By Shaun Daily

In Canterbury’s Law, Julianna Margulies plays the title role of Elizabeth Canterbury, a criminal defense lawyer who isn’t afraid to cross the line if it will help her clients.  Trieste Kelly Dunn plays Molly McConnell, the youngest member of Liz’s firm, who is often the one to stand up to her and say she is crossing the line.

Trieste recently came on to TV Talk with ShaunOMac to talk about her character in the new drama, and says this show is something different than any other law show on TV.

Shaun> Welcome, and congratulations on the show.  We’re eager to watch it on Monday.

Trieste> Thank you, I’ve seen an earlier pilot, but I haven’t seen the most recent cut of it.  So I’m looking forward to it too.

Shaun> I saw the pilot, throughout the whole program I’ll try not to give the whole thing away.  But it’s not your grandfather’s law show, right?

Trieste> No, it’s certainly not.  It takes some risks I’d say.  She’s quite a force of nature to behold, isn’t she, Julianna? She’s incredible.

Shaun> She is.  I talked to her when The Lost Room was coming on, and she gets into these roles and boroughs into these roles, doesn’t she?

Trieste> Yeah, I’ve never seen her live in action before.  To be honest, it was kind of intimidating at first because she’s so powerful.  She’s got such a huge energy.  Just a big presence I guess.  She’s very strong and confidant, and tons of experience and knows exactly what she’s doing, and just goes for it.  I got over that eventually, but she’s just very strong. I was really happy to watch her and learn a lot from her.

Shaun> So the shows filmed on location in New York.  That’s unusual this day and age for a series to be filmed where it’s supposed to be.  Well it’s based in Providence in filmed in New York, right?

Trieste> It’s based in Providence and filmed in New York, you were right.  Yeah, some stuff is on location in the city but mostly at the studio in Queens which is like ten minutes from my house. 

Shaun> That’s great.

Trieste> It’s great.  It’s literally like 15 blocks, like 2 miles or 1 and a half miles from my house.  So it’s kind of the perfect job.

Shaun> Tell us about Mary McConnell.  Do you like Molly, or how do you feel about your character?

Trieste> I love her.  I kind of knew I think when I read it.  I was like, ‘This seems right, this seems really right’.  She’s born and raised in Providence Rhode Island; she’s a young attorney really trying to impress Elizabeth.  She’s the youngest in the law office so it’s sort of like she’s not quite there yet, and she has some issues with the bar.  And you’ll understand what I’m talking about if you watch the second episode on March 17^th.  She has some problems and she’s basically doing paralegal work- the grunt work.  So she’s basically just one of Elizabeth’s underlings.  And Molly’s always confronting Elizabeth, and that’s kind of one our differences between me and Molly.  If I was working for a girl like Elizabeth Canterbury, I don’t know if I’d be quite as confrontational.  It seems like Molly’s MO is always ‘I don’t think you should do this.’  So she’s got some courage there. 

Shaun> Yeah, I think there were a couple of scenes in the pilot with you kind of standing your ground.  A young member of the law firm standing up to the head of the law firm has to be kind of daunting.  And throughout the episode, it kept happening that she would do this. 

Trieste>I was like, ‘Can’t somebody else do this so Molly doesn’t look like the biggest idiot?’  She’s such a force of nature as Julianna and Elizabeth.  I think Julianna would actually be an incredible lawyer if she wanted to be.  So being as young as I am and as Molly is, it’s not what you’d want to do with your first job; to be constantly questioning your boss who is the best lawyer in the country.  But she’s different than me, so I had to come to terms with that.  She’s got the Irish fire in her I guess.

Shaun> Do you think Molly likes Liz Canterbury?

Trieste> I think so.  I think she wants to be like her.  I think she disagrees because she is inexperienced with a lot of the things that Elizabeth is doing, and also she has moral problems sometimes with what Elizabeth does.  But that’s something you have to have.  Elizabeth is defending the underdogs; the criminals, the rapists, the killers, the psychopaths.  So you have to have somebody there challenging that, asking ‘Why are you doing this, defending people who have done horrible things to people?’  Usually, Elizabeth ends up being right, but you have to have that.  The audience is kind of thinking that I think.  How can you defend these people and still sleep at night?  I think that Molly does that.  She does that more than the other characters, who are like ‘Shut up Molly!’  If I was in a law office, I’d be fired if I challenged my boss that much. 

