that Patty
says about her son

was originally written
in a completely different context.

There was a scene
where Patty was interviewing

a different employee
for Ellen's job, not Ellen,

and early on we realised
that the script couldn't hold that scene,

but we kept missing the scene
'cause we thought it was so character-defining,

what Patty says in terms of being a mother.

And we have to give some credit,
I think, to FX,

who suggested making it
a scene with Ellen and Patty,

and then really, once we did that

and sort of moved the scene
in its placement in the script,

it really just became one
of the keystones of the entire pilot.

And that moment right there
of Rose walking away,

of Rose assessing Patty
and what Patty's just said

and Rose walking away,

to us, was a great thing
for Rose to capture in the pilot,

because who Rose is
in the body of the pilot

versus who Rose is--
or who Ellen is--

in the interrogation scenes
with the police--

there's a six-month divide

so that Ellen has become
a different person in those six months,

having worked with Patty Hewes.

And so for the first few episodes,

you don't necessarily see
all that much of six-months-later Ellen,

in the-present-day Ellen.

But that look of Ellen
assessing Patty and walking away

and coming into her house like this
having figured something out

was one of the early seeds
of who Ellen was going to become

and why she was capable.

You think Patty hired you
just to get to Katie?

And here we are
back in the flash-forward,

and the engagement ring
has been found,

and this shot in itself
is so much mood and style

and for us, just really went
a huge distance to creating a template

which, because we return
to these scenes repeatedly

throughout the first season,

we are just increasingly appreciative
of what was shot here.

That, by the way, that--l have to--
it was your idea, I believe, Glenn,

to have the pigeon fly out of the--

I can't take credit for that,
but we're very happy with the pigeon.

The pigeon then became a motif later.

This is a scene that was shot
in a stable on the Upper West Side

which had been around,
I think, since the mid-1800s,

and about a week after we shot here
it closed down for good,

so this may be the last time
it was captured on film.

Sad.

And this was interesting, too.
This was a scene--

because of the lighting demands
of trying to light the whole stable--

It was not something
we were going to be able to do,

so Allen and Jonathan
came up with a way

to make this feel like
a very clandestine meeting,

simply by staying
on their backs and their sides

and never showing us the full stable,

never showing the whole world
that's out there beyond them,

and it really felt like...

It has a great mood to it.

Well, it's very cinematic.

You don't normally see
this kind of thing on television,

at least I don't.

It really just--it's one of these...

It just elevated the whole scene.

Just really created
a great sense of sort of conspiracy.

Curiously--Interestingly,
I know we shot this early on,

and I think there were some people
who were made uneasy by it,

because there was concern that I was
gonna shoot the whole series this way,

and what you couldn't explain was,
no, this was very late in the show,

and therefore, by this time, we can afford
to create this air of paranoia.

Out of context, it did seem like,

'Oh, my God, is he gonna never
gonna show us their faces?"

'When do we get to see faces?'

Also it was helping to cement
a bond between Ellen and Tom

that, again, reverberated
throughout the entire season.

What just happened there, also,
was a motif that started something

that became a motif,
which was someone stepping into frame

and realising that people
are being watched.

And that was something that we had
a lot of conversations about early on.

We started to recognise
that it was always the watcher

who had the power in the scene,

and you never knew
who was watching who.

This scene was important to us,
to have Frobisher as a man

who would get one of these
sandwiches on the street,

and even though he's a billionaire,
he's trying to balance his personal life

with his professional life and his status
and family being important to him.

We see his son here for the first time,

who reappears several times
throughout the season.

How do you do that angle
of looking up at Frobisher?

Well, that's a very striking angle
because there was snow on the ground,

and we were trying to avoid it.

That's great!

So, I used that as an excuse
to create a very dynamic angle.

It doesn't matter what Tom said--
I don't want Katie involved.

I love the intercutting that goes on
between these two scenes

and the conflict that we see
between David and Ellen

escalating as this happens to Katie.

...the clients lose the case.

And the sound design here
is creating tension,

and the decisions that
are made in postproduction

about which...

As the two scenes collide
and here Katie falls,

the music all starts to cascade,

and where they first started
as two separate soundscapes,

they then become one.

