Rege-Jean Page – For The People

By: Jamie Steinberg

Q) What are the recent projects that you have been working on?

A) I have the film Mortal Engines coming out at the end of the year, which is an insane movie produced by Peter Jackson. It’s this sci-fi epic that I’m really excited about because no one doesn’t love a flying giant robot! It’s been a very fun year for me and I got to work with Peter Jackson. I can’t really dream of much more than that in a year.

Q) How was your character Leonard Knox on “For The People” originally described to you?

A) The original breakdown for Leonard, I can’t remember. We’ve done so much work on this man since then and he’s changed so much since the original pitch. The guy on the original breakdown is very, very different from the man we see now – particularly when we get through the full ten episodes. The episode we have coming up (seven) is a real deep dive into the layers of this character and why he is the way that he is, why he chose that and what is lurking underneath there. That’s always what I’ve found fascinating about this guy – the difference between what he presents and why he presents that and why he uses these particular tactics. I think it’s important to him to achieve these things and the show slowly drips out why it’s important to him.

Q) What have you found challenging about the role?

A) The challenge is the same thing what I love about him. He’s so nebulous and hard to get a hold of. He doesn’t give you everything on a plate straight away. He chooses very much what you get to see on the page and on the screen as well. But always what he is doing is hiding something else underneath it. It’s fun to play a high achiever, but it’s also a bit of a challenge to tap into that energy for such a long period of time. I was a little bit worried before I took the part because I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be that long, but it was a great thing. Tapping into that level of ego…you kind of have to shake that off at the end of the day because you don’t want to carry that around with you afterwards. While I have a lot of sympathy for him, I don’t want to be him.

Q) How did you prepare to portray him?

A) It takes a lot of work to fit into a new skin. I did the stuff I usually do – I did a lot of reading on the script and you kind of almost interview the character on the page. You ask them who you are and essentially why they do what they do. I also did a lot of reading around federal prosecution about what drives federal lawyers. It’s not just hat these guys are the best of the best, because they are, but then to keep up in federal court you actually have to have a real love and belief in the law. You have to be quite ideologically driven and finding the real core of things like that – finding out that you do actually have to be driven by that idea to do this job and as well as someone who does it really gives me insight into the character, besides talking to a lawyer and those involved in the law and you start building out from there. If anything, it was less stepping into a skin and more building up a pile. You gather sand and ground it down. Then, you build it up layer by layer until you have this new thing.

Q) What is it like for you to work on a Shondaland series?

A) Everything! It’s the peek of pop culture in a number of ways. It’s popular and culturally significant, but it’s also significant for the right reasons. It’s always got its heart in the right place and always trying to bring something progressive and valuable to pop culture and has a huge following for that. So, you have a lot of people relying on you to keep those standards up. And you want to tell stories that offer that for them. So, being a part of that is a huge privilege and something I looked forward to every day we were filming.

Q) Who haven’t you worked with much that you’d like to share a scene with in the future?

A) [laughs] To answer that question I would have to give some spoilers. Obviously, you have the divide between the prosecution and the defense and it’s almost like we’re making two different shows. I barely see the defenders. Unless you are in court with them, it’s not like you pass them in the hallways. I work with Susannah Flood and Ben [Oliver] every day. We make our show in the prosecution office and then the defenders have their other show and never the twain the two shall meet. So, one of my favorite things when I watch the show is getting to see the show that they made because I don’t know those characters. I haven’t seen their work so it’s a revelation to say, “Oh! That’s what they were doing while we were off being snarky on our part of the set.” We hang out off the show, but I never met those characters – like barely ever. I haven’t met Jay (Wesam Keesh) yet at all. I haven’t met Allison (Jasmin Savoy Brown) at all yet. I think I’ve met Hope Davis’ character once. They talk about me and not to me. It’s so much fun to get to see this other show and see how it matches with ours and go, “Wow! That’s what we’ve made together. That’s how it all adds up.”

Q) What have been some of your favorite moments from filming “For The People?”

A) It’s kind of hard to pick those out. It’s a very fun show to film. We have a very, very intelligent cast. A hugely generous cast and a massively ambitious cast. Like all of us! I’m surrounded by people who constantly want to do better and have the ability to do so and push each other in the very best way possible. Most of my scenes are with Susannah Flood and we have a ball every day on the set because we both speak a very similar acting language as we’re both stage-based actors. We both love working with language, words and word play and like being able to score points off each other that way. So, I’m going to say the scenes with Susannah were the most fun part of the show because we have a particular rhythm that we fall into that is a lot of fun.

Q) What is it about the series that has made it such a fast fan favorite? Obviously, having Shondland behind it helps.

A) That’s a great delivery method, but you can serve up a meal on the most wonderfully looking silver and flatware, but it doesn’t mean it is going to taste good. I think that what makes “For The People” as palatable as it is, is that it is vey human. It’s about something incredibly important. It’s about something in this country that will affect everyone’s life because it impacts the policy of the country – especially now on the federal level where the law is a huge debate and how it interacts with politics. It takes it down to a level though where you and I can interact with others because it is run by people and it is a very, very human thing. Defending justice in the United States is a very human thing and in the hands of very real people like you and me. They have a bad day at work. They break up with their boyfriend or girlfriend. Still, they have to handle these huge stakes every day and hold peoples’ lives in their hands. And it’s inspiring to watch people do that. To deal with a flawed, young new human being who doesn’t quite know what they are doing at this job, but knows they have to do it and having the stakes that we care about on both the personal and political level is very common.

Q) Is there anything else you want to be sure our readers know about this season of “For The People?”

A) It’s a really smart show. It’s a smart show without being patronizing and has those elements that allows it to be human without being simplistic. It’s a show that manages to be really inspiring without talking down to anyone. I think it’s a huge achievement. I’m just really, really proud to work on that kind of pop culture. I think it’s what we need more of.