Shaun> So how is it filming in New York?  I think that adds an element of realism that you wouldn’t get if you had to go to LA to film the scenes.

Trieste> You are right about that actually.  I’ve never really shot anything in LA, but this show is very much in the New York spirit.  It’s like “Hard core woman takes on the world, takes risks, breaks the law.”  I think New Yorkers will really like it.  It would be weird to shoot a show like this in LA.  Everybody is kind of more human in the show.  It would be kind of a weird experience to be shooting this, then to go outside and see palm trees and sunshine.  So it’s kind of nice to be on a street with hard core people walking around.  New York definitely has some edge, and I think there are complications with shooting in New York because the streets are tiny.  If you have eight trailers on a street, that presents a problem every once in awhile.  But I’ve never experienced the LA thing really.  I think I’ve been there often, but I’ve never experienced the big studio production thing in LA. 

Shaun> It’s good to see, because we’re used to LA getting all the production or Canada, it’s good to see NY getting back into the game.

Trieste> Yeah, I’ll agree with you there.  Before this season, it was like Law & Order, and now there’s New Amsterdam.  Hopefully, it’s going to stay there.  And all these like Cashmere Mafia, and Lipstick Jungle.  There’s a lot of shows in New York now. 

Shaun> What made you get into acting?  What was your first role?

Trieste> My first role in the movies, or in school productions and stuff?

Shaun> In what role were you bitten by the acting bug?

Trieste> Oh, the bug, the bug. When did I get bit by that bug.  Let me think.  This is weird, but I went to a psychic when I was like 14 or so with my mom in Utah, and she just started saying stuff about me being an actor.  And for years, I didn’t do anything about it, but it was percolating in my system.  I was like ‘Yeah, I like that idea’.  Then finally I moved from Utah to North Carolina and I think moving kind of gave me permission to do it, because I wasn’t around all the people that I know.  I think when you are around the people you know, it’s harder to get in front of them then it is in front of somebody else.  And in North Carolina, I didn’t know anybody so I couldn’t really fail.  And I think that’s really what started it.  I needed an outlet, and I think in high school there’s so much angst, and mental trauma going on, and you need somewhere to put it.  So it was good for me to have something like that. 

Shaun> We have a question from the chat room, Diana wants to congratulate you on your role in United 93, and wants to know how it was doing that?
Trieste> Oh, that was a great experience actually.  You wouldn’t know it by watching it, but we had to go to England to shoot that, which is interesting, flying a bunch of American actors to England to shoot it.  But Paul Grenngrass lives in England, and we were about 50 minutes from London by train in a placed called Iver Heath (the brow).  And it was 5 weeks of basically improvising.  They had an outline of the script, but we were on a plane.  We were on a real plane.  And the plane would move and shake, and sometimes go back and forth.  It was basically all day long and we would improvise in real time.  It was what they knew about what actually happened, and they would take the cameras for close ups, and they wouldn’t set up for shots.  They had a camera on a bungee cord system with pulleys that they would take through the plane. It would be 20 minutes and you’d never see the camera, then all of a sudden the camera was in your face.  So you had to live this life on the plane, and you had to commit to it because you never knew when the camera would be there.  So it was five weeks of doing that.  We had one week off when we were there, which was wonderful.  But it was such a different experience.  I’ve never been on a film that was like that.  I thought that was really cool.  It was let’s see what we can get.

Shaun> How did you land the role on Canterbury’s Law.

Trieste> It was over a year ago now.  I think it was January 2007 that I first auditioned for it.  And I think they were kind of interested, and then I think they saw lots of people.  And there came time for a screen test.  We had to test in LA, and there were a couple of girls in LA and we had to test for the studio first, then if you passed that round, then you went to the network, and I passed the network round and got the job.  I really didn’t think I got it.  I thought I was right for it, but when you see three other girls who are right for it, too, it was a process.  Then you get it and you wait a month, then you shoot it.  Then you wait to hear if it’s going to get picked up.  It’s been a very long process.

Shaun> Now it’s co produced by Dennis Leary from Rescue Me, right? That’s amazing.  I heard he was behind it, so I thought ‘This is going to be on FX’, but now it’s on the big Fox.

Trieste> I kind of thought it was going to be on FX too at first.  It surprised me.

