Jake Giles Netter / NBC
Caitlin McGee and Jimmy Smits as father/daughter legal team Sydney and Elijah Strait land in hot water in the pilot episode of Bluff City Law.
Jimmy Smits jumps up and down like a basketball player staying loose between plays. It’s the first day on Bluff City Law’s brand-new set, constructed inside an undisclosed location in East Memphis. The faux federal courtroom features “wild walls,” sections of finished scenery that blend seamlessly into the background, but which can be quickly removed to accommodate camera angles which would be impossible in a real building.
Jake Giles Netter / NBC
MaameYaaBoafo plays private investigator Briana Johnson.
The place is swarming with people. Three ARRI digital cameras and their crews are preparing to shoot Smits in a bench conference with the judge. Occasionally, a grip’s shoes squeak on the polished hardwood floor. Smits retreats to the jury box, trying to block out all the activity while he prepares for the scene. His co-star, Caitlin McGee, trades Birkenstock sandals for high heels as she walks onto the set to find her mark. Outside the fake window is a giant matte painting of the Memphis skyline and a blinding tungsten light to simulate the sun.
“We had been using Memphis courtrooms,” says Andy Wolk, who is directing this episode of Bluff City Law, “but this is more flexible than a location shoot. It’s pre-lit.”
Jake Giles Netter / NBC
Barry Sloane and Michael Luwoye are veteran theater actors recruited to play Jake Riley and Anthony Little, associates in the Strait firm.
Checking his voluminous call sheet, the director says they’re trying to shoot four and seven-eighth pages of episode 4, where Smits’ character in Elijah Strait’s firm takes on the Army Corps of Engineers over a faulty levee that flooded Arkansas farmland. “If we were watching this shoot a hundred years ago, the only thing that would be the same is the call sheet,” muses Wolk.
Outside the set, Smits is one of the most loved and respected stars of his generation. Here, he’s just another member of the cast. And that’s how he likes it.
“The best people to work with have no ego,” says Barry Sloane, who plays Jake Riley, an attorney with Strait and Associates. “That’s been without fail. Everyone at the top of their game I have worked with has been similar. They don’t have to have that, because they have the innate understanding of what their talent is. That’s definitely the case with Jimmy. He’s very giving, he’s very welcoming, he’s very playful. … He leads with grace. It always stems from the top.”
Challenging Injustice
In terms of both budget and prestige, NBC’s Bluff City Law is the biggest television production ever to film in Memphis. It is the brainchild of executive producers Dean Georgaris, Michael Aguilar, and David Janollari. The show revolves around the Strait and Associates Law Firm, led by founder Elijah Strait, a legendary civil rights lawyer. In the pilot episode, he is reunited with his estranged daughter, Sydney, played by McGee, following the death of her mother. As the series progresses, the father and daughter must repair their relationship while they take on challenging court cases.
“The centerpiece of the show is Elijah Strait,” says Janollari, a veteran producer with more than 30 credits to his name, including the HBO hit Six Feet Under. “We started off talking about a character like Atticus Finch — a real man who raised himself up to Memphis royalty from modest means, and has become kind of the unofficial mayor of the city, and the most famous lawyer in the entire state.”
“He’s a legend,” says Janollari. “To play the role of Elijah Strait, we felt like we needed somebody who could command that kind of screen presence.”
Smits began his television career with a guest shot on Miami Vice in 1984, but it was his role as attorney Victor Sifuentes on L.A. Law, which he played for six years, that catapulted him to stardom. For ten years, he was Detective Bobby Simone on NYPD Blue, then moved onto two years on The West Wing — which Bluff City Law producers cite as a major influence. On the big screen, he’s portrayed everyone from Geronimo to Princess Leia’s adoptive father, Senator Bail Organa, in three Star Wars films.
Sit across a table from Smits, and you’ll find him soft-spoken and thoughtful. “I’ve met lawyers and people in the legal profession who say that L.A. Law really influenced them, and made them want to become a lawyer,” he says. “It’s interesting, because I get different generations who come to me and say different things resonate with them. I met a reporter not too long ago who was the greatest Sons of Anarchy fan ever.”
