Josh Lucas fills Cruise’s shoes in The Firm
SPOTLIGHT The Firm premieres Sunday on Global and NBC with a special two-hour episode; it will then move to its regular time slot on Thursday.
Mitch Mcdeere looks pretty good for a man who has spent the last 10 years terrified, in hiding, and constantly looking over his shoulder.
The last time the public saw Mcdeere, the character was being played by Tom Cruise in the 1993 film The Firm. This month, Mcdeere is reborn on TV in the capable hands of actor Josh Lucas. TV’S The Firm, which bows Sunday on NBC and Global, takes place 10 years after the events of the film and John Grisham’s highly successful novel.
In the new drama, Mcdeere and his wife, Abby (Molly Parker), have returned to their normal lives after spending 10 years in the witnessprotection program — the price they paid for bringing down the powerful, mobrun law firm of Bendini, Lambert & Locke. The mob boss whom Mcdeere put away recently died in prison, so the family believes it’s safe to return to their old identities. Leaving police protection with them are Mcdeere’s brother Ray (Callum Keith Rennie) and secretary Tammy (Juliette Lewis).
“A lot of it, for me, is to (pay) homage (to) elements of the book and elements of the movie, because there is so much about both that I like,” Lucas said in an interview. “The movie is a very good movie . . . and Cruise is great in it. So it becomes a responsibility, not to fill those shoes, or replace those shoes; it’s more just to put on different shoes, and hopefully, people go, ‘There (are) a couple different stripes that are the same.’ . . . I obviously have to make this character my own, but I also don’t want to throw out the baby with the bath water.”
Co-stars Rennie and Parker both say Lucas brings a different kind of energy to Mcdeere’s character. “There is a brash recklessness with Tom (Cruise), or in his interpretation of that character, and I think Josh is a little more measured out,” Rennie said in an on-set interview.
Parker said Lucas is the right man for the role today. “I think Mitch Mcdeere is sort of this idealist — (an) ambitious, passionate man. . . . Josh has an enormous amount of integrity . . . and will fight for what he believes in, and it seems that is right in line with the Mitch Mcdeere we have in the show.”
The goal of the series is “to take elements of the movie and the book and move them forward,” but to also make something unique in its own right, Lucas said, adding that the TV audience need not be familiar with the show’s source material to understand the series.
In the premiere, Mcdeere appears devoted to his struggling private practice, but his burgeoning relationship with a new legal firm can only spell future trouble. For Lucas, best known as a movie actor, he had the most trouble adjusting to the small-screen workload.
“It’s kind of amazing, really; 10 years of moviemaking and I probably made 20 hours of movies. In this case, I will have done 23 hours of television in a period of 10 months. The pace of it, the intensity of the day to day, has been extraordinary. People say it’s like running a marathon.”
When asked about the timing of bringing Mcdeere back in 2012, Lucas said the demand has always been there. “John Grisham talks about how, of all the characters he’s ever created, every book he’s ever written, the thing he is consistently asked more than any other question is, ‘What happened to Mitch Mcdeere?’ ” Lucas said. “It’s (been) 10 miserable years (for the Mcdeeres). They really have been terrifying years of thinking they could (be killed) at any given moment. It’s an incomprehensible life of stress and fear and paranoia.”
For Lucas, The Firm sets itself apart in the seemingly endless world of TV’S police and legal procedurals.
The difference “is John Grisham, in the sense that there is not another show that I can think of where the characters are inside of their own personal thriller — that they are living a life that is totally fraught with incredible danger,” he said. “Every character you watch from, say, CSI to NCIS to Law & Order (that have similar) procedural elements . . . the difference is that those characters’ lives are not also in danger, (on top) of the inherent legal or detective (work) that they’re dealing with.
“To me, it’s the most fun to play,” Lucas added. “How do you play a character who is going to a courtroom to work a case that is fascinating and interesting, but at the same time, is absolutely paranoid and stressed out about his personal life, (worried) that his wife and child might be assassinated?”
Parker’s part in the show might surprise fans accustomed to her eclectic acting portfolio. She played a necrophiliac in Kissed (1996) and went for laughs in the Paul Gross comedy, Men with Brooms (2002). Her TV choices have been equally wide-ranging, including the HBO series Deadwood, and a lead role on the short-lived series Swingtown. While The Firm’s Abby Mcdeere might seem a more traditional role, Parker thinks her character stands out.
“I have not, in my career, really aspired to play the wife of anyone, frankly,” she said. “But this role is, at its best, a woman who is the cornerstone of her family, and is as important to the drama of the show and the functioning of the business as her husband.”