Patrick J. Adams Is Finally Watching ‘Suits,’ Imagines Where His and Meghan Markle’s Characters Would Be Today
Patrick J. Adams doesn’t know why he keeps being tapped to play characters embroiled in the legal world. After playing college dropout turned (un)licensed lawyer Mike Ross in eight seasons of the hit USA drama Suits, Adams starred as a time-traveling attorney in the CBC anthology Plan B. Now, in an upcoming episode of the Fox anthology Accused, the Canadian actor plays an abrasive tech entrepreneur whose facial-recognition software is brought to open court.
“I seem to be cast in roles of people who are the smart guy, the guy who’s got a brain that’s moving very quickly, sometimes for better or for worse,” Adams tells The Hollywood Reporter. “That seems to be a role that people want me to play, and I don’t necessarily think that I am very smart. In fact, most of the time, I think I’m not. But I am curious, and my brain does move pretty fast — sometimes too fast. So I think when I go out for these roles or when I do get to play them, people connect to that part of me.”
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Premiering Tuesday, the third episode of season two, “Marcus’ Story,” stars Nick Cannon as Marcus Paul, a successful tech entrepreneur who finds himself on trial for involuntary manslaughter after learning that his software revealed racial bias against Black and Asian people. Adams plays Marcus’ best friend, Pete Vanderkamp, who co-founded the tech company and created the original algorithm on which the software was based.
“I don’t get offered roles like Pete often. I don’t want to say he’s a bad guy, but he’s not a warm and fuzzy guy. He’s a little impulsive, tempestuous, aggressive. He doesn’t avoid conflict; he pushes people around,” Adams explains. “That’s something that’s not really my comfort zone; it’s not a part of my own personality that I’m very in touch with. Anytime you get a small chance to play in a world that forces you to deal with that part of yourself and bring it out for a few days on set, it’s a really interesting and fun thing to do.”
Accused is just one of the many projects that Adams has been working on lately. Earlier this year, he played an FBI agent in Lockerbie, the upcoming BBC/Netflix limited series about the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and the joint Scottish-American investigation. Following the unprecedented resurgence of Suits, which racked up 57.7 billion total minutes watched last year, Adams and Sarah Rafferty, who played Donna Paulsen, recently launched a new podcast, Sidebar: A Suits Watch Podcast, on which they plan to watch all of the episodes for the first time and speak with former cast and crew members about their experience of making the legal drama.
“We’ve reached out to everybody and said, ‘Come on as much and as often as possible,’ and then we’ll independently keep going back out, seeing what their schedules are,” he says, confirming that a certain Duchess, former co-star Meghan Markle, has also received an invitation.
Adams is currently in Montana, where he is suiting up once again to play an investment banker on The Madison, the next installment (and first sequel series) in Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone universe. Adams, who will star opposite Michelle Pfeiffer, is sworn to secrecy about the show, but he has called the shoot “already one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.”
In a wide-ranging conversation with THR, Adams opens up below about the ethical questions raised in Accused, why he chose to revisit Suits now, why he thinks Mike’s relationship with Harvey (Gabriel Macht) has stood the test of time — and the “lovely” text he received from Markle shortly after his and Rafferty’s podcast was announced.
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Your episode of Accused specifically explores the pervasive nature of facial-recognition software and the development of AI — a timely subject in light of recent labor action in Hollywood. Does telling a story like this make you reflect on your own relationship with technology, especially as a parent raising two young children in a world driven by innovations in that sector?
I don’t know if I went that far, but, ultimately, this is a story about a friendship that’s run off the rails. There’s this thing that may or may not have happened [to the facial recognition software] that may have really been disastrous. Pete wants to downplay it, and for Marcus, it’s a really big deal and it consumes him. But I think at the heart of any story that wants to talk about where ethics and technology interact, there’s a lot of fruit on the vine. It forces us to — I think you’re right — take a look at where our moral stance is on it because it’s no longer black and white. It’s like, “Well, if this can accomplish this much good, but it’s going to do a little bad, is it worth doing? Or because it does a little bad, we don’t do any of it at all?” I think as we go deeper and deeper into the technological hurricane we’re in, those questions become asked of each of us.