“He’s a legend,” says Janollari. “To play the role of Elijah Strait, we felt like we needed somebody who could command that kind of screen presence. He needed authority and intelligence to make you believe he’s the best lawyer in the land, and that warmth, so you really want to root for him to repair the fractured relationship with his daughter. And yes, there’s a list of actors who could do that, but when you really pare it down, Jimmy has all of that in one package.”
“If you spend five minutes with him, you’re going to know he’s one of the nicest people on the planet,” says Caitlin McGee, who plays Sydney Strait, an ace attorney in her own right. “I’ve worked with some amazing actors who are completely different in how they treat their co-stars and how they treat their crew, but he is genuinely one of the best. … He cares about not only the actors on the show, but the message of the show. When we’re in the courtroom, he asks the lawyers we have on set if things are by the book. Obviously some things are exaggerated for television, but he wants to be as realistic and authentic as possible — which I love.”
Smits says the dynamic between Elijah and Sydney is crucial to the show’s success. “I’m happy that they’re trying to keep the relationships complicated. At the center of this is a father-and-daughter relationship. The jumping-off point is grief and loss, and how they process that. The past has bumps in it, whether it was tough love that forced her to go off and pursue another area of the law. All of these things in regards to the relationship keep it vibrant and textured for me. It doesn’t feel pat. I’m very thankful for that. And, on top of that, we’re tackling some great issues, in terms of what we’re doing in court.”
The cases Strait and Associates will be taking on will be familiar to contemporary America, says writer/producer Bill Chais. “We’re not doing ripped-from-the-headline stories, exactly. But we’re trying to talk about things that people are talking about today in the world. … Being a former lawyer, I’m the one in the room who is always trying to be sure that the other side has a strong argument. If not, it makes our job too easy, and our heroes don’t seem that heroic.”
Janollari says the writers are striving to make the show relevant. “The best goal we can achieve is to connect with an audience so it speaks to them a little bit about the world we live in,” he says. “We’re not trying to be on a soapbox. We’re not trying to be preachy. But we are doing a show about the legal system, which is essentially the only place in our civilization right now, and certainly in our nation, where we can have a say in what’s right and what’s wrong and which injustices can be challenged.”
1 of 8
Photo by Don Perry
Barry Sloane as Jake Reilly
2 of 8
Photo by Don Perry
Stony Blyden as Emerson Howe
3 of 8
Photo by Don Perry
Josh Kelly as Robbie Ellis
4 of 8
MaameYaa Boafo as Briana Johnson
5 of 8
Jayne Atkinson as Della Bedford
6 of 8
Photo by Don Perry
Michael Luwoye as Anthony Little
7 of 8
Photo by Don Perry
Jimmy Smits as Elijah Strait
8 of 8
Photo by Don Perry
Caitlin McGee as Sydney Strait
A Deep Bench
The father-daughter relationship between the Straits is the emotional core of Bluff City Law, but it has the bones of an ensemble drama, with an entire law firm’s worth of fleshed-out characters. Smits is quick to praise his co-stars. “I just can’t wait for American audiences to get to see this very versatile cast,” he says. “They’re hugely talented and diverse. It’s like having a team with a deep bench.”
Many of the actors have a theatrical background, which is unusual for network television. Barry Sloane is an English actor who appeared in the Tony Award-winning drama Jerusalem with Mark Rylance. “There’s a theatrical nature to attorneys,” he says. “There’s a performance that is required that lends itself to that type of performer. It’s cast really well. There are some actors who have not been showcased yet who have got an incredible chance to shine. There are fresh faces, but they’re seasoned, not green.”
Michael Luwoye took over the title role of Hamilton on Broadway from creator Lin-Manuel Miranda in 2016. He plays Anthony Little, a former Memphis police officer turned Strait and Associates attorney. He says acting for television requires “a different kind of stamina, a different kind of trust, a different kind of intimacy. The basics are the same. It’s still storytelling, engaging with your scene partners, and the world around you. But it’s just smaller. You’re not trying to project to the back of the house. You’re just there with another person.”
