Pilot Error: THE ADVOCATES (2013), a.k.a. Ben McKenzie's road to GOTHAM
During the winter TCA press tour, I was fortunate enough to score a few minutes with Ben McKenzie at the PBS cocktail party to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Frontline. Yes, you read that right: McKenzie appears in "Age of Easy Money,” which premieres in March, and if you want to circle the airdate on your calendar, you can read all about the episode right here.
Of course, the conversation that I wanted to have with him was about something completely different. That’s right: because I’ve gotta be me, I wanted to ask him about the 2013 pilot The Advocates, which - per IMDb - “revolves around a female lawyer and a male ex-con who team as victim advocates and go to the edge of the law to right wrongs and fight for the underdog.”
Fortunately, he was quite happy to talk about it.
Ben McKenzie: Oh, my God, that's a throwback! It was a really fun experience. That's where I met Bruno Heller. Peter Roth, who used to run Warner Brothers TV, connected me with Bruno. They were trying to find the co-lead of a two-hander, which was The Advocates, and I'd been at Warner Brothers for my whole career, so... [Shrugs.] And I loved Bruno. I loved his work. I loved Rome as well as The Mentalist. So I thought, "Great! Let's do it!" Because Peter sort of had the inside track that, unfortunately, Southland was ending its run on TNT.
So I jumped in, and Mandy Moore was cast, who's wonderful, and she's obviously gone on to do amazing work in television. It was a really fun idea. Apparently, the pilot tested really well, but we were... [Hesitates.] I guess it's okay to say this on the record - hopefully, CBS won't care - but at the time, we were probably, like, a decade, maybe even a decade and a half younger than the average leads of a CBS show at the time! [Laughs.]
I think that's fair to say. Not mention hard to argue against.
McKenzie: Yeah, I mean, we were in our thirties, and the average leads of CBS shows were at least in their forties. So I think we were just not quite the right fit. But I was really grateful for the experience! I was able to play this incredible role that Bruno had written, forged that relationship of "do right by him, and he'll do right by me," and that turned into Gotham. That relationship led to him writing the part of Jim Gordon for me the following year. We were both under a Warner Brothers deal, and he wrote the part with me in mind, and we were off to the races. It's about the best outcome of a failed pilot that you can have!
Exactly. That's what you like to hear! Now, I've read the nutshell description of the pilot, but I've never had the pleasure of seeing it. My understanding is that you were an ex-convict and Mandy was an attorney.
Yes! So Mandy Moore, if I remember correctly... [Hesitates.] In childhood, I save her. She's my childhood crush, and I save her from being victimized by her own father, I believe. But I'm targeted. I'm basically on the spectrum in some capacity. My character is a genius, but sort of autistic, and at the time - a couple of decades ago, I guess it would've be, for the character - these things were not as well understood. So I end up going to jail for a crime I didn't commit, and it was defense of her, and upon my release, she makes contact.
She's become an advocate for victims, trying to make sense of her father's brutality, and we end up teaming up. So it was victims advocates as a procedural. It's kind of a fun idea, and it speaks to a lot of law and order issues that are dealt with on other shows, but from a different angle. From the angle of the victims and trying to understand their stories rather than just catching the bad guy. So it had an empathy to it that was quite appealing, and the character that Bruno had written for me was wonderful. It was very similar to Simon Baker's character on The Mentalist, in that he was a polymath. I think I spoke Russian in the pilot. I learned a few lines in Russian. It was really a fun show.
And the autistic aspect was ahead of its time, too.
It was, yeah! Oh, and David Nutter directed the pilot. I think he directed something like twenty pilots in a row that went to series, and that was one of two that didn't. [Laughs.]
What luck for you.
Yeah, I tried not to take it personally! But he's wonderful. Pilots are these interesting beasts where there's just so much pressure to deliver, because if you can deliver on that, you can create this revenue stream for this company and for yourself that could theoretically last for a very long time. So it's these really intense moments that last for, what, three weeks? Probably not even that long nowadays. But it was special, and that bond I forged with Bruno was really an important one.
