Nice Girls TV Talks with In Plain Sight’s Fred Weller

Fred Weller as Marshall

Fred Weller plays ‘Marshall’ on USA’s In Plain Sight, airing on Sunday nights. Marshall is that added spice which makes the show the success that it is. He brings the humor element that breaks up the drama in Mary’s complicated life, though Mary often doesn’t laugh. In reality, Mary McCormack often find it difficult to get past the laughter while working.

“The most memorable moment would have to be when Mary was laughing so hard she was threatening to need a costume change from potential “laugh pee” after I was kicking in the door and my foot went through the door panel instead of opening the door. And then I was stuck there in the door, unable to retract my booted foot, and the cameras were running, so there is footage of that somewhere.”

The ease with which their on screen characters seem to be with each other is not something they have had to work hard at. They are friends off camera as well. Some would like to see Mary Shannon and Marshall hook up. I am not one of them. I just don’t see it at all. Imagine my surprise when Weller talks about Marshall’s hidden feelings for Mary. In talking about Mary’s post-traumatic stress and how it effects Marshall, Weller says, “Well, it’s one more occasion to evoke Marshall’s affection for her, his simmering romantic feelings. In a way, it helps him to be able to be there for her and to try to strengthen the bond between them, but it also concerns him because he is truly concerned about her well being and does want the best for her. But it enables them to bond and enables him to come in and try to be the knight in shining armor. It’s right up his alley.” I just can’t imagine Marshall being romantic with Mary. Or visa-versa, for that matter. But it was fun to hear Weller talk about it.

Marshall is always so deadpan, I had to ask what challenged Weller. “Well, it’s challenging for the same reason that it’s fun in that it requires comedic and emotional ability. Now, my emotions are not as … as frequently as are Mary’s. Her character is in emotional turmoil much of the time, but at least a couple times a season and certainly more times this season than last, Marshall is in some kind of emotional turmoil. And any time that you’re asked as an actor to exhibit some state that is out of control or should appear out of control, it’s a little more challenging. And then I think comedy is an exacting science. You don’t want to blow the humor if it’s there. If you do it wrong, it’s either funny or it’s not, so the fact that it’s a little, has comedy and emotion is what makes it rich, and it’s also what makes it challenging. You don’t want to disappoint. You don’t want to, when you’ve got such great material, it’s important to rise to it and get it right.”

Speaking of great material, Weller tosses ideas around with David Maples, from time to time. “We’ll joke around. I can’t actually think of something that I said that made it into the script per se, but we’re definitely on the same page about who he is. And David has said that who Mary and I are has started to influence his vision of the characters, sort of a symbiotic relationship because playing a character which you love for a length of time starts to affect your own personality, I think. So the lines tend to blur. I’ve never played anyone that I felt, I’ve never played a character that I felt was closer to me, but I can’t say that David has taken any particular idea of mine. Like I say, I can’t think of one specifically. There have been aspects of the character, ideas of mine that have informed the set dressing, what’s on Marshall’s desk, but I can’t remember saying, “Oh, I think my dad is such and such,” and then it was in the script. But we do have a good relationship with David, and I think that informs his take on the characters we play.”

One of the ideas we were interested in was what situation Weller would like to see Marshall in that he’s not been in yet. “Well, I’d like to meet his parents, or one of them. But David likes the mystery of Marshall. He’s said as much. He likes to just discover little tidbits of weirdness that emerge through the course of the story, rather than making the story about Marshall. But I’m sure at some point we’ll see a little more about where he comes from. He claims to have gone to college at the University of Albuquerque and to have been the star of the badminton team there, for example. Does that mean he’s from Albuquerque? I don’t know. I’ll have to sit down and just write out everything that we know about him sometime and his various interests.”

Some of the gust stars we can look forward to this season are Martin Landau, Sherilyn Fenn (Gilmore Girls), Richard Schiff (The West Wing) will also be on the show, Cynthia Watros (Lost), David Denman from The Office, Kevin Rankin from Friday Night Lights. Landau will play one of Marshall’s witnesses.

For season two of In Plain Sight, Weller says, “The drama is ratcheting up between, I think, the Mary, the Mary, you’ll see Mary/Marshall drama increase. Raphael figures very largely. Probably bigger, Raphael probably is bigger this season than, whereas last season, I think Mary’s mom was sort of more a key figure, and Brandi. I think Raphael, in this season, is going to be a bigger component. Without giving anything away, some big events will go down.”

From what we’ve seen so far, there’s something big in every episode. Catch In Plain Sight every Sunday night at 10/9 p.m. CT, on USA.