Interview: ‘Doubt’ Star Katherine Heigl, EP Tony Phelan on CBS’s New Legal Drama

Ahead of ‘Doubt’s’ series premiere, join star Katherine Heigl and Executive Producer Tony Phelan as they discuss CBS’s exciting new law drama!

This spring, Katherine Heigl returns to the small screen in her most-talked about role in years as Sadie Ellis, a brilliant attorney at a boutique law firm who begins to blur the lines of her professional and personal lives when she starts falling for her client Billy Brennan (Steven Pasquale), a man being charged in the death of his girlfriend which occured years ago. As Sadie’s feelings for Billy continue to grow, it’ll become more and more difficult to hide them from her colleagues – including her close friend and fellow counselor on the case Albert Cobb (Dulé Hill). 

Not only could her decision to become romantically involved with Billy cost her the career she’s worked her whole life to perfect, but a guilty verdict could cost Sadie her first true chance at happiness. Now, in order to avoid losing both Sadie must prove Billy’s innocence in the crime beyond a reasonable doubt – even if she herself is unsure of his guilt in the crime.

Before CBS takes viewers into the courtroom, Hidden Remote caught up with star Katherine Heigl and Executive Producer Tony Phelan to discuss CBS’s new legal drama, Sadie’s inner struggle with her forbidden love for Billy (and the shades of Grey’s Anatomy some viewers may find shining through Sadie & Billy’s dynamic), making television history, more!

Hidden Remote: What was it about the premise of the series and your character Sadie, in particular, that attracted you the project? 

Katherine Heigl: There were a lot of things that excited me about the show. I think first and foremost what got my attention was Tony and Joan [Rater] because I’ve worked with them before and I know how talented, smart and funny their work is – so that sort of first piqued my interest. Then when I read the pilot and went in and talked to them, I was just so blown away by the premise, by the characters and by their overall story outline for the season – it’s really, really good! It’s one of the best I’ve ever heard of so I was just so excited to get to be a part of it.

[Sadie is a] character I really respect and admire and love playing; I love playing a smart, ambitious, talented woman! On top of that she’s charming, and she’s funny, and she’s sexy, and she’s complicated – she’s kind of an actress’ overall dream character.

Hidden Remote: Sadie’s struggles with her feelings for Billy is a key aspect of the series. Tony, what is what is it about this dynamic that you’re most looking forward to exploring throughout Season 1? 

Tony Phelan: It’s interesting because one of the things that really struck Joan and I  when we were coming up with the idea for the series, is you talk with the defense attorneys and what they say, and Sadie says this in the pilot as well, is that when you have a client that is charged with a serious crime they are, in some ways, entirely reliant upon you. In the case of Billy, he’s been in jail for four months awaiting his arraignment and Sadie had been his lifeline to the outside. So you just put your hopes and dreams and everything on this person who you’re looking at to save you.

The interesting thing about these two characters is that each of them comes from, in a very different way, a broken home and a unique family life. In a weird way they find each other and in different circumstances they are so perfect for each other, it’s just the confines of their professional relationship make it so that they can’t be together. That just struck Joan and I as kind of a great dramatic fodder, to see this attorney struggle with this attraction that she feels while knowing that professionally she just can’t step over that line.

Hidden Remote: Katherine, as an actress, what are you enjoying most about exploring this dynamic through Sadie?

Heigl: It’s such a tug and pull emotionally for her wanting to and believing she should remain professional but also not being able to help the way she feels and the way this man makes her feel – and not really ever having anyone make her feel that way. The moral dilemma of do I risk everything and go for it because who knows if this great feeling, this great love, will ever come around again. Or, do I give it up so that I can maintain my status within my firm, career and chosen profession? It’s just a really interesting, fun, juicy, emotional roller coaster to get to play.

Photo Credit: Doubt/CBS Image Acquired from CBS Press Express

Hidden Remote: Katherine, do you feel that Sadie is more of a rational or emotional individual and how do you feel her mother’s absence has affect her and how she carries herself? 

Heigl: I absolutely think [her mother’s absence] influences the [rational] side of her personality and I think she tries to contain her emotional reaction to things as much as possible. I think she’s very uncomfortable with emotional vulnerability and revealing too much of that part of herself to others; I think the only person who really sees that part of her Dulé [Hill]’s character Albert and, of course, Isaiah (Elliott Gould). I think mostly she’s functioning from a place that’s more rational than emotional – not because that’s who she is but because that’s who she believes she should be.

Hidden Remote: Do you see any shades of Izzy Stevens in the character, particularly in how Izzy fell for her patient Denny and how Sadie is falling for her client? 

Heigl: That’s so funny because I didn’t [consider it] until you just said that – I don’t know why I didn’t make that connection at all! (laughs) It is similar in a way. It’s that forbidden love thing! That was really fun to play on Grey’s Anatomy and it’s really fun to play once again on Doubt.

Phelan: Now that you mention it, it does seems somewhat similar. I think that the big difference is that in Izzy’s case, Izzy was still figuring out who she was and how she wanted to be in her career and how important her career was going to be versus her personal life. [Meanwhile], Sadie is very much an established, professional woman. So it’s a slightly different dynamic on the same landscape and Katherine as an actress brings so much more grounding and depth in her portrayal of Sadie. I think that the audience is going to enjoy that parallel if they get it, but it’s going to feel different.

Hidden Remote: Tony, can you talk about how you chose the format of the show in terms of the story arch design? 