The daughter of a diplomat who hails from the West African nation of Ghana, Maame-Yaa Boafo has a shelf full of acting awards from her days on the stages of Broadway and Los Angeles. She plays Briana Johnson, “a skilled private investigator, who is also Sydney’s oldest and closest friend. It’s cool working for your best friend and her dad. She’s kind of a wild card, and you guys will find that out in the second part of the season. But she is also unapologetic and unafraid to do the dirty work.”
Josh Kelly doesn’t have an extensive theater background, but he is a former Army Ranger who did three tours of duty in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. He plays Sydney’s ex-husband, Robbie Ellis. “She chose her career over him a couple of years prior,” he says. “Now she’s back, and he didn’t expect her to be back, because she left to be a bigwig lawyer. But he’s still in love with her.”
Kelly says everyone on the set looks up to Smits. “People like Jimmy Smits. I’ve always called them marathon actors,” he says. “They’ve been doing this for a long time, and they’ve had ups and down, but they always keep running. They’re not sprinters. I always love working with them, because I hope to learn something. He’s an incredible gentleman to everyone on set. I’ve heard that about other people, like Keanu Reeves, who just seem to work forever. That’s a great lesson to learn.”
Jonathan Thomason / Indie Memphis
Caitlin McGee appeared recently at the Indie Memphis Youth Film Festival, shown here on stage with moderator and Indie Memphis Executive Director Ryan Watt.
Starring Memphis
Memphis has been associated with legal dramas since The Firm, the John Grisham novel turned into a Tom Cruise movie, became a hit in 1993. Janollari says it was Memphis’ long and sometimes tragic civil rights legacy that led the creative team to bring the show here.
“We’re trying to represent the city visually on camera, and put our characters in the city so that we’re not just featuring establishing shots,” he says. “We’re having walk-and-talk scenes on the banks of the Mississippi, in the clubs on Beale Street, and out on the street. Wherever real Memphis lives, we’re trying to capture that on screen.”
Filming on location, outside of production hubs such as New York, Los Angeles, and Atlanta, is a rarity in network television. Smits says he appreciates the opportunity. “The location tends to focus you, because you don’t have to deal with the laundry, or whether the bills are paid,” he says. “It focuses you in a way that tends to bond the cast together. I think that really happened during the pilot episode. We had a rehearsal period, which was unusual for pilots, and we were all here and rehearsed during the day, then get in a van and go to St. Jude together, or go to some of the museums together. It gelled the group in a really positive way.”
The cast and crew report being welcomed to the city by Memphians. “What has been fascinating to me is that there’s an awareness of the show that crosses social strata and racial and ethnic bounds,” says Smits. “All the cast will tell you this. People are aware the show is shooting here, and there’s a gratitude for us showing the city in a positive light.”
Smits, who founded the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts, says he has already connected with the city’s Latino population. “No matter where I go, I try to find them, to see what’s out there. It always starts with food and church.”
Luwoye says he has been exploring the city’s culinary scene. “What I love is being here and asking people from Memphis, what’s the best barbecue? It’s competitive. I listen to all the different answers, and then being an outsider, being like, ‘I’m just going to try them all and figure out for myself.’”
“The authenticity of the show relies on it being in Memphis, and Memphis itself is a character,” says Caitlin McGee.
Kelly has fallen in love with one of the city’s premier attractions. “I just came from bowling at the Bass Pro Shop,” she says. “People make fun of me on the set, because I’m the biggest Bass Pro Shop Pyramid fan ever. It’s a mini amusement park! They just need an indoor zip-line.”
McGee believes Bluff City Law wouldn’t work anywhere else. “Filming in Memphis was really important to all of us, actors and producers alike,” she says. “How can you ask for anything better than acting in a barbecue restaurant that actually smells like barbecue? Or being in a courthouse while actual lawyers and judges are walking through?
“The authenticity of the show relies on it being in Memphis, and Memphis itself is a character. It’s a city that has been misrepresented, especially with the National Civil Rights Museum being here, and its acknowledgement of its history, and its wanting to be better. That’s the entire message of our show.”
