The first season of USA Network’s new legal show Suits is coming to a close all too soon tonight with the season finale, “Dogfight”. To get you ready for the finale, we talked to star Gabriel Macht (Harvey) about his character and the show.
On whether Harvey and Mike will keep up their charade indefinitely:
“Well, I can’t give anything away. I will say that it’s a constant threat and, you know, I think Mike’s character is a little bit more uneasy with it than Harvey. I think Harvey feels like, you know what? This kid is too good to be true even in all his mishaps. He messes up along the way. He’s not thinking clearly at times but he is, I think, Harvey’s ace in the hole and I think he’s willing to continue keeping the veil up as long as he can and if it drops and someone figures it out, I feel like Harvey is confident enough to work his way out of it.”
On the creation of Harvey’s look:
“We saw Harvey as a real man’s man who sort of is a throwback to, you know, a cross between a Cary Grant meets a Steve McQueen in the modern world. He’s tough as nails and got tons of testosterone-driven sort of drive and he’s classic in many ways in that he likes his suits fully tailored … He likes to be put together. He’s about presentation and he cares about what he wears. You know, I have this idea that he had met a woman who came into his life who knew about fashion and knew about design and that’s the one who got away, and she taught him all about that and he took on this sort of thing and he felt that that would work in his line of work in closing deals, in being trusted. The slicked-back hair was my idea. I wanted to do that sort of men’s haircut Cary Grant thing and then slowly but surely I started to see that that was a bit severe for the character and I wanted to soften him up just a tad because I thought he was coming out too harsh … In the second half of this season, we’ve taken his hair and sort of created the same effect but without it being so slicked-back. I think it still tells the basic same story of who he is.”
On whether we’ll see Harvey show emotion in the future:
“Good question. You know, I think so. He likes to say that … he doesn’t like having emotions but he’s not about to stop using them when he needs to. I think the bottom line is this – I think Harvey is actually a really emotional guy. I think he’s been hurt and I think he’s been broken and I think the way that covers for that is he’s created this incredible armor and just as he stands up for people behind their back, if you look around, he’ll stand up for Mike but behind his back. He’ll stand up for Louis even though Louis drives him crazy. He’ll stand up for him behind his back. His emotions sort of come out when somebody’s back is turned. I think that’s how he sort of operates. There was a moment that he gets emotional but I think he sort of catches himself when he’s with Jessica. He really respects Jessica. He thinks that she’s had his back all along and she will continue to have his back and I think he is able to show his vulnerability with her. I think he just has a thing of like trying to cover, trying to cover, trying to cover. I don’t know if we’ll see him as vulnerable as you might want to see him or as maybe I want to see him but at some point we will.”
On what has made the show so popular:
“First off, Aaron Korsh, who’s the writer and creator of the show, has such a clear vision of what he wanted to put out there. He, in collaboration with the executives at USA, have been finding their rhythm … in their collaboration. They have found a show that’s procedural that has some great witty banter and the relationships between the characters seem to be more prevalent than the actual plot. And they mirror each other in many ways, so for the people who really want to try and solve the mystery of the week, they’re also so ingrained in the characters’ relationships to each other and how that mystery of the week is also sort of showing how these characters deal with each other.”
Don’t miss the season finale of Suits tonight on USA at 10/9c!
Photo Courtesy of USA Network