I don’t know if I’ve come to any necessary conclusions about my own relationship with technology. I think Pete’s a little fast and loose with his wanting to be successful and wanting for his company to be worth a billion dollars. Because I had to play him, I understand his point of view, that any progression is going to have some backward slides. And anytime you’re building something new, some bad is going to come of it. It’s a really fun, interesting, difficult conversation.
At this stage of your career, do you feel like you are able to be more picky with the kinds of stories you want to tell, or do you feel like you are still actively trying to break out of the Suits box?
It’s a really good question. I think I’m still in a zone, and I don’t say this unhappily, where I’ve had a lot of success. I’m very lucky. But I still have to fight for everything, and anything that anybody would want to offer me is typically something that’s so similar to what I’ve already done that I don’t really want to do it. So, do I dream of a career that so few people get to have, where it’s just pure choice, and you just scan through great projects with the most amazing people in the world and pick the characters that speak to you? Yes, but that also sounds scary.
At the end of the day, I still want to send my kids to school and take care of my responsibilities. So [my thinking is], “If I go there now and do that, will I have some room to maybe take a bigger risk later? Could I go make a small film or be attracted to something where the whole thing isn’t riding on my shoulders, so I can take an even bigger risk and play something different?” I still have the ability to make some choices. But at the end of the day, I’m going where I’m told.
Suits ended its nine-season run in 2019, but the show became a cultural phenomenon when it landed on Netflix last year. What was it like for you to watch the show get a new lease on life, but not be able to talk about it due to the Hollywood strikes? And why did you ultimately decide to make this new podcast?
I was on vacation up near Toronto that summer. We started doing summers at our family’s place up there, so I was very remote. I wasn’t on my phone a lot, and whenever I did pick up my phone, I’d get these messages or emails being like, “Have you seen this? Have you seen what’s happening?” I’d look at it and be like, “Yeah, I mean, Suits is done. I don’t know what that means.” I’d put it down. And then the next week is like, “No, it’s doing really well. It’s breaking records.” [Editor’s note: After Suits became a massive streaming hit, spinoff series Suits: LA now in the works.]
At first, I had, if I’m really honest, I had a sort of, “Well, what is this going to do for me?” kind of attitude, which happens sometimes. You’re like, “Okay, this is great, but Suits is in the past. How is this going to affect my career now? I can’t work, I can’t audition and I can’t really talk about it.” So I just kept ignoring it and being like, “Well, there’s nothing I can do about it, but that’s great.” And then it just kept getting more and more popular.
What kept creeping up, for me, was this sense that it won’t be ignored anymore. I’d done a pretty good job since Suits ended of being like, “I’m going to focus on the future. That’s done.” It was so big [during its original run] and so hard to wrap my head around. I didn’t watch it at all, because I was so self-conscious and insecure the whole time, so I’m just going to let that be in the past. There was some denial in that process of not facing it, of just wanting it to be in the rearview. The best days of my life were on that show, and then, as anything over the course of the better part of a decade, there were some really hard days — and I didn’t want to think about any of it.
The show being so successful and it being reinvigorated, and having people so engaged again and stopping us on the street — it just made me realize that I have to turn around and really look at this thing in the face. I need to appreciate it. I need to work through it. And what better way to work through a show than to watch it? (Laughs) That’s a good place to start.
What have you made of the experience thus far of revisiting the show?
Sarah and I had already been in these discussions of maybe doing a podcast. It felt like, “Oh, that would just be a fun thing to do,” and that it became a calling, almost. It was like, “Wait a minute, this could be really helpful for us, personally and creatively.” This will be a way for us to engage with fans, to talk to these incredible people who have supported the show for years and years, and hear about what they loved about the show, what they don’t love about the show, what changed and what didn’t.
