Note: This article contains spoilers from “Presumed Innocent” Episode 8.
“Presumed Innocent” star Jake Gyllenhaal was just as blown away as viewers by the killer reveal in the hit Apple TV+ drama’s Season 1 finale.
“I don’t think I could have ever suspected,” who the killer was, Gyllenhaal told TheWrap in an interview ahead of the series premiere in June. “I was surprised!”
Creator and executive producer David E. Kelley, who collaborated with Gyllenhaal and J.J. Abrams on the TV adaptation of the Scott Turow novel, said that he deliberately kept the cast in the dark about the show’s central mystery. That kept the actors guessing if they’d end up being the one who murdered Carolyn Polhemus (Renate Reinsve) and the script, largely written by Kelley, served up convincing motivations for nearly every character.
“What’s interesting is that we were all in it [as potential suspects]. So as an actor, you’re psychologically in the journey that you’re in, and then all of a sudden, your fate is laid out for you,” said Gyllenhaal, whose character Rusty Sabich is ultimately acquitted by the jury before audiences learn he really was innocent of the crime. The finale, released Wednesday, revealed that daughter Jaden (Chase Infiniti) killed Carolyn after learning the lawyer was pregnant with her father’s baby. Rusty then found Carolyn’s body and staged it to frame a convicted criminal, thinking he was helping take the scent of his wife Barbara (Ruth Negga).
“I knew that there were a number of different potential things. And we were all talking about different ideas. But I don’t think I could have ever suspected what it is,” said the actor.
Sarsgaard, who is Gyllenhaal’s brother-in-law in real life, played prosecutor and rival Tommy Molto, whose obsession with Carolyn and personal vendetta against Rusty made him many viewers’ number one suspect… until we saw how genuinely unnerved he was when someone planted the possible murder weapon at his house in Episode 7.
“I felt like I was fighting for my life. I was like, ‘it can’t be me,’ ” Sarsgaard told TheWrap. “I think everyone in it was like that, even the children were making the case for why it surely couldn’t be them.”
A strong case could have also been made that Rusty’s son Kyle (Kingston Rumi Southwick) was the killer, since he knew about the affair and had followed his father to Carolyn’s house on the night of the murder. It also seemed significant that he tried to get rid of the bicycle he was riding that night after he learned he’d been caught on video by Carolyn’s estranged son Michael (Tate Birchmore).
When speaking with TheWrap, Sarsgaard said that while the cast didn’t know the guilty party during production, they did know that the TV series’ ending was not the same as the 1990 movie, in which Rusty’s wife Barbra (played by Bonnie Bedelia) was the killer. That let Ruth Negga’s conflicted character off the hook, at least for the cast’s own theorizing.
Kelley explained to TheWrap why he decided to keep the identity of the murderer secret from the cast until the last episode.
“Even with ‘Big Little Lies,’ the ultimate reveal was not given away until we were deep into shooting. Saying less is better. Certainly the characters have to know who and what they’re playing. And we’re very communicative about that. But in terms of twists and plot turns that don’t really affect how they take on or treat a particular scene, if we can keep it quiet, we will,” he said.
He said that producers considered shooting alternate endings, but chose not to. “We were pretty settled on the ending we wanted and we went full bore,” he said.
Added Kelley, “It is very difficult [to keep a plot secret]. When I started, there was just a certain storytelling, deference and respect that you just didn’t give away endings.” He recalled shooting a shocking ending for his ’80s series “L.A. Law,” a few months before it aired.
“The secret never got out. Today, that’s almost impossible, because the trades will let it leak out in a business way, if not a creative way, like ‘so and so is available to do another series.’ And the audience is savvy, they can do the math. So yeah, it’s tough to keep secrets.”
“At a certain point, everybody [in the cast] wasn’t sure if it was them [who killed Carolyn],” laughed Gyllenhaal.
All episodes of “Presumed Innocent” are now streaming on Apple TV+. The show has been greenlit for Season 2.
