Last we see Harvey is planning on resigning but Mike gets himself arrested. Does he feel guilty in uh his own right that happened in life?
I think that is a large part of what we are dealing with in the last six episodes, he’s confronted by the fact that he is…responsible for making this decision of hiring Mike in the first place. I think that the selfish part of him believes that he’s 100% responsible. You know, it’s brought to his awareness that Mike is 50% responsible because he actually learned to do it. So I think there’s a push and pull of that struggle for the two of them and ultimately were leading up to this court, this trial, that Mike’s life is on the line, and I think that you know, the heroic part of Harvey really wants to take the bullet for him and I think you know, if it’s going into a direction that really looks scary, you know here’s a younger guy, he’s got his life ahead of him, he’s engaged to a woman, Harvey’s dealing with certain things, I think Harvey believes that he’s a little bit tougher inside and out, than Mike and that you know if he needed to land on the sword, is that the expression? Fall on the sword that he would be better able to deal with the ramifications. So I think that there’s that back and forth, we will see some of that. I don’t know what you guys know or not know, and I don’t know what I’m allowed to say.
It’s kind of an interesting thought because we spent so much of the first part of the season combing through Harvey’s backstory and his emotional turmoil. With this pressing threat in front of him, does that stuff kind of take a backseat in these back six or does he still have stuff he’s got to sort out?
I think he’s sorting a lot of stuff out privately, there are moments where I think were going to see him, be vulnerable and how to move forward and how to figure out how to work this whole situation out and I think he goes to Donna, which is a really nice scene where he goes and asks her you know, her advice and he lays it down for her. There’s an interesting dynamic in that in the first few seasons we saw Harvey’s love for risk taking and you know that great quote where you know, “life is this and I like this,” and I think he still likes to live on the edge like that, but I think the cards are starting to fall and he is having to really look at himself and dig deep to see is this really worth it based on the choices he’s made.
Can you talk about a little bit about also how it affects the dynamic between say Harvey and Rachel and Harvey and Jessica?
Jessica and Harvey. Jessica’s really trying to keep everything just going and I think she’s having to juggle a lot more of what’s going on in our world. Harvey feels again solely responsible for what’s going on in this back six, this downward spiral. The stakes, let’s just say the stakes have gotten higher than it’s ever been. They are really fighting for their lives and so Rachel comes in you know there’s a bunch of interesting themes of ah–just really believing your partner and really believing in the choices that they make and we’ll experience some of that through Rachel and Mike, we’ll experience some of that through Donna and Harvey and believing in the choices. There are moments where Harvey goes after Rachel and I think there’s some really, really great scenes where were going to see that Harvey needs to sacrifice some of these people to paint a picture or really teach a very, very tough lesson for Mike. And so you’re going to see some of that which is some really cool stuff.
How far is Harvey willing to go to get Mike out of this? How much is he willing to sacrifice in order to save Mike? Is there a line he won’t cross if it means it will save Mike?
He pretty much tries to cross every line that he can. There are people surrounding him that support him that are trying to look out for him and know this is the way he does things and tries to block him from doing some of this stuff. You know, the case against Mike is pretty locked, I mean it’s pretty like – it’s amazing. You hear the case against him and there are no holes in it really and so it’s like a mountain. I mean it’s a huge colossal mountain that these guys have to like climb up in order to save the day and so we’ve seen them save the day at every turn. Are we going to go there and save the day at this point or are we not? So it’s going to be really cool. I think there will be some good surprises.
Does it feel like you guys were turning a page with the end of this season and that we’re kind of moving forward and striking out a bit?
Yeah. Without saying too much, yeah, I would say yes and I think it’s a great opportunity for you know diving into Season 6 in a, lack of better word, a reboot. You know we were talking about it the other day. There’s again like I said earlier, the stakes have gotten so incredibly high. We’ll see what happens based on the ramifications of the outcome, but it’s possible that the stakes will drop now and we can go back to this place where maybe we’ll see these people smiling a little bit more or maybe we’ll see some more witty banter and some of the more playful elements of this show. Early on in Season 1 and 2 there’s some really funny stuff. As we got closer to where we are right now it’s so serious, the stakes are so high that it’s almost like it’s out of place to put any funny into it.
Some people really liked that it’s not funny and some people dig the humor so I think there will be more of a balance and more of a playful nature when we come back to be able to do some of that stuff. It will be good and challenging for all of us.
What can you expect from the relationship with Donna in the back half?
Donna and Harvey are – we have a couple of flashback episodes, I think there’s a couple maybe, I know one – I can’t remember right now.
Stay tuned for the remaining interviews. If you missed the previous ones, they are linked below for easy access.
Gina Torres (Jessica Pearson)
Patrick J. Adams (Mike Ross)
Sarah Rafferty (Donna Paulsen)
Gabriel Macht (Harvey Specter)
Meghan Markle (Rachel Zane)
Aaron Korsh
Rick Hoffman (Louis Litt)