Presumed Innocent star Jake Gyllenhaal says the new legal drama, while based on an older story, is different than other modern-day courtroom thrillers.
"What's interesting is the family dynamic versus what is happening in the court of public opinion. But then you go back to the family and I think that becomes the most pressurized situation, right?" Gyllenhaal explains to 12DOVE. "You spend time with the family and then you wonder because of what's happened in the dynamic of the family, what's gonna happen in the courtroom. And then you go back and you do the same thing from the courtroom to the family."
Gyllenhaal plays Rusty Sabich, a prosecutor who finds himself on the stand after becoming the prime suspect in the murder of his colleague and mistress, Carolyn Polhemus (Renate Reinsve). His nemesis of sorts, Tommy Molto (Peter Sarsgaard), becomes the lead prosecutor in the case and is determined to take Rusty down at any cost. The situation becomes confusing for Rusty's kids, Jaden and Kyle (Chase Infiniti and Kingston Rumi Southwick), who must decide whether they want to forgive their father for cheating on their mother Barbara (Ruth Negga) all while hoping he doesn't go away to prison for life.
"And so is this play between how it stretches and pulls and tries all of them. I I also think it's very interesting to have someone doing a profession who's then accused of something that they've always tried to prosecute. So what you're doing is flipping something constantly on its head and challenging somebody who would never want to be in that position and who has been fought by other people or fought other people and that to me is a very interesting dynamic and very different in terms of the questions it poses."
The series marks the second adaptation of Scott Turrow's best-selling novel with the first being the 1990 movie of the same name starring Harrison Ford. The movie spawned a made-for-TV sequel as well as a miniseries based on Turrow's follow-up novel Innocent, which starred Bill Pullman as Sabich. David E. Kelley, creator of hit dramas like Big Little Lies and The Lincoln Lawyer, serves as showrunner and headwriter.
"It's David Kelley, so you're not gonna get to the end of any episode and be like, 'Ooh, I don't know if I wanna watch the next one.' He's set it up in, in a way where you're like, 'I gotta' <laugh>. There's a sort of masterclass of structure that I think is unlike any other sort of storyteller in that form."
Sarsgaard says the show airing weekly rather than premiering on the streamer in a binge model format is also what makes it different from other modern-day legal shows.
"I'm telling the story of what I think happened in the crime as a lawyer. That's the job of a prosecutor. The audience, each person is going to be telling their own story after each episode, and then they have a week to go and have that experience with another person and hear their story and oh, yours ended up being more right. And oh, now it changed in episode two and the way that it asks something of the viewer and of the community of viewers I think is pretty cool."
The cast includes Bill Camp, O- T Fagbenle, Nana Mensah, Elizabeth Marvel, Matthew Alan, Lily Rabe, Noma Dumezweni, Tate Birchmore, and Sarunas J. Jackson.
The first two episodes of Presumed Innocent are streaming now on Apple TV Plus. For more, check out our chat with Jake Gyllenhaal about taking over the role from Harrison Ford.
