‘The Lincoln Lawyer’: Co-Showrunner Ted Humphrey Addresses Two-Part Season, WGA Strike And How Hollywood Is In “State Of Crisis”

Lynette Rice
·7 min read
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In a departure from the first season of The Lincoln Lawyer, Netflix just dropped five episodes of the drama that’s based on the bestselling novels by Michael Connelly, with plans to stream the remaining five on Aug. 3.

Here, co-showrunner and co-creator Ted Humphrey talks about the relative ease at which they were able to split up season 2 — which is based on Connelly’s fourth book in the Lincoln Lawyer series called “The Fifth Witness.” He also talks about the mixed blessing of having his popular series stream during “a state of crisis” in Hollywood.

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DEADLINE Just to refresh everyone’s memory, the Mickey Haller character from Michael Connelly’s books is of Latin heritage, correct? So Matthew McConaughey’s Mick was wrong in the 2011 movie of the same name?

TED HUMPHREY I don’t want to say they got it wrong. They just went a different direction. The character in the books is half Mexican-American. His father was a famous L.A. criminal defense attorney, kind of a Robert Shapiro-type who represented mobsters and corrupt politicians and big criminal types. His mother was Mexican, a kind of B-actress who later in life married Mickey’s father. There was a big age difference between the two of them. So that’s how we depict it in the show — the difference is that in the books, Mickey was born and raised in L.A., whereas when we casts Manuel, who is 100 percent Mexican and has an accent, we crafted the backstory to say he went back to Mexico when his parents divorced to live with his mother. Then he returned to L.A. It was a difficult part to cast because it was so important to us and to Netflix to honor the Latino heritage of the character. We looked at a lot of people and then we saw Manuel Garcia-Rulfo and said, that’s him. He’s the guy.

DEADLINE You really show off the best of L.A. in this drama.

HUMPHREY It’s very much by design. Michael’s books take place in L.A. Michael’s obviously an LA. icon at this point. He was an L.A. Times reporter and it’s very important to him and the verisimilitude of his world that this takes place in a very real L.A. There’s no substitute for authenticity. Shooting in LA. is like shooting on the greatest back lot in the world. You have all these incredible locations to choose from. Mickey is a criminal defense attorney who drives around in his car, so that’s almost like a passport to go into any neighborhood. So in season one, we were very much in the tech world of Silicon Beach and the big money world of Trevor Elliott [Christopher Gorham] and his big Malibu house. In season two, we’re focusing a little bit more on the east side of L.A. Lisa Trammell’s [Lana Parrilla] restaurant is in Frogtown [Elysian Valley], and we actually shot at a location there. And at one point, Mickey and Lisa walk down from her restaurant to the L.A. River. There’s also a great dinner scene with Mickey and Maggie [Neve Campbell] in Echo Park, where they go to the food trucks. We just try to highlight real L.A. neighborhoods that you don’t see as much on TV.

DEADLINE Where is Mickey’s house?

HUMPREY That is actually in Baldwin Hills where you get this incredible view. It plays as the Hollywood Hills in the books. He lives in Laurel Canyon in the books. We looked in Laurel Canyon, and in other places in the Hollywood Hills, but we didn’t find the right house with the right view. Then we found this house in Baldwin Hills. L.A. natives know that is not the view from the Hollywood Hills. You might not quite know where the view from. But it really works for the show and it’s a really cool mid-century house.

DEADLINE So when Netflix had the conversation with you about the second season and how they wanted to break it up, what was your reaction?

HUMPHREY I thought it was a good idea. I guess time will tell if that was right or not, though I don’t know why it wouldn’t be right. The first season was the first time I’ve ever done a show for Netflix, and the experience of having a show come out that skyrockets to number one was really amazing. But it’s just, like, gone in a flash. You have this great moment where everybody’s talking about you and everybody’s watching you, and then suddenly they’re on to something else. This is a way to stay in the conversation longer and give people something to look forward to. I thought it was a good idea.

DEADLINE So you definitely had to write a mid-season finale.

HUMPHREY Yeah. The good news is that before the season began, I sat down with Michael Connelly and Dailyn Rodriguez, who I run the show with, and we mapped out the season before we were officially green-lit. The way we mapped it out before we knew there was going to be a five-episode break is that we had this cliffhanger in the middle. It just kind of worked out organically. We were able to tailor that to the five-episode break without any problem.

DEADLINE This show was originally developed for CBS, but you kept some of those same broadcast sensibilities – like, you don’t depict really salacious sex and violence scenes.

HUMPREY Michael’s books don’t really do that. The main thing we’re doing is being organic to what the books are. Secondly, it was also very much in concert with Netflix. Netflix has been really smart all along, helping us to mold the show for their platform. They had an idea that this was a broad show that parents could watch with their teenagers. It’s not quite family fare. It’s PG-13.

DEADLINE How big is your writers’ room? Is it a significant size?

HUMPHREY Yes. We had one in season one and then we have one again in season two. Seven writers. We have everyone we need. Not everyone does, but we do.

DEADLINE One of the negotiating points for the WGA is having minimum staffing levels. As a showrunner, do you want to be told how many writers to hire?

HUMPHREY First and foremost, we are all supportive of the WGA getting the best deal possible as quickly as possible. I’m not involved in a leadership capacity in the Writer’s Guild, but other people on our show are. Dailyn Rodriguez is on the Board of Directors of the Guild. One of our writers is a strike captain. So we’ve got people who are very much involved in this. My take on it is that all the issues the Guild has identified are real issues, and the business is in a state of crisis right now. The way we’re going to solve that is by getting back and negotiating a solution. Hopefully we can do that as quickly as possible. As far as the writer’s room issue itself, I’ve been fortunate. It’s not one that I’ve experienced [having to decide how many people to staff]. We have a nice, full-sized writer’s room on our show. We’ve been fortunate to have that, and I’ve been fortunate to have that on every show that I’ve done. I do know other people who haven’t had the same good fortune. I’m also not a showrunner who’s looking to write 10 or 12 episodes myself. That’s an awful lot of work. So I enjoy very much having a strong group of people to collaborate with.

DEADLINE What is David E. Kelley’s involvement in the drama today?

HUMPHREY He is not involved day-to-day at this point. He was involved with the pilot episode and he co-created the show. It works phenomenally because of him. He has been such a champion of the show.

DEADLINE So the five episodes dropping in August are all in the can?

HUMPHREY Yes, everything’s all done. We shot in March and and edited shortly after that. So we’ve been done for a while. One thing that we have to get used to in streaming is how long everything takes to finish. It just feels like you wait and wait until things finally drop.

DEADLINE So when you pick up in August, will the action continue minutes after Mickey was beaten? And we will find out if Lisa is truly a killer?

HUMPHREY Yes, mysteries will be revealed. But you have to watch the second half to find out!

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