Matthew Rhys loves to play complicated characters—the Welsh actor previously thrilled TV audiences as the tortured undercover KGB agent Philip Jennings in FX’s Cold War drama The Americans. So when a reboot of Perry Mason that reimagined the character as a haunted lawyer amidst a hard-boiled noir setting, he leapt at the chance. “It was tailor made for me, just full of piss and vinegar,” he tells GQ. The second season of the HBO Max show pitted Perry and his trusted legal team against the wealthy elite of Los Angeles, in a racially charged murder case that put two seemingly innocent Mexican young men on the hook for killing an oil tycoon’s (dipshit) son. Last night’s season finale wrapped that case, but left some dangling burning questions: an anxious feeling for an underrated series skating on the bubble.
But even if we don’t get a third season, at least the ending leaves the tormented Perry in a stronger place spiritually, putting him closer to the self-assured hero lawyer you may remember from the original series. If the show gets renewed, the writers have a clear runway to not only work with a new, improved Perry Mason, and more of some of the most immaculate noir vibes on TV right now. GQ talked with Rhys about what’s next for Perry, why he loves playing dark characters so much, and if we’re getting a season three.
First things first. Are we going to get a third season?
I don’t know. We’re sitting squarely in the lap of the HBO gods. So we’re all sitting with our fingers crossed hoping we’ll get the call saying it’s on like Kong, but time will tell.
What was it about this role that drew you to this project?
There were a number of things. From season one, it’s like they go back to the source material of the books. They put him in Los Angeles during the Depression, which was one of the only boom towns during that era. Then they put him in as one of the original pioneer families who’s losing that land. Then they added that he’s a World War I veteran. On top of that, he suffers from this incredible kind of quote, unquote, “injustice”—because that to me was key. It’s like they put him in this position whereby a number of different people would view what he did as either right, wrong, or barbaric. And then as a result of that, he goes to a military prison. His sense of justice or right and wrong is formed in an extreme way. And then you place him as a private detective during that era, as someone who’s a loner, there’s not a group that he belongs to. He’s such a layered person before he even opens his mouth. And I was like, “I’m all in on this guy.”
You kind of had some experience with this playing Philip Jennings in The Americans. That was a complicated role where the character was sad and depressed all the time.
Oh, that’s just me. I’ve said, if melancholy was an Olympic sport, the Welsh would be gold medalists. It was tailor made for me, just full of piss and vinegar.
Just a tortured soul all the time.
Oh, 99% of the time.
Does that take a lot out of you during the course of shooting for the season?
No, I was lucky I went to a drama school where they teach you that there’s a switch and you turn that switch on and you turn it off. There’s none of this bullshit about taking it home or living the part. That’s never been an issue for me. I think if you work hard enough, then the switch would be very easy. I never get depressed because of the parts I play because you switch them on, you switch them off.
Are you as obsessed with justice as Perry Mason is?
Not in the slightest. No, I do have that. My father had that very strong sense of right and wrong that he definitely handed down to me. So in this day and age, I’m not doing well. You can rail at your computer 24/7 with the amount of shit going on. The only difference is I don’t have Mason’s bravery. I don’t do fuck all about it. I’m just trying to contribute money. And it’s certainly something I try to hand down to the kids, but then you think more and more, “I don’t know, is a sense of justice helpful to anyone anymore in a time of such injustice?”
What was the process of bringing in new writers and showrunners to take the series in a new direction?
Well, you are nervous because I was really proud of what we did in season one and we set something up that I was incredibly happy with. And then you’re concerned, you’re like, “OK, what are the new guys going to do?” Look, there’s a curse and a blessing to being picked up for a second season in that you go, “OK, do we now have to do something completely different in order to buck what we’ve done, or do you almost repeat what we’ve done because something worked, and then risk being unoriginal?” So there’s many ways you look at it.
But when I met Jack [Amiel] and Michael [Begler], I could tell immediately they weren’t going to do something dangerous with it. The only thing they said to me is they want to open Mason up, open his humor up to a degree‚which concerned me slightly because he’s not a humorous person. But very quickly I saw what they wanted to do is kind of unearth Mason’s more caustic, sardonic, heavily sarcastic gallows humor which was his way of dealing with the adversity that he’s being thrown at him every day. So I enjoyed that dark humor that they started to feather in gently without really changing anything too viciously.
I was disappointed when it turned out that the kids actually did it. While you were reading the script, did that catch you?
No, because at that point I was like, “It almost can’t be anyone else.” Unless you’re going to do a massive, kind of, “Muahaha, it was me all along,” moment, which could have been dangerous in itself. A crime was committed, he understands why they committed that crime, he has a great deal of empathy towards him, but he also realizes if you take another life, you have to serve. And the fact that one of them is innocent is everything he could have imagined, I think it’s the perfect result for Mason, it was the ideal scenario. And the fact that he had no qualms going to prison because he did the right thing in order for the right thing to happen.
When Paul found the gun, I didn’t want to believe it, man. I was waiting for the bait and switch, the ole’ switcheroo, but it never came.
No, I know. Listen: how many red herrings do you do? How many twists for twists’ sake do you put in? It’s a fine line of keeping the audience game, and not pissing them off.
How do those four months in jail go for Perry?
Well that to me is an incredible setup because: what happens to him in those four months? He’s now immersed with the men he’s defending. It’s just the perfect setup because he can come out of there and go in any direction now. He can have more zeal about his fight for justice and fucking the system. He can be even more disillusioned. He can be any which way you can take him out to four months in jail.
The way things turned out in season one clearly affected him, but he seems more content at the end of season two’s case. Hopefully he comes out and he feels a little better about what he’s doing.
Yeah, I think so. Because he went in head held high going, “I have no problem with this.”
Where can season three go from here?
My greatest concern is that we don’t fall into anything formulaic or procedural, because if you do, I think we’re kind of dead. I love that we 180-ed from the end of season one to season two. He’s not the slick lawyer you were expecting him to be. He’s deeply, deeply enmeshed with this kind of imposter syndrome, riddled with self-doubt and anxiety, loathing of the judicial system itself. So whatever it is, I just hope that it’s just not something we’re expecting at the beginning of season three. I’ll put pressure on the writers.