Psych set visit, part three: Spotlight on Maggie Lawson

(Don’t forget: the season finale airs tonight, Wednesday, Sept 8 at 10/9c on USA)

I managed to ask her two questions – one about Juliet’s post-traumatic stress disorder and the other about my favorite episode, the one with roller derby:

So you already referenced the PTSD, will that come into play later on in the episodes?
She’s almost a little bit more bitey and a bit more defensive, and I think in this season more than others. So I think there’s a level of that that’s going to hang around for a while. I like that they’re writing toward it. I like getting to play that, because sometimes I think things like that happen, and they’re just ignored. But I also think even the Lassiter stuff this year has been a little stronger, it’s been a little deeper.

Well, anyway, I did like that they were kind of slowly continuing—
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I do, too. That’s a big thing that everybody on the show went through. It feels so serious when I say it. It’s usually a little light, like, goofy. I like it.

Will we ever see an episode like the roller derby episode?
Like it?

Yeah. Well, for Juliet, that was one of my favorites.
You know what? I haven’t been undercover in a while. I don’t know if I’ve done anything since then, like the roller derby one, because I have the Scary Sherry in first season, and then, you know, the duos. I was just the drill sergeant dancer or whatever. And then roller derby. Yeah, I think we’re due for, like, another really silly Juliet episode. Well, I think we are, anyway. I don’t know. I think we’re due. I don’t know if the producers would feel that way, but yeah.

Questions from other members of the group extracted even more about her character’s relationship with Lassiter, her character’s relationship with Shawn, and her on-/off-screen interactions with her co-stars. Below find excerpts. Italics mine.

On Juliet and Lassiter:
I think that, at first, Juliet was sort of like — if she doesn’t play by Lassiter’s rules, obviously he’s going to be very upset. He’s not the nicest guy. I think they’ve done a really good job with writing him as well, because he has sort of let her do her own thing and find her own way. And so, over the seasons, it’s become more of a mutual respect, and I think she really does look up to him and how he works. I don’t think it’s the way she’s going to do things ever, but I think that she does respect the way he does it, and I don’t think she would be the cop, the detective that she is without him.

And I think we really got to see that, which was so nice, at the end of last season, in Yin. I mean, as simple as it was, just Juliet having that breakdown. I loved so much that it was Lassiter who was there for her and not Shawn, because I think the characters have just so earned that over the season. I think if either lost the other, it would be like losing a limb.

On Juliet and Shawn’s Development:
I think we’ve done a good job, over the last few seasons, of really playing out how a relationship like this might go. So many complications are going to come into play when and if these characters get together. So I think that we’ve, like, exhausted a lot of that now. Some very serious things have been said, and it’s just like a little ticking bomb that I feel like it’s going to happen, somehow, in a big way. It’s either going to be great, or it’s going to be a crazy fall-out. Shawn has a huge secret and if he’s going to have honest relationships, how does all that work? I would like to see — for both of them to be honest about their feelings with each other, however that’s going to play out.

On Juliet and Shawn’s Moonlighting  “Will they? Won’t they?” leading to Jumping the Shark:
I have a couple of, like, different takes on that. I think that it’s a — it’s just a fine line. It depends on where the show is. It depends on the characters. I think Moonlighting would be if Shawn and Gus got together.

But there are arguments to both sides because — again, I think what is so important about this show and how we’ve developed all or our relationships is kind of what I just said about life, in our real life, too. It’s like it’s Shawn and Gus, and that’s the core of the show. And then there’s Juliet and Lassiter, and there are these — you know, Henry and Shawn. There are all these other, like, peripheral relationships. And I think that — I do think that it can work if the “will they” happens, because I have —  mean, we’ve seen before — you know, the Ross and Rachel. The get together episode — season one, and it went back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth, and I don’t think that show really suffered because of that. And the other one is Carrie and Big.

It was sort of like the coming together in the — and without necessarily physically going there. I think we’ve done that a little bit, and I think it’s good. I think it raises the stakes for when that day actually comes, and then what that really means. It’s so big. But even Carrie and Big didn’t officially get together until, you know, the end. So I guess that’s the other side of the argument. Same with Ross and Rachel, right? I don’t know. Anyway.

On Gus and Juliet:
And Gus saved me, yeah. Totally. Yeah. Yeah, there is a whole relationship there that hasn’t been totally explored yet. But I do think — there are some more Gus/Juliet interactions in the future.

On the difficulty of dating her co-star:
I think that it can be, yeah. But for us, it’s not. We had Psych before we had our relationship, and I kind of love that we’ve held on to — you know, work is work, and when we’re at work, we’re working. And his partner at work is Dule. My partner at work is Tim.

There were people who, on the crew, that still come up to me and they’re like, “You guys are dating? Like, really?” Like, I mean, it’s not like we don’t speak at work. It’s just that, you know, we have a definite line of, like, you know, we—when we’re at work, it’s about work, and we keep it about work. And then we can get all, you know, lovey-dovey after work.

On Juliet possibly discovering Shawn’s secret:
I would say if there’s ever going to be an honest relationship for Shawn and Juliet that it would be good for him to tell her. But I don’t know, situations can backfire sometimes. I don’t want to know that. But I think that somewhere along, like, deep in everyone’s, like, you know, thoughts of Shawn, that they kind of know he’s a fake. I think he’s really good at what he does, but there is an element where we’ve all questioned it at some point like, “Really? I don’t know, but I’m going with this because it works and it’s good and you care and you get it done.”

So it would be an interesting turn to see how that happens, because part of me thinks that everyone could just sort of be like, “Yeah, we knew. Whatever.” You know, but then — you know. I don’t know. So that’s an interesting — that would be an interesting thing for us to explore, I think, if and when that ever happens. But I think I would like Juliet to be the next one to know. I think that’d be nice.

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Clacked by An Nicholson
on Sep 08, 2010 @ 13:00 EST5EDT