Joining a long-running and beloved ensemble show in its eighth season is a potentially daunting prospect for any actor—but as a fan of Suits herself, Katherine Heigl knew exactly what she was getting into when she reached out to showrunner Aaron Korsh last year. Hiegl is joining the USA drama in the wake of its biggest shakeup to date, following the departure of Mike (Patrick J. Adams) and Rachel (Meghan Markle) at the end of Season 7. And if you’re one of the many, many fans struggling to cope with the loss, Heigl feels your pain.
“Just as a viewer, I’m really going to miss that Harvey/Mike relationship,” Heigl told BAZAAR.com. “It was so powerful and such a big part of the show, and I’m interested to see who Harvey mentors next, and who fills that void of friendship or brotherhood that he had with Mike. There are definitely some shifts in the vibe of the show now that Patrick and Meghan are moving on, but I hope fans will be comforted by the knowledge that everybody else is still here and still awesome.” And Heigl’s character Samantha Wheeler, a powerhouse attorney with cockiness and ambition to match Harvey Specter's, is already throwing a compelling spanner into the show’s familiar dynamics.
Below, Heigl discusses Sam’s antagonistic relationship with Harvey (Gabriel Macht), the layered and powerful women of Suits, and the unexpectedly liberating experience of approaching 40 in Hollywood.
Harper's BAZAAR: You’ve gone from being a fan of Suits to being a series regular on Suits; how was the transition?
Katherine Heigl: It was crazy! [My husband and I] binged the first five seasons in a week and became obsessed a couple of years back, and my mother, who is also my producing partner, suggested that we reach out to Aaron about helping to develop a couple of show ideas I was working on. At this point we didn’t know if Suits was going to continue, but when we got on the phone, Aaron said “Off the record, there’s going to be an eighth season so I’ll be pretty busy with that.’ And I said "…Oh! Is there? Do you need another character, perchance, because I’m available!" And it just worked out. I assumed it would be a couple of episodes, and it turned into this awesome season-long arc.
HB: So far Sam is an enigma, but the Season 8 premiere suggests she and Harvey have similar backstories.
KH: They do, and I think she's a real foil for him because she's a lot like him. She has that similar confidence, a similar cockiness, a similar wit, and I think Harvey’s biggest issue with her is whether or not she's loyal to him and the firm. And Sam’s perspective is: I’m loyal to my guy, and you’re not my guy.
"The question is very much whether Sam is going to be a friend or a foe to the firm. Can she be trusted, or do they need to get rid of her?"
HB: Robert Zane is her guy, and now that Rachel (Meghan Markle), Robert’s actual daughter, is no longer around, it’s nice for him to have that surrogate figure.
KH: Yeah, and I think that just worked out—there was no intention of [replacing Rachel] when Aaron started developing the character of Sam. But he said to me during Episode 1, ‘Hey, this is really working out.'
I don’t know where [Sam's] storyline is going beyond the basics, and beyond the overarching goal that she wants to be a named partner, she wants her name on the wall. I’ll be interested to see what relationships she’s going to form, and if there’s going to be a real emotional connection between her and anyone aside from Robert. I think so far she has a connection with Louis, because I think she gets him, and she appreciates that his craziness is what makes him so good. Beyond that, I think the question is very much whether Sam is going to be a friend or a foe to the firm. Can she be trusted, or do they need to get rid of her?
HB: For a show about such a male-dominated industry, I think Suits has always been even-handed in terms of gender, and who gets to be considered powerful—I mean, Harvey’s mentor was Jessica (Gina Torres).
KH: I think that's part of why I loved it so much when I first watched it; a big part of it was Jessica and her relationship with Harvey, and her power. It’s her company, and her absolute willingness to do what it takes and not apologize—that’s not something you get to see a lot. And also the way Donna has developed over the years, the fact that her strengths as a woman, her emotional intuition, were not something to be diminished or mocked or hidden. They’re actually what make her a superwoman. I love that, because trying to act like a man in a man’s world is not what makes a woman powerful.