Shaun> There are some scenes in it, where the language isn’t real bad, but not what you hear on a typical law show.  Liz isn’t your typical bar friendly attorney, right?

Trieste> No, she’s not.  She’s got her own playbook I think.

Shaun> Coming down the road, the intensity is keeping up, and it’s up to you to keep her on the straight and narrow as much as you can?

Trieste> Yeah that’s sort of the dynamic I guess of the relationship between us and her.  I was kind of challenging her on some of the stuff she was doing.  Ben’s character, Russell, is definitely the voice of reason and is just like ‘Come on, we can’t do this.’  So it’s her staff trying to keep her in check.  That’s kind of the thing that comes up a lot; we try to keep her in check.

Shaun> Do you know how many episodes you shot for the season?

Trieste> I believe we shot 6, but I don’t know if they are airing all 6.  They might only be doing 5.  I thought it was for 5 weeks, but didn’t Sarah Connor Chronicles air two in one night?

Shaun> Yeah, they aired two for the pilot, then two for the finale a week ago.

Trieste> Right, so I don’t exactly know the details of this.  I should ask more questions I guess.

Shaun> Any twists coming with Molly’s character in these episodes?

Trieste> Yes, there are some twists in the next episode in the episode on the 17^th.  She has some struggles.  She had some problems.  She doesn’t know what she’s doing.

Shaun> You can’t give anything away, I’m sure, right?

Trieste> No, she just graduated, hasn’t passed the bar yet, and has some problems.  It’s fun though, and you’ll see.  It’s exciting. 

Shaun> It sounds like you love the character.  It’s like you love playing her I’d say.

Trieste> When I first auditioned for it, I thought she really knew what she was doing and was on the ball, and was like an A+ student.  But I’m so glad they didn’t go that way because it’s actually so much more fun to play her like really trying hard to do everything right, but just not quite getting there, having problems.  It just makes more sense and I think it’s easier and more fun, and more believable really, because nobody’s perfect. Nobody’s really that good at what they do really are they?  So it’s more human.  I can relate to it more.  Being young and inexperienced, I can relate to that. 

Shaun> I’ve seen some of your work, you’re a great actress and I hope the show is successful.  It’s something different on the air, and it’s a different type of law show.  We see them struggle with their own problems and their morals, and it’s different then we’ve seen on your typical law show.

Trieste> Yeah, I agree, I totally agree.  I was surprised at some of the risks it was taking actually.  I think other people were too.  We were really happy about it.  We had some technical advisors that were actual defense attorneys in New York City, and they were there on set sometimes.  It was amazing getting to talk to them and doing research, because when you start researching what it’s like to be an actual criminal defense attorney, it’s like they really have to do this stuff and they have to ask themselves, ‘Is this ok that I’m defending criminals?’ It’s just a really interesting thing that I hadn’t given that much thought too, the world of law.  Going to an art school in North Carolina, and learning about acting and some little playland stuff—it’s a very dark world I think. 

Shaun> Someone else has seen the pilot, and is asking, we see Liz get punched in the pilot, are we going to see Molly get punched, or see her punch someone?

Trieste> No, I wish she got punched, that would be fun.  I got handcuffed in Law & Order, that was fun. Chris Meloni handcuffed me, and I liked that.

Shaun> Anything else you want to say to the fans to convince them to watch the show?

Trieste> I think it’s a really interesting and compelling piece of drama, and I think it beats other things in it’s category.  The actors like Julianna are totally incredible; The rest of the cast: Ben Shenkman, Terry Kinney, Keith Robinson these people are so fun to watch.  I don’t know.  My dad watches a lot of television and he said the same thing to me.  This is kind of more real, and how a movie would be.  So I was happy that he liked it.  You’re nervous with what your parents are going to think of things.

Shaun> It’s a serious show.  You must have gone home emotionally exhausted.

Trieste> Not as much for my character to be honest.  For Julianna though, she had some really meaty scenes, especially in the second episode she has a scene with Aidan Quinn that’s just incredible acting.  It’s not like stuff that you see on TV.  The cast is really incredible and they relate to each other really well.  I’m the most inexperienced there and I just really enjoyed watching everybody and learning from them, because this is a unique TV experience and people really cared about what they were doing I think.  I think people will really respond to it, and she has a host of personal dramas going on plus the courtroom dramas.  So that’s what makes it really interesting than these other shows.  You can relate to that stuff when you watch it.  You love this character.