There was much discussion
about the dead dog

and what the dog should look like
and how much blood.

We pulled it off,

and currently that dog
is in storage in Steiner Studios...

- It's frozen.
- ...and available to be rented.

I remember when we were looking
at the dog to approve it...

Here's another moment
where you don't realise

someone else is in the room
until the camera pulls back.

Yeah, this is great.

For some reason, this always reminds me
of a Raymond Carver painting.

Beautiful.

But the dog--I remember
we were testing it in the lobby of my...

Oh, right.

Several people walked in
while we're all staring at this dead dog.

This is, like, at 12.30 at night.

The night before, the props person
showing us the dead dog in Allen's lobby,

and he had to announce to everybody
who walked by, 'This is not a real dog.'

It was great.

I realise, I mean, seeing
that scene with Ellen and David,

that David--1 don't know what you guys think--
he's probably the most decent character

- in the first season.
- Oh, yeah.

He's the truly good guy.

Right, and we all know
what happens to good guys.

I think this is another scene

that was originally meant
to be in Patty's apartment.

This is another great stroke of luck,

because the mood of this restaurant
is really perfect for what this is,

and one of my favourite shots
in the whole thing

is the end of this scene
when it's just a very still,

sort of tableau shot of the bar
where Patty's sitting

as Ellen leaves.

And, you know,
that was another thing

that we talked about and that Allen...

Here's the shot I'm talking about.

There's something
very powerful about this to me,

and it sets a great mood,
that slight move back

leading into
the end movement of the show.

We always talked about
establishing things later

rather than earlier in scenes.

Right, to avoid giving things
away at the end,

and then a so-called establishing shot
becomes something else.

It tells you something about the scene
instead of announcing where you are.

One thing I'll mention is
I think from this point until the end,

the camera never stops moving.

We owe such a debt of gratitude
to Allen for doing that,

because it creates
this sense of inevitability...

that you just can't shake,

and it made our job
so much easier as storytellers,

to sort of get from this point
to the end of the show.

And there are a lot of different things happening
from this point to the end,

a lot of reveals,
a lot of different locations,

but it's just all tied together
by this constantly moving camera.

Yeah, what was it someone said,
that it was like the slowest--

I think John Landgraf
referred to it somehow

as this dynamic shot that was,
like, the slowest dolly move

for that sort of build.

Here we are at the beach house
that we return to

a couple times in the season,

and also the final shot
of the season finale.

But here it's February,

and in the season finale
it was shot in October.

I remember discussions
about dark glasses.

In my career,
I always get disappointed

when I'm not allowed
to wear dark glasses,

but for Patty it definitely
becomes a mask,

part of her not wanting somebody
to look totally in her eyes.

A seagull just flew into frame,

which, again, is one
of those lucky things that happens,

and in the very last episode
of the whole season

when Ellen is on the dock with Patty,
a seagull also flies into frame

in a very similar way,
which I love.

Noah laid still for hundreds
and hundreds of hours

over the course of the season,
and he was a real trouper about that,

because we had to prop him up
and bloody him up several times

as the story continued to unfold.

Here we have the dog collar.

There was much conversation
about putting the name Saffron on it--

would anyone be able to read it,

would anyone be able to know
what it was that was thrown in the water,

and we hoped that more people
know what it is than didn't,

but it was a tricky detail to capture.

Rose's performance here
is also one of our favourites,

and this look and the line is stunning.

You just know that this
is not the same person you met...

Get me a lawyer.

...at the beginning of the show.

And this song by the White Stripes,
'I Think I Smell a Rat',

seemed highly appropriate.

Putting the dock here
we have to give credit to Todd for.

In the editing room, he suggested
doing this after we went to black,

and it was just a great idea.

Well, thank you.
Hope you enjoyed...

Thank you for watching, and we hope
you stay tuned to the credits,

because there are a lot
of terrific people here, the crew.

Shooting in New York
is a spectacular experience,

and hopefully we'll have
additional seasons of the show,

and if you are in New York
while we're filming,

we'd love to see you.

- So thanks very much.
- Thanks a lot.

- Thanks a lot. Bye.
- Thank you.