Friday, March 29, 2024

Erica Ash, Christian Keyes, Richard Lawson Dish on New BET Legal Drama ‘In Contempt’

(L-R) Actors Erica Ash, Christian Keyes, Richard Lawson, Megan Hutchings, and Ronnie Rowe Jr., and creator/showrunner Terri Kopp of ‘In Contempt’ speak onstage during the Viacom portion of the 2018 Winter Television Critics Association Press Tour at The Langham Huntington, Pasadena on January 15, 2018, in Pasadena, California.

*BET Networks has just wrapped production on “In Contempt,” a procedural series set in the fast-paced world of a legal aid office in New York City.

Fighting for clients who can’t afford their own lawyers, the series follows Gwen Sullivan (Erica Ash), an opinionated and wildly outspoken attorney, whose passion for her job and her clients, make her arguably the most talented public defender in her district, but often gets her into trouble in and out of the courtroom. 

Series creator/showrunner Terri Kopp and the “In Contempt” cast: Ash, Christian Keyes, Richard Lawson, Megan Hutchings and Ronnie Rowe Jr., were on hand for the TV critics winter press tour on Jan. 15 in Pasadena, CA, where they dished about the template of the series: How hard it is serving as a public defender, especially when prosecutors tend to have access to more resources and not as heavy a workload.

“It really all boils down to access and money,” says Ash, with Kopp revealing that she once worked as a public defender.

“I was a public defender in Manhattan for about three and a half years at the Legal Aid Society. And, yeah, that’s an accurate description. We didn’t have the same resources. We weren’t even paid the same as prosecutors were paid. People have this idea that criminals have special rights, and they get all the breaks, and it’s actually the opposite. People accused of crimes are fighting an uphill battle,” Kopp explains.

Adding, “the judges are usually ruling against you. The prosecutors have more time, more money. Public defenders have huge caseloads. You have 125 misdemeanors and 20 indicted felonies. There is a stereotype of the overworked terrible public defender. My experience was that we were really overworked, but also really dedicated, really committed to the work. It’s also a pretty competitive job. It’s a hard job to get.”

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Ash clarifies for the room full of TV critics that “there are a few who have quite a bit of money,” to hire lawyers, but “the rest of them are represented by the public defender’s office.  I know in Atlanta, because that was kind of part of my research, was to spend time with the public defenders there, they actually don’t represent the clients who have a lot of money. That’s the whole point of the public defender, it’s for people who can’t afford representation for themselves.”

Industry vet Richard Lawson believes the job of a public defender is like “going to war with one bullet in your gun, if you understand that analogy,” he says during “In Contempt” TCA panel. 

The 10-episode scripted drama has been in the works “for a long time,” Kopp reveals. “It’s had different lives and iterations, and it would kind of get close, and the studios would say, “Well, you know, everyone’s guilty. We don’t know who to root for.” They just don’t really get what the show is trying to say. And then it came to BET, which I think is the right and perfect place for a show like this. BET has been committed to this show for a long time. I sold this to them a few years back. They’ve been committed to it,”… but the network didn’t feel the climate for the show was right, until now.

“I think it just happened to bubble back up right now,” Kopp adds. In her three and a half years at the public defender’s office, one critic asked how many people got to do what Erica Ash does in the courtroom on the series — in terms of firing off “middle fingers and curse words.”

“It’s a little heightened reality,” says Kopp. “She says the things I wish I could have said, you know? She reaches into her back pocket and pulls out that technique or that move that she’s going to do that makes the point that she’s trying to make, but it’s definitely what I wish I could have said.”

Ash jokes that “the throughline of my career is that I don’t play a quiet character. I play those characters that say the things that need to be said. It is a lot of fun because in my real life, believe it or not, I do have boundaries and scruples when it comes to speaking to people, and so sometimes I’ll pretend like I’m in character in my real life and say the things that need to be said, and blame it on prep work.”

In terms of the cast’s research and preparation, Christian Keys “harassed Terri as much as possible” for information related to her personal experience with the subject matter. 

“She gave us diagrams,” Keys reveals.“We had video clips and things online. We had so many resources, between what’s available out there and what she would send us to make sure that we had an idea and were prepared. It was so thorough and helpful. And then speaking with the actual public defenders as well, just kind of getting an idea of how overwhelmed and underpaid and underappreciated they are, it definitely fed the preparation process for me.”

When the cast is asked if they referred to any popular legal shows for inspiration, or from their favorite fictional lawyers, Keys touches on his love for “Law and Order” and how “In Contempt” has a similar “vibe” and “honesty.”

“What’s different with this is it’s from a brilliant, passionate, female-driven perspective, which, as men, sometimes we’re not privy to. We don’t always get a chance to kind of pull that curtain aside and see a woman’s weakness. You know, all the pressures that you guys go through and the flaws, and that those flaws are okay. And all that’s available, and more, in the writing. That was part of the reason I fell in love with it because it was like a younger, witty, fresh sexy “Law and Order,” he says.

“The choices that my character had to make in this show weren’t always the popular choice,” Ash explains. “And sometimes the things she had to do on behalf of her client, made me take pause and wonder, do I like her? Am I going to root for her in this episode? And it frightened me because it’s making the decision to tell the truth, regardless of how it comes across. And one character that I did appreciate having seen in making these kinds of choices and having to do the work behind that, is Viola Davis in “How to Get Away With Murder,” because I watched her make some unpopular choices, and I saw how the audience reacted to that, and I saw where it got her, in terms of that. And I thought, I can do this.”

BET has set an April 10 debut date for the series.

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