Phelan: We were committed to telling the story of Billy’s case over the course of the 13 episodes. So Katherine and Dulé and their work on Billy’s case is touched on in every episode. We’re not necessarily in court in every episode, there might just be one or two scenes while each of them does another case.

We found in partnership with CBS, an idea that we usually wanted to have two, sometimes three, close-ended cases per episode where we would tell the entire story in that episode and then have elements of the Billy story arched through the 13 [episodes]. I think that each of the characters go through their own personal arc through the 13 episodes, so there’s an accumulation of their personal lives and how they intertwine both in their cases and with their colleagues at the firm.

Photo Credit: Doubt/CBS Image Acquired from CBS Press Express

Hidden Remote: Among the series’ stars is the incredible Laverne Cox (above right), can you talk about whether any of the series’ cases will touch on her status as a transgender woman and is there anything else you can tease about the character? 

Phelan: One of our cases is about a hate crime committed against a transgender person and one of the things we explore with Laverne’s character Cameron is does it make sense for Cameron to defend this woman or not. Is it going to be a distraction and is it going to be better for somebody else in the firm to defend this woman?

The other thing we’re very proud of in terms of her character is that her character is going to actually have an ongoing love story that happens through the 13 episodes. I believe Laverne is the first transgender actor who is a series regular on a network show, but I also think that this love story is something people haven’t seen before. [It’s] fun, sexy, funny and touching and is all the things that a great love story are.

Hidden Remote: There are many legal dramas, both good and bad, that have been made throughout the years. At what point did you realize, ‘Hey I have something special here that the audience is going to love’ that is going to set Doubt aside from the rest? 

Phelan: When Joan and I came to [CBS], we signed a deal to develop our own shows after leaving Grey’s Anatomy and when you do that, you kind of look over the landscape and see what is on the air right now and what is missing. Since 9/11, there have been a lot of shows about prosecutors and about putting people in prison and catching bad guys; we felt like the other side of that dynamic was missing.

And the other thing that struck us as we were reading the news and paying attention to what’s going on in the world is that up until very recently, there seemed to be some consensus between Republicans and Democrats that our criminal justice system has some very serious flaws in it, in the way that it’s operating right now. And a chance to tell those stories and to tell the story of these lawyers who, god forbid, you find yourself accused of a crime and the full weight of the government is coming down on you – who is that person who is going to stand at your side and give you a vigorous defense? A vigorous defense that everyone in the United States is entitled to. So the chance to tell those stories felt like that was something that I didn’t really see on television so that really excited us.

I think as we went further and further into the show and assembled the cast and really started writing the cases that were coming into us, it was very exciting and challenging to kind of create a legal show where the audience is always feeling as our characters are feeling. That they’re kind of caught in the middle. There are pluses and minuses to both sides so dealing with that kind of gray world is exciting and what makes for good drama.

Heigl: I think the biggest moment for me was just when Tony and Joan were talking about the scope of the show before I came on and realizing how clever and thoughtful and truly unique their ideas were. That was the moment I went, “this was special.” And then, you never know exactly how it’s going to come alive. You know, it looks awesome on page, but then you don’t know if it’s going to come alive in the same way.

For me, I think the second moment where I realized we had something special on our hands were the moments on set where we as a group, the lawyers, all together, either for the morning briefing or whenever they get together as a group, I noticed jut the dynamic among us as performers and as characters. The way we engage with each other and make each other laugh and the chemistry I think we just kind of automatically had made me realize it’s not only great on page, it’s coming alive at a really exciting, fun and engaging way. And I feel like when we’re having that much fun together, it’s really evident on camera and it’s fun for the audience. Those are the shows that I most love to watch.

Photo Credit: Doubt/CBS Image Acquired from CBS Press Express

Hidden Remote: What can you say about Sadie’s evolution from the pilot to later in the season?

Heigl: Sadie goes through quite a bit this season. It’s really satisfying as an actor to be able to play all of these different moments. She’s dealing with not only her mother’s upcoming parole hearing, but she’s falling in love with her client, which is obviously not kosher. There’s a lot that she is emotionally dealing with, and is still trying to maintain a level of professionalism and trying to do the job well and trying to win.

By the end of the season — it’s so good, that it’s hard for me not to mess up — by that point, everything culminates into this one amazing moment. I’m just really excited to see what will happen for her next season, how she could deal with the outcome of all of it.

Hidden Remote: What is the currently planing like for the series? Do you already have ideas floating around your head for future seasons should the series perform well? 

Phelan: It’s fun, because the structure of this show is to have a procedural that also has personal elements in it. The great thing about a law show like this is that everyday, in the news, online, or just from talking to different lawyers, there are hundreds of possible stories of cases that could walk in the door. Coupled with that is the great advantage that we have with this tremendous cast — you can write anything for any of them. We, Joan and I, started to get very excited as the season went on, knowing that each time we served up an acting challenge for someone in the cast, they just hit it out of the park.

We are beginning to knock around what we could do in Season 2. We leave Season 1 on a great cliffhanger, and the ability to deliver that to the audience and coming up with a satisfying way to move on from that cliffhanger and seeing where everybody’s lives are going to go beyond Episode 13 would be fantastic. We hope that the audience is going to be as invested in the people and the work that they do as we are.

Don’t miss the series premiere of Doubt Wednesday, February 15 at 10/9c on CBS!