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What’s new for Will is he’s left the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) after arresting his lady love Angie (Erika Christensen), he’s moved from Atlanta to Tennessee, he is no longer suited up in his three-piece outfits, he’s actually scruffy, and he’s working as a private investigator.
“When we meet him at the top of Season 3, he’s not the guy that we have known and seen,” Rodríguez says. “He doesn’t look the same and he’s even a little more relaxed, maybe. We see that he’s accepted certain things about himself, so he’s even evolved, maybe. His dyslexia, he’s got this app that helps him. Yet he’s still doing something. Will’s not someone that cannot do anything. He’s like this private eye and he’s doing his little side hustle. It’s all fine until he gets obviously lured back into a case.”
Ramón RodríguezDisney/Daniel Delgado Jr.
“We want to continue finding ways to elevate this show: On an emotional level, on a character arc level, on the cases,” Rodríguez, who is a co-executive producer as well as the star, says of what’s ahead for Season 3. “We’ll have arcs where we’ll do a case for a couple of episodes. We do that several times throughout the season, and we do have our one-offs.”
But more than the format that the stories take, what Rodríguez, who also directs the first episode back, is proud that Will Trent achieves is riding a fine line of comedy and drama and emotional scenes.
Also, during our chat, Rodríguez talked about the Season 2 cliffhanger and why he had to arrest Angie and what that set in motion, the addition of Gina Rodriguez to the cast, and if she could potentially be a new love interest.
So, he did what he did, this very, very, awful, horrible, crazy thing. And what was interesting was we got to show, also, what life could have been like, the family and kids and what his world may have been like. Things which were his deepest desires. For someone who’s never had family, to be able to create a family with someone means everything. That was a really, really, really difficult decision.
You know what struck me so much? When Will walks back into his house, the moment that is so touching is when he sees the dining room table that Angie finished and that his dream of family and all that, that’s right there. I feel like everything else before that moment, walking on the scene of a crime and dealing with all the people giving him looks, he’s used to that. That’s Will. He’s always been a bit of an outsider, anyway. Obviously, getting things thrown at him is a little new, Faith throwing a stapler and Sonja throwing stuff. But when he walks through the doors of his house, that’s his sanctuary, at least it was. So, when he walks in and it’s completely different and Nico’s (Cora Lu Tran) not even happy to see him, and then he sees this thing that represented his possible future, it’s devastating. It really becomes real as to what he did, what he left and what could have been.
This season, asyou mentioned, Will has that app for his dyslexia, which never happens in the Karin Slaughter books. What made you decide to go in that direction? The way you do it is so fun. He’s lived with so much shame of his childhood, of not being loved, not being chosen, not being wanted, being abandoned, not being able to read. There’s just so much shame, and he lives with it physically and he lives with it emotionally. So, I think the time that he was away in Tennessee, we thought, "How are some ways we can show that this person has also evolved, that he’s taken some time to reflect?" Sometimes we need that. You need to get away and take a step back and go, “Okay, what’s what? Where’s my North Star? What do I want?” You ask all these questions. Sometimes you’re just a hamster on the wheel doing the thing. I think introducing a way that he can be taking ownership of something in a way that’s like, “I’m not ashamed. This is what it is."
That Eduardo app, it made us laugh because not only was it an app, then we wanted it to speak Spanish, which we thought was a great way to keep that going culturally. But then we were like, “Let’s have it have a voice of the soccer players when they say, 'GOAL!'” We just wanted to give it some life. It’s been a fun thing and it’s a nice thing to see Will not have to be ashamed of everything and be empowered in a way with something or see him evolve in certain aspects.
This season also sees the addition of Gina Rodriguez. When the character of the ADA came up was she somebody who immediately you thought of? Or did you audition actresses? How did that come about?[Executive producers] Liz [Heldens] and Dan [Thomsen] had the thought of this new character, ADA Alba, Marion Alba. They wanted to do somebody that we could keep for the season, have come in and out of the show. There was a short list of actors that came up. I’ve known Gina for a long time, and we’ve wanted to work together. In fact, it was so interesting, at the end of Season 2 we were texting, and she goes, “When are you going to bring me onto Will Trent?” I was like, “Well, let’s see if there’s a role that comes up that’s exciting and something worthy for you to feel like you want to come and play with us.”
Gina RodriguezDisney/Wilford Harewood
It’s nice when you have this cast that we have, to be able to bring in new people that bring in some new life to it, and we get to see different sides of our characters. Again, we get to see a different side of Will with Marion. The only love interest we’ve really had has been Angie (Erika Christensen), and then we had Cricket (Susan Kelechi Watson) for a moment. We had the other character, Ava (Julia Chan); that was very short-lived, as well. But to see a new person in his life and what that could be like was exciting, so we were thrilled to get her.
I think one of the things that Marion does, they seem to share some similar codes. There’s a line that Will says to her, “Does anybody care about truth and facts anymore?” He vomits his history to her at this café, and that resonates for her, and she ends up saying it to him later on. I think they align in terms of where they stand morally on certain things and what matters to them. She becomes somebody that shows up for Will in a way that not many people have, and that’s something that really means a lot to him.
Their relationship is a slow build, which is really lovely. We get to see them work professionally and then see her show up for him or accept him. It’s like a new thing. It’s almost as if you’ve been in some traumatic relationship and all of a sudden something healthy appears, it’s just a very different thing for Will.
Ramón Rodríguez, Iantha RichardsonABC/Danny Delgado
Will Trent premieres its third season on Tuesday, Jan. 7 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC. Streams next day on Hulu.
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