Just to start all those discussions and be in dialogue with those people. It was an opportunity for me to really take the time to relive, rethink, re-litigate some of the things that happened in the format of a podcast. Those are the kinds of podcasts I like listening to — I want to sit in that room with people who are honest and open week after week. I’m interested to hear what’s going on and what they’re thinking about, and go on this journey with them.
What do you see, then, when you rewatch old episodes of Suits now? How do you see your younger self?
I can’t watch anything that I’m doing in the moment. Some actors on set will watch. I worked with Dustin Hoffman once, and he could do that. He could shoot a scene, and then he’d go back to the monitor. He’d watch it, he’d be like, “Let’s do it again,” and he’d change a little dial and come back. It wasn’t technical. He was still in the moment, but he had the ability to do that. It’s the opposite for me. If I even see a picture of myself on set, I can melt down and not be able to go back into the moment and be spontaneous and be out of my head, which is where I need to be, I think, to do my job properly. So that’s why I avoided the show for so long.
Now, I am filled with so much compassion for myself. There’s got to be something healing in there that I’ve got to work through with my therapist. [I’m able] to be kinder to myself and realize how amazing this entire group of people were. When you’re in something, you don’t have time to really be in any kind of gratitude, to just sit there and go, “How cool is this?” Or, at least, I didn’t as a young person, because I was so determined to get it right, do well and make the most out of it. It’s a hard thing to do when you’re stressed and there’s a lot of pressure. Watching the show now, I get to sit in that gratitude. I get to really realize how special this show was.
The thing that made the show so special, for me, was the relationship between Harvey and Mike. It was a depiction of male friendship that we hadn’t really seen on TV before. What do you think were the keys to building the kind of rapport that you had with Gabriel, particularly in the earlier seasons?
Can I ask you a question?
Sure.
When you say a type of male friendship that you hadn’t seen on television before, what does that mean?
I think there was something about these two guys who were obviously at the top of their game, and there was certainly a healthy amount of competition, but there wasn’t the same kind of toxic masculinity that is often associated with a lot of male friendships. It was refreshing to see the symbiosis that you two had together — both as characters and as actors.
There are many elements to it that have to do with the writing, but also have to do with who Gabriel is as a person, who I am as a person, what we are interested in doing — so it’s hard to give one answer. I would say the word that has always made the most sense to me, in terms of the relationship between Mike and Harvey, is … mentorship. It is a relationship that is the truest version of mentorship, which is not a dynamic that I think I can really remember seeing a lot, or being so foundational to a show on television.
Mentorship is complicated. Obviously, there’s a power dynamic. “You’re in charge, and I want to learn everything you have to teach me, but I’m also my own person and I’m going to do it my own way, and you have to respect that. But we also have to learn where I’ve stepped outside the boundaries and I’m making mistakes that you’re trying to keep me from making.” A bond, a friendship, comes out of that, but it’s more than just friendship. We’re not just getting beers together. We have a common purpose: “You’re trying to help me to be better at what I want to do, and in the process I probably have something to teach you and soften your heart a little bit,” which is part of [what Mike did for] Harvey.
I think some young men would want to be Harvey Specter. As we’ve seen, he’s like an icon now. I was like, “I don’t think Mike wants to be that. I want to be cool, to have nice suits, and to be able to do my job well, but I’m actually not interested in being the greatest closer in New York. I can embrace not needing to be the coolest guy in the room. It’s not my North Star. It’s your North Star. I’m not just trying to be you; I’m trying to be the best version of me that you can help me be.”
I think there’s something really complicated and beautiful about a friendship like that, and it definitely played out in our own relationship, too. Gabriel and I got along. The most important thing to us was mutual respect. Starting off, we were like, “We’ve got each other’s backs, no matter what. The best idea [for a scene or a line] wins. How can I help you today? How can you help me today?” We really started off on that foot, and Gabriel, to his credit, having a lot more experience than I did, was really determined to make sure that was the vibe on set, so he set a great precedent.
