I live in Los Angeles and I’m a big fan of that era of Los Angeles, and I think both seasons really capture the essence of that era. When you were approaching the second season, there are some real life events pulled from it. I’m thinking specifically of the first episode, with the Lux gambling ship burning. When you were breaking the story, how do you work to incorporate real L.A. history into what happens on the show?
Begler: Well, I would say first and foremost that we always start with our characters. That comes first. Where are we going to put Perry? Where are we going to put Della, Paul? And then it’s just through all the research that we do [to decide what historical events to add in], which is so fun, as you can imagine. The good and the bad is there’s just so much. You have to pick and choose which things will organically work as we build out the mystery and we build out the court case, are going to be those things that we get to combine. But again, first and foremost, we want to make sure that it isn’t just about the city. It is about our three mains.
Downey: And we surround ourselves with incredible experts of the time. We have consultants, whether it’s an L.A. historian, a legal historian, or someone who was an expert in the Mexican community. We are always trying to make sure that we create something very authentic.
You actually touched on one of my other questions on the balance between characters and the plot and the setting. To expand on that a little bit, when you were sitting down to break season 2, how did you decide where you wanted to take Perry as well as Juliet and Chris’ characters?
Begler: For [co-showrunner Jack Amiel] and I coming into second season, the table had been set so well. But as Susan has said before, at the end of the first season, you have the super friends coming together and they’re all going to work together and it’s like the future is bright. But once the party’s over and the dust settles, there is the reality of who these people are. They’re going home to themselves.
I think for us, with Perry, we really loved this idea of imposter syndrome. He’s still a very, very raw, fresh lawyer. He didn’t go to law school, he jumped that. So there is so much for him to learn. And as you’ve seen in the first episodes, there is something that haunts him terribly. And I think that makes him question stuff. I think that, to us, was a very interesting place to start him.
I think to get the opportunity in the second season to dive deeper into the worlds and to the personal lives of Della and Paul was really important.
