The secrets and the lies are about to be revealed.
This Sunday, the locally filmed television series “Secrets & Lies” will premiere at 9 p.m. on the ABC network.
Starring Juliette Lewis as a police detective and Ryan Phillippe as the prime suspect in the death of a boy in a Charlotte suburb, the series—a remake of an Australian TV show—was filmed in and around Wilmington over four months last year.
Filming was focused on a Porters Neck neighborhood and other locations including the New Hanover County jail and Cape Fear Community College’s Union Station building. The production also occupied two stages at Wilmington’s EUE/Screen Gems Studios.
The whodunit-style drama, which also stars Kadee Strickland and “Under the Dome” alum Natalie Martinez, is a mid-season offering of 10 episodes.
Also slated to appear throughout the series are Timothy Busfield—known to audiences for roles on “thirtysomething” and “The West Wing”—and his wife Melissa Gilbert, best known as Laura Ingalls on “Little House on the Prairie.”
Busfield, who also appeared as Benjamin Franklin in Fox’s “Sleepy Hollow,” another Wilmington-filmed series that was filmed at the same time—its second season finale aired Monday—wore multiple hats for “Secrets & Lies,” as an actor, director and executive producer.
Port City Daily caught up with Busfield to discuss his hopes for the show, the challenges of juggling multiple roles—and multiple shows—and what local viewers can expect to see Sunday:
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PCD: How was it that you came to be involved in both “Secrets & Lies” and “Sleepy Hollow,” two shows that were filmed in Wilmington simultaneously?
Busfield: “It was sort of coincidence. When this show (“Secrets & Lies”) got picked up, I got thrown into the loop as one of the directors that might be able to do the job. And while I was playing Ben Franklin on ‘Sleepy Hollow,’ I got an invite to come to come to Los Angeles, interview for ‘Secrets and Lies,’ and I interviewed and I had to come straight back to Wilmington to do the second episode of ‘Sleepy Hollow.’
“While I was traveling back here, I got the call that I got the job. So it was sort of coincidence that I was in Wilmington and then interviewed for a job in Los Angeles for Wilmington.”
PCD: Was it challenging working on two shows at the same time, even if they were both in Wilmington?
Busfield: “It really wasn’t. I’d done my ‘Sleepy Hollow’ (episodes) by the time we started, and I (did) ‘Sleepy Hollow’ again in January (after “Secrets & Lies” wrapped in November), so they really bookend my experience on ‘Secrets and Lies.’
“What was great about it is I got to go eat their craft service and go see all the crews, because I was Ben Franklin on the show. So in the building we were in over at Screen Gems, I had the benefit of being a part of two shows, which increased my eat-ability factors. That was fantastic.”
PCD: How was it you were cast to play one of the country’s Founding Fathers? Seems like a different type of role for you.
Busfield: “Fox Network requested me and suggested me to the producers. I think they probably thought that I was fat enough and old enough to play Ben Franklin.”
PCD: You direct an episode of “Secrets & Lies” and served as an executive producer on the show. How did you end up on the other side of the camera?
Busfield: “On ‘thirtysomething’ I directed and acted, so I started in the early ‘90s. That was the first time I directed myself on film. It takes some practice.
“I prefer to direct myself, because I kind of have my own instinct about when I’m not doing it too awfully well, and I don’t have to hear it from someone else. So I can just tell myself that I suck.”
PCD: Is it difficult wearing so many hats?
Busfield: “It was a little bit more difficult as we got deeper into it, just because of the amount of work. But I prefer it that way. I had a good time. I feel a little bit more in control of a scene when I’m directing myself, which is always good for a director to feel like he’s got a beat on the scene. I can dictate a lot of the rhythm in it.
“It’s not as difficult as it might appear. Kevin Costner and Clint Eastwood and many others have won Oscars doing it, so if they can do it, I can certainly try.”
PCD: We were able to watch you direct a pivotal scene in Sunday’s episode involving Juliette Lewis and Ryan Phillippe. Lewis was struggling with her lines, but you wouldn’t let her get frustrated and kept her thinking positive.
Busfield: “One thing that I think is always good for an actor is to feel like they’re good. Bold choices come from confidence. So you always want your actors to feel that they’re good, because if they’re good, their chests will come out and their emotions will pour out. If an actor feels like they’re not good or they’re not doing good, they go inside the shell, and you can’t get the emotion out of them.
“If they make a mistake or flounder for a moment, the worst thing you can do to an actor is go: ‘Jesus! What the heck?’ You can’t do that, because the actor will pull back in their shell and they won’t give you anything. So I’m a big believer in making sure they have confidence.
“And Juliette Lewis is a feature-film actor—an actor who has made her bones being take-to-take-present and different and liquid, where each take is different and alive. And to play a buttoned-up cop in a procedural show is a bit of a departure for her, so her censor in her head is: ‘Oh my God, this is terrible.’ But it’s not what we’re seeing.
“In her case in particular, ultimate patience had to be, because she was trained by (director Martin) Scorcese and these feature film guys where you’re shooting 17 takes of some two pages a day, and here, Juliette Lewis would be doing eight, nine pages of dialogue. And cop dialogue: ‘Where were you on this date? Did you see the blue Maxima?’ That kind of stuff. Not the parts she got to play in ‘August: Osage County’ or ‘Cape Fear’ or any of that stuff.
“Each actor requires a different approach.”
PCD: How much of Wilmington is featured in the show? Will locals be able to recognize locations?
Busfield: “We were shooting Wilmington for Charlotte, so we had to stay away from the battleship; we had to stay away from too much of the downtown that was going to be noticeable as Wilmington. So we shot around the city a lot. We did shoot across from the downtown area and built a fair, which was really beautiful and fun. We shot all over the place.”
PCD: What was your impression of the local crews and the film studios?
Busfield: “The crews were spectacular. We had a great crew. We averaged less than 12 hours a day; there wasn’t a person on our crew that didn’t come to play and didn’t deliver. I couldn’t have been happier.
“The facility at Screen Gems is first-rate. It’s got everything. It’s got the ability to do post-production work; you’ve got great soundstages. Everything about it was a spectacular experience as far as Screen Gems goes and as far as the crew goes.
“And I hired that crew. That was my job, to set up shop and to hire the crew and design the sets with the designer and make sure we were ready to go. From top to bottom, I couldn’t have been happier with what we had locally. It was a spectacular experience.”
PCD: You and your wife, Melissa Gilbert, stayed in a house on 23rd Street while you were in town. How did you like Wilmington?
Busfield: “We had an unbelievable time. We had a vacation rental-type home; it was just heaven. We had a great house, and it was sort of hidden back off the street, which was great. We were just really, really happy with what we had. We loved the restaurants, we loved the people. I can’t wait to return to work there again.”
PCD: Are you pleased with the final product? Is “Secrets & Lies” going to be a hit?
Busfield: “My take on our business is you win a few, you lose 14. All you can really control is the 12 hours a day that you put into work. And hopefully you have good people you’re working for, and hopefully in your career you get to work for ABC, where I’ve been with a few shows. They’re just high quality network television.
“My fingers are crossed. There’s no telling what an audience is going to devour. There’s no telling what they’re going to want. It’s a miss-and-hit business. You do the best you can and you cross your fingers and you throw the spaghetti against the wall.
“In this case, I think the spaghetti turned out really well. I think it’s sticking to the wall, I think we got really good scripts; the studio and the network were great as far as encouraging us to make it really great. We have a really extraordinary cast and a good list of directors. I’m very proud of what we got, across the board.
“So I am excited that the audience might like it. Really, really hoping.”
Click here to watch a trailer of Sunday’s pilot episode
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