How David E. Kelley Adapted Book, Building Suspense

Legal drama is second nature to David E. Kelley, whose Emmy recognition in the genre spans three decades, from L.A. Law in the 1980s and The Practice and Ally McBeal in the ’90s to Boston Legal in the 2000s. But having worked on long seasons of those broadcast series, the eight episodes of Apple TV+’s Presumed Innocent this summer were a bit unnerving for the creator, showrunner and executive producer.

“It feels strange,” Kelley tells THR. “In the new days, you spend all this time working and then whoosh, you drop it, people consume it, and then it’s over, onto the next. That part’s a little weird.”

The thriller, based on Scott Turow’s 1987 novel of the same name and also adapted for a 1990 film, stars Jake Gyllenhaal in his first ongoing TV role as Rusty Sabich, a Chicago prosecutor who finds himself in need of defense when he’s accused of murdering his colleague with whom he had an affair. The limited (now drama) series was renewed for a second season in July, just two weeks shy of the season-one finale, with the plan to go beyond the book.

“One thing I know for sure is that the title Presumed Innocent, the themes that suggests, will very much be part and parcel of the next series.”

What made you decide to adapt this book for TV?

The question came up during COVID because there was a renewed interest in legal shows, because they were contained by nature and companies were looking to make COVID-safe projects, so courtroom drama suddenly got moved to the top of people’s lists. I was asked, “Hey, is there any IP or book that you’ve been dying to adapt?” And I immediately thought of Presumed Innocent. It was one of my favorite books, and I also loved the movie, but you couldn’t do all the book in a two-and-a-half-hour thing. But in a limited series, you could dive a little deeper. I’ve been a big fan of Scott Turow — continue to be — so off we went. And J.J. Abrams and I have been looking to work together for a long time. He had the property, so it was a nice confluence of circumstances that allowed us to collaborate.

Did you use the movie as inspiration, or did you want to do a completely fresh take?

I didn’t use the movie, but did use the book. Yes, you want to add fresh elements, but you’re not starting with a blank page. With Presumed Innocent, the architecture of the piece, both the plot and the characters, were so well formed that I came into it with the idea of being pretty faithful to it. We certainly were going to take some zigs and zags to make it new and a little bit different. But the reason I wanted to do it to begin with is because I loved it and thought there were parts of the book that hadn’t been adapted yet.

What were some of the challenges in staying true to the book in that way?

The biggest challenge is the biscuit has been baked twice, first in a book and then in a movie, so you’ve got to find ways to be different yet stay true and faithful to the material that you’re endeavoring to adapt. So, finding new plot twists. The characters were, I thought, well established. The Barbara character in the book was kind of a mystery, and we wanted to fill her out and know her more. In fact, I think in the series, the Barbara character, especially as inhabited by Ruth Negga, really is the emotional soul of the piece. She’s the center. That was not the case in the book or the movie. She was crafted by design to be a bit mysterious. In our incarnation of the piece, she is pretty front and center.

What did you see in Jake Gyllenhaal that let you know he was right for Rusty?

He’s a brilliant actor, and he’s got a certain ferocity and intensity to him that made him particularly right for Rusty. He also can be inscrutable, which we wanted Rusty to be, to feel like we have a sense of him, but not to know him; to like him, but not to completely trust him — complicated things for an actor to play, and Jake’s pretty brilliant at it. He was our first choice.

How difficult was it to make sure the audience wasn’t on to the killer from the beginning?

It’s an inexact science. There were a lot of natural, organic suspects, I thought, within the piece. So you want to keep them all alive, be true to the characters, but also crafting scenes that allow the audience to wonder about their motives and even whereabouts. It was challenging when I first started in this business. It’s become more so now because the audience has become so sophisticated as to how to watch these things. One of the sophistications that the audience has developed — and I get to experience it through the eyes of my daughter because she’s very good at it— they have their own barometer and antenna: If they see the writers pushing in a certain direction, they’re savvy enough to know that they’re being pushed. So you have to walk a creative line that allows the audience to cast suspicion toward a character, but not allow the audience to conclude that the storytellers are steering you in that direction. Once you’ve shot it, it really helps to bring in objective viewers, a focus group or the like, and have them watch it and give their feedback. I’ve talked to the wisdom of the crowd of writers. Well, it’s with the watchers, too, and being open to the idea that something that you intended to convey may have been received in a way different from that.

What you’re going for, at the end for a twist, is “aha,” “of course.” And you want them very proximate. You don’t want, “Wait, what?” “Let me think about,” “Oh, OK.” If that’s too stretched out, then you haven’t really earned that moment. With this one, the feedback was that we were able to realize that moment and the audience was able to experience the shock and appreciate the twist and the story all in that climactic moment. When you go back and watch the series again, you’ll see that we are pretty truthful to the characters. We were not playing hide the ball. It’s a pet peeve of mine when series do. They’ll put a scene in for no other reason than to throw the audience off the scent. And when you watch it a second time, you realize it: “Oh wait, why was that scene there? It was only there to fool me.” That’s not really fair. I’m hoping that when you watch Presumed Innocent the second time around, everything will feel true to story and to character.

This story first appeared in a December stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.