Samantha and Donna’s dynamic is interesting. We’ve only had a couple of scenes so far, and I’m hopeful that it develops into a friend rather than a foe relationship, because I love to see that between women, and I would like my children to see more of it on TV. Grey’s had a lot of that, real connection and support among women as opposed to cattiness. But Sam and Donna had one great interaction where it’s two women sort of pissing on the fire hydrant, if you will, trying to figure out who’s in charge and who’s going to back down—and of course neither of them is going to. For Donna, I think this is the first time she’s unable to figure somebody out. She cannot get a read on this woman, and that’s usually her superpower, so it’s putting her on her heels a little bit.
HB: The #MeToo movement has prompted a lot of actresses to speak out not just about harassment and abuse, but about more subtle and endemic inequalities in the industry. Has this moment changed anything about the way you approach your work, or what you want out of your roles?
KH: It’s funny, because I’ve never approached anything from a place of thinking, ‘Well, I’m a woman,’ I just didn’t ever think like that, and maybe that’s naive or maybe it’s for the best. My mother is very much a woman who owns her power, and she approaches life from the perspective of, "I am to be taken seriously," and she has never walked into a room and thought, "I'm a woman, they're not going to respect me." It's never even crossed her mind. And so I never did either, and perhaps people didn’t respect me for that reason, but I didn’t acknowledge it, I didn’t play into it, and I didn’t let it affect how I went forward.
But with that being said, I do think back to my younger roles, things I did when I was 19 or 20, and realize that I didn’t know who I was yet, and I didn’t know how to be powerful. I have absolutely done things like scantily clad photos for Maxim magazine, I have used my body, I have used my physicality, and I have mixed feelings about that. Sometimes I look at it and go, "Well, I’m glad I did that, because those days are gone!" And other times, when people walk up to me while my children are with me and ask me to sign those photos, I go, "Oh God, not these, not now." I don’t want my kids to see that. But it was all part of it, back then: Maxim, FHM, being on the cover of those was a way of building a fan base.
HB: It feels like the women on Suits are all incredibly glamorous without being sexualized: they’re dressed in these amazing clothes, but there is no objectification happening.
KH: I agree, there's a sophisticated beauty to it, an elegance where instead of men being like "I want to f*ck her;" it's more like, "My God, what a beautiful woman." Certainly we all love to be appreciated for our physicality and we all want to feel desirable, but that comes from so many different things, it doesn’t just come from tits and ass! You learn that once you hit a certain age, and I’m so blessedly grateful to be hitting that age. It’s such a cliche for actors to go, "Oh, it’s wonderful to be approaching 40," but it is, because you finally feel the freedom of letting go of needing to be seen in that way—that idea that the only valuable thing about you is how sexy you are. I thought aging in Hollywood was going be this giant disaster, and then suddenly it didn't turn out to he so bad. Instead, I'm playing women that I'm far more interested in than the women I was playing in my twenties—I’m playing women I'd actually want to be.
"I thought aging in Hollywood was going be this giant disaster... Instead, I’m playing women I'd actually want to be."
HB: What motivated the choice to have Sam be boxing in her first scene?
KH: That was all Aaron and I think it was brilliant, because it immediately introduces this woman as somebody not to be messed with. And it's not because she's gonna physically kick your ass, but because this is something she does in her free time, and wants to do. She's not going to spin class, she's going to kickboxing, because she's filled with aggression! And she needs to get it out in a healthy way without hurting people. That, to me, says so much about her. She is not a delicate flower, and she is not hiding her aggression or her fierceness.
HB: And she’s completely unafraid to be aggressive at work, which is taken for granted in men but feels more unusual in women.
KH: Yeah, and I really enjoy the confrontation scenes, because there's so much energy to them. When you move through life curtailing your frustrations and resentments, and trying to be pleasant, and then as an actor you get onto a set and get to play someone like this? Someone who’s like, "I don’t care what the consequences are, I’m going to tell you to kiss my ass," it’s very therapeutic! Sarah and I had a confrontation scene recently where it was important to both of us that it didn’t turn into a catfight, or some bitchy passive aggressive crap, but that it just be, I’m speaking my mind, you’re speaking your mind, and we both don’t like what we’re hearing. Watching the show, and now being on the show where these characters combat each other has taught me that it really is OK—you can speak your piece and get into an argument with a close friend, and the world is not going to end. Life lessons from Suits!
Suits season 8 premiered last night, Wednesday July 18.
Emma Dibdin is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles who writes about culture, mental health, and true crime. She loves owls, hates cilantro, and can find the queer subtext in literally anything.
