Is Susan Kelechi Watson Making a Love Connection With Will Trent? This Is Us Vet Teases Her ‘Badass’ Season 2 Debut
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If you thought Special Agent Will Trent and Detective Angie Polaski had chemistry, just wait until you see sparks fly between Trent and fellow Agent Cricket Dawson during Tuesday’s Season 2 premiere (ABC, 8/7c).
Susan Kelechi Watson, best known to TV audiences for her turn as Beth Pearson on NBC’s This Is Us, gets down and dirty as a member of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s bomb squad. Cricket crosses paths with Will when a car bomb targeting fellow guest star Clark Gregg ignites a thrilling investigation — and, perhaps, a love connection.
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TVLine spoke with Watson, who teed up her Will Trent debut and gushed about her reunion with Iantha Richardson, who made the leap from recurring guest star on This Is Us to series regular on the hit ABC crime drama.
TVLINE | First off, I love a good character name, and Cricket Dawson is a great character name.
I love it. I love that name. As soon as I heard it, I was like, “Oh, that’s fire!”
TVLINE | I like how Agent Dawson, on its own, sounds so official, and her first name, Cricket, adds a layer of whimsy. Would you say the name Cricket Dawson suits her well?
It just felt like her. Like, getting to know her, she’s this really nice, sort of down home, farm girl badass. With Cricket Dawson, it felt like all of that was bubbling underneath that name. You know, I did a character a long time ago on NCIS named Nikki Jardine, and I felt the same way about this name as I felt about Nikki. That name still stays with me. There are some names that are just so good, for a lack of a better term, and this was one of them. I dug it, for sure. It fit really well.
TVLINE | Tell me a bit more about bomb-diffusing expert Cricket. What’s she like? What gets her up in the morning?
I think she likes the thrill of it all. She likes a challenge. Her life has this fly by the seat of your pants [energy]. She’s very cool in the face of extreme danger. She’s able to keep calm and quite literally diffuse a situation. I like that about her, that she knows how to step into a situation and do that. That was very appealing to me, watching somebody walk into a room and know how to assess things.
TVLINE | I can only imagine how rewarding it must be, on a long-running show like This Is Us, to have the time to really get to know Beth, to begin to understand her more, to flesh out that character with the writers and be a part of that evolution. This, obviously, is a very different situation. You’re coming in as a guest star, and you probably have to make a lot of decisions in a very short amount of time about who you think this character is, where she’s been and what her motivations are. Does that come with its own set of rewards?
It’s so fun. That challenge of figuring out who this woman is, and who is so different from who Beth was. We all have qualities that overlap with one another — that’s the universal thing about being human — but I love finding the distinct qualities that makes one character so completely different from another. That’s what drew me to Cricket, that fun game of, like, what makes her tick, specifically?
TVLINE | I’m so glad you went there. I was worried I was going to have to be the one to make the “tick” pun, but you did it for me.
Listen, we’ll probably have a ton of these puns by the time this interview is over. I mean, this role is da bomb. [Laughs]
TVLINE | Cricket shows an immediate interest in Will. What do you think it is about Special Agent Trent that Agent Dawson finds so captivating?
She’s followed his career and his ability to solve the unsolvable. He brings resolution to people’s lives that have been turned upside down. That’s very appealing to her as somebody who is also very good at their job. She’s at the top of her game and she sees somebody else who’s at the top of their game, and that’s inspiring to her. And, you know, he’s cute, she’s fine… you know what I’m saying? [Laughs] So, she’s operating on both levels. She likes his quirkiness, and I think she sees him as someone to figure out. He’s a bit of a puzzle himself.
TVLINE | Iantha Richardson, who played Future Tess on This Is Us, plays Will’s partner Faith. Your characters only briefly cross paths, but was that a fun on-set reunion for you two?
Oh, it was great. We had a great time. She showed me the ropes. Off set, we kicked it. I was so happy that she was there. I didn’t know until right before I got on set [that was she on the show]. I just remember asking if there would be anyone there that could take care of my hair because you have to look for that as a Black woman, to make sure that the hair and makeup departments are able to cover you, and thankfully they were like, “Yes, we have Black women on the show, so there will be someone there,” and who knew that one of them would be Iantha? I was like, “Oh, this is perfect.” That was my mini-introduction to the fact that she was there, and then when I got on set, I saw that it was her and I was just so happy for her. She told me that she found out she got the role the last day of filming on This Is Us, so it was a really great ending and beginning for her. It was fantastic getting to see her in this leading role.
TVLINE | Getting to see Iantha shine here, was there any part of you that felt like a proud parent on that set?
Not parent. That was quite a future jump. [Laughs] But I felt proud of another sister who’s doing her thing in the business. With her specifically, she’d done such great work with us, and to see her shine and be a lead was such a wonderful thing. I love that. I love seeing another sister in the arts, and she’s just doing beautiful work down there.
TVLINE | You’re currently on set filming the new Shondaland show The Residence for Netflix, which is described as “a screwball whodunnit set in the upstairs, downstairs, and back stairs of the White House, among the eclectic staff of the world’s most famous mansion.” You play Jasmine Haney, “a young and rising White House Assistant Usher.” I know we’re still a ways out from release, but tell me a bit about that experience so far.
It has been amazing. I mean, a truly wonderful experience. The cast is outstanding, the writing is off the charts… I read 15 pages of the first episode and I said, “I have to do this,” which shows you just how strong Paul William Davies’ writing is. I’m a huge fan of anything Shondaland. If it’s Shondaland, I’m binge-watching it!
I really feel quite blessed to be a part of it. We’re having a great time on set. We’ve dealt with, and are still dealing with, the loss of Andre Braugher, who is still so much on our hearts and in our minds, and we send so much love to his family and to the people who were close to him. I truly hope that this show honors his memory and the greatness that he was and remains. I had the good fortune of being someone who worked by his side for most of his scenes. I was the biggest fan, and it was just a dream to work with him.
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