To your point, Harvey Specter has become a cultural icon, joining other powerful male antiheroes like Tony Soprano, Don Draper and Walter White. Jon Hamm told THR earlier this year that those kinds of characters are often celebrated for the wrong reasons; a certain demographic seems to think of them as ”a paragon of masculinity.” How did you guys approach the depiction of masculinity on Suits?
You should really talk to Gabriel at some point because he could write a book on this, and I know it was really important to him. I don’t want to speak for him, but I know it was a very important part of the formula and trying to figure out Harvey. Harvey needed to be that guy — that’s why people loved him, and the show wanted him to be that — but Gabriel’s not that guy and he really, from the beginning, was like, “Where can we ground this human being? Where can we give him heart? Where can we see his purpose? Where can we see what made him the way that he is?” But at the same time, he had to be the suave, debonair closer, kicking ass and taking names.
So, in a way, he’s probably better suited to answer that question, but I think we were all highly attuned on set to, like, “This feels icky. What’s the version of this where we can be tongue-in-cheek about our masculinity, where we can have the big masculine guy come in and do a thing, and then Louis Litt [played by Rick Hoffman] undermines him in such a way that is really funny, in the way that friends do?” Friend groups don’t let people get too high and mighty. That’s [creator] Aaron Korsh’s vibe. You can’t ever get too high and mighty or too big for your britches. Someone’s going to come in and make a joke and bring you down, and, as a result, you end up being this really tight-knit family. I think that might have something to do with the magic of it.
It’s funny that I’m talking to you today from the campus of my law school. I watched Suits as a teenager, and the show definitely inspired me to pursue a legal education.
If you need me to take any legal test for you, just let me know. I’m happy to do it. I guarantee you I’ll do much worse than you would ever do, but I’ll still do it.
Out of curiosity, what do you think you would actually score on the LSAT?
I once went online to look at what LSAT questions actually look like, and I can tell you, definitively, I would not do very well. (Laughs) I think there’s a part of me that would’ve made a good lawyer. Ask any one of my friends or anyone who may or may not be married to me. My ability to argue a point, if I’ve decided that I believe in something or just want to take a contradictory position, I’m pretty good, but the actual logistics of being a lawyer are completely lost on me.
On a recent episode of your podcast, you talked about how you and Meghan Markle, who played Rachel Zane, both came in with the least amount of experience and grew up together during the run of the show. You’ve said that you’re not really in touch with her anymore because you lead two very different lives, but have you spoken with her recently about the resurgence of the show? Will she ever be a guest on the podcast?
She sent a lovely text message when we decided we were doing it. Obviously, we informed the cast and said, “Look, guys, we really want to do this thing, and we are telling our stories. This is not about telling anyone else’s story.” Especially with Meghan, she’s had, obviously, such a crazy life since the end of the show, and she sent a lovely note in full support of the show and asking us how she could help. We’re very excited to see if and when there’s a crossover and we can do that.
Our North Star with Meghan is, like I said, we are never going to tell anybody else’s story. We’re super interested in just celebrating what she did on the show. She brought Rachel to life in such a beautiful way, and that was such an important part of my experience on the show because Mike and Rachel are such a huge part of that journey for me. So, for our purposes, it’s just about celebrating that and completely staying away from anything outside of that. Hopefully, along the way, she’ll come and join us for a conversation. That would obviously be incredible.
In the season seven finale of Suits, Mike and Rachel got married and moved to Seattle to run a firm that only takes class-action lawsuits against Fortune 500 companies. Harvey and Donna later joined them in the series finale. Where do you think Mike and Rachel would be now?
Hopefully, they’re still together kicking it in Seattle. I have a hard time imagining them in that climate for that long, I don’t know why, but they seem to be strong. I like the idea of them just crushing it in Seattle and saving people’s lives and fighting for the little people — and not having to wear those [expensive] clothes every day, wearing something a little bit more comfortable.
I always thought they would have some children by now.
Hell, yeah!
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Adams’ episode of Accused airs Tuesday, Oct. 22 at 9/8c on Fox. Sidebar: A Suits Rewatch Podcast debuts new episodes every Tuesday wherever podcasts are available.
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