MATLOCK key art – Season 1 | ©2024 CBS

CBS’s new iteration of MATLOCK had its premiere on Sunday, September 22, and is now settling into its regular timeslot on Thursdays, beginning October 17, with episodes subsequently available on Paramount Plus.

The original MATLOCK ran for nine seasons, 1986-1995, starring Andy Griffith as wealthy, brilliant attorney Ben Matlock, who defends his clients by finding the real culprit.

The new MATLOCK stars Kathy Bates as Madeline “Matty” Matlock, an older attorney who comes out of retirement and talks her way into an assistant gig at top-flight New York legal firm Jacobson & Moore. The other MATLOCK is verbally referred to as being a TV series of years past in the new show. Like Ben, Matty is great at investigating and tracking down perpetrators. By the end of the first episode, the audience knows Matty is keeping a few big secrets from her new colleagues.

One of the lawyers at Jacobson & Moore is senior partner Julian Markston, played by Jason Ritter. Julian is the son of managing co-partner Senior (Beau Bridges) and separated husband of junior partner Olympia (Skye P. Marshall), who is Matty’s direct boss.

Ritter, son of the late actor John Ritter, made his first TV appearance as a toddler in the opening credits of the older Ritter’s ‘80s sitcom THREE’S COMPANY. Since then, Ritter has amassed a long list of credits in theatrical films and on television, including series leads in UNDRESSED, JOAN OF ARCADIA, THE CLASS, THE EVENT, GRAVITY FALLS, and KEVIN (PROBABLY) SAVES THE WORLD. Ritter was also nominated for a Guest Actor Emmy for his recurring role on PARENTHOOD.

When CBS holds a Q&A panel for MATLOCK at the summer Television Critics Association (TCA) press tour in Pasadena, California, Ritter chats afterward with a small group of journalists.

Ritter says that when he became involved with the series, “I didn’t have much of a relationship to [the original Griffith-starring] MATLOCK when I first started. I started watching it after I got the part, and it was a lot of fun to see. I knew our show better than that one, so I was able to sort of understand the beating heart of MATLOCK, of someone being underestimated and being smarter than everyone else, was still present. And everything else was new. And so, it was really exciting to see. And then, I was like, ‘Oh, that’s why we have a hot dog every once in a while.’”

Melanie Lynskey (HEAVENLY CREATURES, YELLOWJACKETS) is Ritter’s real-life wife. He persuaded to appear in THE LAST OF US. Did Lynskey have any recommendations as to whether Ritter should join the MATLOCK cast?

Ritter laughs when asked. “She was so excited about MATLOCK. She sees all my auditions, she’s my [off-screen] scene partner [for audition tapes], the best scene partner you could ever possibly imagine. I’m like, ‘Turn the camera around, see what she’s doing.’

Jason Ritter in MATLOCK – Season 1 | ©2024 CBS/Art Streiber

“When she read this, she was excited immediately, and she was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, this is so good.’ And when she saw the pilot episode, she’s already a fan of the show, which is so exciting. And now she won’t run lines with me, because she doesn’t want to know what’s coming. She wants to be surprised.”

Ritter relates that he is excited that Bridges is cast as his father. “I had done a play reading with him many, many years ago.”

But, he continues, there’s another reason – besides Bridges’s talent – for Ritter’s enthusiasm. “What’s so funny and such an interesting connection – he and my dad actually got mistaken for each other all the time. There are some pictures, especially back in the day in the ‘70s, where if you didn’t really know either one very well, you might go, ‘Oh, yeah, similar hair, similar coloring, similar kind of eye shape.’

“And so, even though he’s not my dad, it was very easy for me to sort of transfer fatherly feelings towards him. And it’s also such perfect casting, because that character is super-intense, and the kindness that Beau has as a human being in the world and the warmth really plays interestingly with the types of things he says and the type of father he is to me in the show.”

At least in the first few episodes, is it fair to say that Ritter’s Julian seems to have the burden of providing the smarminess in MATLOCK?

“You know what? One of the things that everybody here was talking about, that the characters are all so layered, and so how you feel about one character in one particular episode may be completely opposite of what you feel about them when you learn something new about them, or when you peel back the layers and go, ‘Oh, maybe that’s a little bit of why he is the way he is,’ or something like that.

“But yes. Out of all of these characters, I get the smarmy card for sure. It is so fun. I mean, I get to release all my inner smarminess that I try to keep under wraps. It’s my deepest, darkest secret.” He laughs, indicating he’s kidding. “No, no.”

Actually, getting the level of smarminess versus sympathy is one of the nuances that Ritter likes playing.

“That’s the thing. I think one of the things that they enjoyed, I think, about the chemistry read that Skye and I had together is that he’s not so clearly awful and horrible that you don’t understand why they were ever married in the first place. His dander can get up, he can be cutting. He can be rude, especially if he feels triggered by something she said, he can lash out and be mean.

“But they have these kids together. He’s a good dad and she’s a wonderful mom. They have years and years of this relationship that wasn’t just, ‘Oh, we’re both smart.’ We loved each other. And so, they liked having that element, and then, you know, divorce doesn’t always bring out the best in people, and Julian is certainly at a low point, especially when we meet him.”

Sometimes, Ritter and Marshall will perform their takes in a multitude of ways. “Well, it is fun, because sometimes I think they want to find something in the edit. So, we give them a bunch of different options that they can sort of look at things and go, ‘That meaner one worked,’ or ‘We better soften it here, because the last time, you were pretty rude.’ So, it’s been fun to work with all the directors. They really seem to get it, and it doesn’t ever feel like we have to lock into one thing. We’re able to really play, which is wonderful.”

Related: MATLOCK: Actress Skye P. Marshall gives the scoop on the new CBS reboot

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Article: MATLOCK: Actor Jason Ritter discusses the CBS reboot of the classic mystery series – Interview 

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