It’s a whole new take on Will Trent (Ramón Rodríguez) when the series based on the novels by Karin Slaughter returns for its third season and takes the character in a whole new direction–and location–when it premieres on ABC tonight.
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“We take liberties from the book, which is great,” Rodríguez exclusively tells Parade. “There are a lot of people that read the books and at first had a tough time accepting this new rendition of what we were doing on television. I think now they’ve accepted they are two different things.”
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.
Will returns for a case when he is personally requested by a suspected murderer, Rafael Wexford (Antwayn Hopper), who is someone from Will’s past to whom he owes a debt. Rafael has known Will since right after he got out of foster care. He’s a gang leader involved in criminal activity, yet they have history. The debt that Will owes Rafael isn’t immediately revealed.
“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.”
Related: Will Trent Season 3 Adds Three to the Cast Amid Major Changes for Will and Angie
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.
“We’ll have some humor, as always,” he continues. “We’ll have some gut-wrenching, emotional, hard things that are going to come up that will alter these people, that will alter Will. We’re going to see Will be shifted in ways we haven’t seen. That’s an exciting thing. It’s just keeping these stories complicated, real, light at moments. We like to take our foot off the gas and give you some humor. But keeping it hopefully fresh.”
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.
Will arrested Angie, the love of his life. What was going through his mind? And did he know when he did that that he was going to have to walk away from the GBI?That was not easy at all. That was a very, very difficult decision to make. But I think for Will, what was going through his mind was he has these codes that he operates by: Ethically, morally, doing the right thing. I think he also knew what had happened was going to get out. I think he felt this was the right thing that had to happen, had to be done. Three people had died because of this secret that Angie kept. And she broke the law, and she didn’t tell him. So, there was all of this stuff that was accumulating, and this information was going to get out.
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.
I think he did know as he walked away after he did that that he couldn’t be there anymore. This is it. You start questioning life and what you’re doing. If it brings you to this moment that you have to arrest the love of your life, nothing makes sense. None of it. I’m out of here, I’m done, I want to walk away, start over, hit the reset button. He takes Betty and is gone, doesn’t say a word to anyone.
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.
I think he intentionally hadn’t faced that. He ran away from it; he didn’t want to go there and think about that. So, when he sees this table and has that moment, and we do that flash where we see what life could have been, it’s devastating. I feel like that’s when it really all settled in, the reality or remembering what happened.
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."
The first time he saw that app and we saw that as an audience is when he met his Uncle Antonio (John Ortiz), which is where he got the idea from. His uncle had the app that helped him read the menu and he was like, “Oh, you’re dyslexic, too, okay.” We’ll look at the books and we’ll take things from the books. It could be cases or character things that are interesting, and then we’ll spice it up with something new.
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.
Related: Will Trent's Ramón Rodríguez on How Denial Plays a Big Part in Season 2 for the GBI Agent
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
When I started learning who Marion the character was and what she was going to mean to our show, I thought Gina would be a really great addition. So, she was at the top of our list. I was texting her personally saying, “Hey, you said you wanted to come play, we have a role for you.” She was delighted, and she’s been wonderful.
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.
Are you hinting she could be your new love interest? Although, how does he get over Angie?What’s interesting [is], in the first couple [of] episodes, you’re watching Will deal with the wake of what he left behind. These personal relationships with Faith (Iantha Richardson), with Amanda (Sonja Sohn), eventually we’re going to see that with Angie, they have to end up replacing each other and what’s that like. It’s going to be awkward and difficult and weird. And there’s going to be some heartbreak. But it’s great in the sense that we also have this new person that comes up.
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
That scene where Will’s working out, is that something that Will’s going to keep doing? Because you look great.That’s Will. Will does things. Will likes to stay in shape when he can. And so we wanted to show what his routine was in this new world in Tennessee when he was there. It was really nice. We opened the episode, which I directed, by the way, which I was very excited about. That was a really wonderful experience being able to direct it. We wanted to show, “Here’s what’s happening with the case and with the world and everyone after Will.” Then we wanted to show Will in Tennessee, which was a whole different change of pace [and] scenery. He looked different, the vibe was different. That was a lot of fun visually being able to put that together. So that workout was part of the conversation. What does he do? Well, he wakes up, he makes his coffee, he talks to Eduardo, he hangs with Betty, he does his workout, he does his little private eye work.
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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