If there is one thing Kaitlin Olson has been perfected since she made her TV debut as Cheryl’s snoring sister, Becky, on “Curb your enthusiasm” 25 years ago, plays the crazy, wild, self-absorbed characters with questionable moral codes. She has done it for the better part of two decades on FX’s “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”, TV’s longest Live-Action-Sitcom (and still goes), where she portrays Narcissistic Pub Siteris Deandra “Sweet Dee” Reynolds. She did it for two seasons on Fox’s “The Mick” as an unpleasant smoker unsuitable to raise their rich sister’s children. More recently, her performance at Max’s “Hacks” as Jean Smart’s eligible daughter, DJ, Olson earned two Emmy nominations. So it was more than a surprise when “high potential”, ABC’s Freshman Crime Procedural adapted from the French/Belgian series “HPI,” Piked Olson’s interest.
“I didn’t look on a network crime drama at all,” said the 49-year-old actress and producer about her unplanned features at more serious prices. “What I did was want to do something other than I had done.
To put it more briefly, Olson did not want to stay comfortable in his comedy wheel: “I don’t want to get bored.”
Olson found a gold mine in “High Potential’s” Morgan Gillory, a single mother with three children who end up as a late evening for the Los Angeles Police Department. She also has a genius IQ (160, if you keep track), which she masks with neon-light acrylic nails, barely there skirts and faux fur coats.
“She doesn’t want attention to how smart she is,” Olson said. But her high intellect and extraordinary ability to make connections outside the box lands her into a consultant gig with the big crime team after she accidentally ruled an investigation in the right direction. It makes her partnership with Detective Adam Karadec (Daniel Sunjata), who is originally skeptical of Morgan, to be rich with professional and romantic tension.
“She’s smart, she doesn’t need anyone else and she’s scary,” Olson said. “I love that we don’t know exactly how she grew up – it was clear that there were some trauma there.” There is another motive behind Morgan’s team-up with the police: to take advantage of their resources to find her ex-man, novel, which disappeared 15 years earlier. “I haven’t really got to play someone who is high and brash and not shit about what people think, but go home at the end of the day and are a loving, wonderful mom who would do anything for her children.”
The audience has since flocked to Morgan. Olson believes that her character’s lack of Polish, unfiltered views and disinterest in embracing her intelligence makes her uniquely related.
“I love in the pilot like (Selena) Soto, (the head of major crimes played by Judy Reyes), says:” It’s a gift, “and Morgan absolutely does not hold,” Olson said. “It would be a very different show – and much less interesting – if she loved the fact that she was a genius, flaunted it in people’s faces and arranged her intelligence. (Her gift has) caused her a lot of pain in her life and it’s important to show the humanity in humans. It is one of the great things we talked about for season 2.”
The filming began in Los Angeles for the new season at the end of May. The first season ended with a lot of cliffhangers, many of which left the fans buzzing. Head among them: That Roman is still alive, Karadec knows where he is and the introduction of a puzzle-obsessed serial killer (played by David Giuntoli) who may be Morgan’s biggest opponent to date.
“We have cut out our work,” Olson said with a smile.
A version of this story first ran in the drama issue of Thewrap’s Awards Magazine. Read more from the question here.
