Merrick Morton/HBO“It’s strange,” reflects Emmy-winning actor Matthew Rhys (The Americans) as he thinks back on the most famous incarnation of legendary fictional defense attorney Perry Mason, which was in Raymond Burr’s iconic 1957-66 TV drama. Rhys is taking on the mantle of the character in HBO’s terrific new, eight-episode drama Perry Mason, on which he is also a producer, and he admits that probably like most of us, “my larger reference point [for Perry Mason] was the Raymond Burr show.
“The people I asked about [that original series],” he continues, “everyone has a very strong reaction initially, and then they kind of realize and go, ‘Oh, wait. I don’t know if I’ve ever actually seen the show.’ But everyone kind of goes, ‘Oh, yeah, it’s about the defense lawyer who gets a confession on the stand.” And then you’re like ‘Oh, did you used to watch it?’ And they’re like, ‘Uh, no.’
“And I was the same. You know, you had this enormous awareness of it. You saw pictures of Raymond Burr on the TV Guide. My grandparents watched and kind of go, ‘Oh, yes, of course, Perry Mason, I loved that show.’ And then I thought, ‘Hang on, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that show.” So, yeah. You know, it’s strange. It’s one of those elements that’s kind of firmly ingrained in you, and you have no real reason or knowledge as to why.”
Rhys’ explanation of how the character of Perry Mason in general, and especially Burr’s portrayal of him, have seeped into the pop-culture awareness of people even if they have never seen a Perry Mason film or TV show, or read the original novels by Erle Stanley Gardner, is spot on. And given this notion, as well as the fact that Gardner presented very little about Mason’s background or personal life in his books, makes the lawyer a prime candidate for a character that needs to be revisited with an origin story about how he became the courtroom crusader for justice that everyone somehow knows him to be.
That’s the premise behind HBO’s series, which — with the blessing of the late Gardner’s estate — reinvents Perry Mason by filling in some of the blanks of his earlier, pre-law life. Hearkening back to the pulp-fiction novels that introduced Mason, complete with the sort of sex and violence not seen in any onscreen Mason stories to this point, this series reinvigorates the famous character in a similarly gritty, energetic, refreshing and enjoyably successful way as the film Casino Royale reintroduced the equally famous character of James Bond.
The series is set in early 1930s Los Angeles, when Mason is a somewhat sketchy private investigator living paycheck-to-paycheck with dubious assignments like photographing Hollywood stars in compromising positions.
It’s a life that even Mason, at times, realizes is beneath him and seems guilty about. While he has flashes where it seems he may hope for redemption of some sort for past actions — notably an instance during his service in World War I that led to a dishonorable discharge, of which we see flashbacks — there are also times when he seems resigned to, or even deserving of his fate. After all, as he cynically muses at one point early on, “Everyone is guilty”— a statement shocking to what most people would expect to hear from the later, fully-developed defender of the innocent Perry Mason.
But a particularly shocking case in which he is hired by attorney, and longtime mentor/father figure to Mason, E.B. Jonathan (John Lithgow) to assist —the kidnapping of a young child gone horribly wrong, leading to the child’s murder — begins turning the investigator toward his future path. The injustice of the case — including, as will be familiar to anyone who has seen or read a Perry Mason tale, authorities nabbing and charging a person we as viewers know to be innocent of the crime — consumes Mason to the point where Lupe Gibbs (Veronica Falcón), a woman he is seeing, comments on how this dogged pursuit of justice has begun to put a “new, dark halo around your head. You don’t see it. I see it.”
Viewers will also see it and begin to see how that “dark halo” begins to guide the iconic character into who he is meant to be.
“What’s great about this Mason,” says Rhys, “and what I loved about it, is that … you see this injustice he suffers in the First World War. But I think that sets him up for life as someone who can’t let an injustice pass him.
“The fact that he suffered such an injustice and has such a strong sense of justice now himself, and also because he’s an outsider in so many elements of his own life, it makes him a good investigator. So, it’s a kind of the two perfect traits for a good defense attorney.”
As the case progresses, we also see how two other equally memorable characters from the Perry Mason universe — legal secretary Della Street (Juliet Rylance), who is struggling to have her professional talents and intelligence appreciated amid her sexist society, and future detective Paul Drake (Chris Chalk), who is here starting out as one of L.A.’s few African-American beat cops and facing his own battles with discrimination — come into Mason’s orbit, and learn more about their backgrounds, too.
“I thought [series writers/showrunners] Roland Jones and Ron Fitzgerald were very shrewd in the way every element they added was contributing in some kind of social-economic way to Mason. So, the changing of Paul Drake to an African American policeman brings with it such a rich, if incredibly tangled, set of rules. The same way they, in the way, they use Lupe as the kind of emerging immigrant story.
“In L.A. and around the U.S. [at the time], everything contributes to the forging of Mason. There was great liberty and freedom in almost re-creating him, in a way. Thankfully, [it was done] with the blessing of the estate in everything and every step that they made in the reinvention of him. It was all with a very measured and specific application to kind of layer him in a way that would only kind of further him and the story.”
Despite the fact that in this series, as Rhys puts it, “you see how flawed and kind of fallible and layered [Mason] is as a character — you know, far, far from the polished image I think of Perry Mason that we certainly have,” there are still enough identifiable elements of that later, more “polished” character coming into focus that old-school Mason fans should still enjoy this respectful reimagining.
“I think for those original fans,” Rhys explains, “it will certainly tick a number of boxes, but in a very original way. … The big elements of the original Perry Mason show certainly aren’t being ignored, but in the same way, they’re not being mimicked or duplicated or replicated.”
Perry Mason, Sundays at 9pm ET on HBO beginning June 21.
