'Secrets and Lies' Star Juliette Lewis on Playing an Unsmiling Cop and Working With Ryan Phillippe (Again)

A lot changes in 15 years. The last time Juliette Lewis and Ryan Phillippe crossed career paths, on a bloody kidnapping caper called The Way of the Gun, she was the victim and he was packing heat.

Now, for Secrets and Lies, Lewis is the heat and it’s Phillippe who winds up in her cross hairs. You can get a tiny taste of the shift in dynamics in this exclusive clip from Sunday’s premiere of ABC’s 10-episode remake of an Australian series about a cul de sac turned inside out after a child is murdered and the neighborhood father who found the body becomes the prime suspect.

Lewis spoke with Yahoo TV exclusively from her home in New York about reteaming with her tormentor from 2000, who she says has “gotten better with age”; the “tough challenge” of being detached detective Andrea Cornell; shooting (literally and figuratively) in North Carolina; and why she is so excited for audiences to watch this “slow-building whodunit with a ton of human drama.”

What was it like to work with Ryan again after all these years?
I love Ryan. We are so similar to who we were back then, but older — we’re both 40 now — and hopefully wiser and maybe hopefully both better actors. This is something we have never seen from him before. He really blew me away. I had no idea he was capable of that. On the movie we did before, we had only a couple of scenes together. This role he gets to really show the gamut of emotions. He’s a father, a broken man, a husband.

How would you describe Secrets and Lies to potential viewers?
A slow burn. Ryan’s character finds a dead little boy from his neighborhood while out on a run and becomes the prime suspect in the investigation, led by my character. There are a lot of twists and turns, and the main suspect can change at any point, just like in a real homicide investigation. For people who like to piece things together, solve puzzles, and guess whodunit, this is a perfect show for them. But for people who want the dramatic side, we also get to see how the suspect and his family are affected and how everyone starts to be affected by the death of this child they knew, and the accusations against a pillar of their community. People turn on each other, the paranoia sets in, and everyone in this neighborhood has stuff they are hiding. Even Cornell. Those skeletons in the closets on the cul de sac are why it is called Secrets and Lies. The first half is mostly from Ryan’s perspective, and I come in and out as needed for the case. But for the last four or five episodes, we start to see more of me and learn a little about my backstory and my interests to see what makes her tick and what makes her the type of detective she is.

Related: Ryan Phillippe Talks ‘Exhausting’ Experience of Filming ‘Secrets and Lies’

I understand people can see more of the investigation in webisodes.
Yes. I am so excited by this. It is groundbreaking. There will be webisodes that run concurrently with the show[exploring] the interrogations and legwork that is the real art of police work. It is like psychological warfare. I loved shooting the freaking interrogations. Those are great for people who are really into the methodical process of murder investigations to see what we don’t show on TV.

So the whole season follows this one case?
They were inspired off the cable model, like True Detective or The Killing, in that it is not a new case every episode. The whole first season focuses on my character trying to solve this one case over 10 episodes. Everyone in the cast will go after these 10 episodes except me. If we get picked up for a second season, my character is the mainstay and we would move on to a different investigation. I am really into that concept. I think it is a super-interesting setup.

Viewers have been burned a few times by this setup. Will there be a resolution to the crime at hand in this season?
Yes. Nobody will see the end coming, not by a long shot. It totally surprised me. It is so good.

Talk about Cornell.

It’s a trip for me, because I have never done anything like this, never played a character that shows absolutely nothing of herself. When you sign on to a TV show, you only get to see one script usually, so I had a lot of conversations with the creator of the show, Barbie [Klingman], because she was the one who held all the answers to who this character is. Not all detectives are the same — some play bad cop, some are awkward, some are funny. Cornell is not the sassy lady cop, and that was very deliberate. You certainly do not want to get on her bad side. She’s very cerebral, methodical, obsessive, and really dedicated to work, which is something that I really respect, actually, very pragmatic, and idiosyncratic in the way she thinks about things. She’s a character that — what’s that metaphor? — holds her cards close to her chest. Except for social niceties, I don’t think she smiles the whole time. In detective land, you have to deal with a lot of intense emotions, so you yourself have to remain mostly unemotional and detached. These are people, like law enforcement and surgeons, in professions that don’t have the luxury of being able to be emotional or to break down. In my line of work, it’s almost a requirement. But it would ruin their ability to do their job.

What was the biggest challenge for you?
Not smiling. I am the complete opposite of Cornell. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I have no poker face. When we finished, I actually thought, “Thank God, I can smile again.” But it was absolutely true to the character and the profession. The detectives I spent time with and interviewed for research had some social graces to get people to talk and to gain trust and information. They use human interaction in a manipulative and calculated fashion to further investigations and find killers. So all of my scenes where I’m asking questions, I’m pretending to listen and be nice. They’re not real social interactions for her.

Would you make a good cop?
Not at all. I watched one real interrogation of a 17-year-old lying to protect her boyfriend who just committed murder, and the cops did the dance to try to get her to give up where he was hiding. I couldn’t stomach it, because I feel too much. I felt her energy. It was too much. I wanted to run in there and be like, “Don’t do this. Don’t throw away your life for this scumbag killer.” She was the age of my niece. I was f—ked up about this for three days, and it was just one case. Which is why I am an actor and not in law enforcement.

Did you have more research than interviewing cops, like gun training?
You might remember I’ve done a couple of movies where I had a gun or two, so I know how to shoot. You always gotta have a refresher course, though. We also had some great consultants on set who helped me get everything right when I was out in the field or at the crime scene. There’s a science to it. We try to honor the profession as best we can, but I am not totally obsessed with realism. It needs to be somewhat heightened for entertainment value.

How did you like shooting in North Carolina?
Although I missed home, North Carolina is a spectacular place to spend four months. Wilmington has a great downtown area. It is not too small town or too big city. The people were really welcoming and nice. The weather was lovely. I bonded so much with the other actresses like Natalie Martinez and KaDee Strickland. I really fell in love with the town and the industry there. They have shot a lot of TV and movies there. It was a good ol’ time.

Secrets and Lies premieres Sunday, March 1 with a two-hour special from 9 to 11 p.m. on ABC.