The Past Meets The Present For Stephen Amell’s Character Ted Black in SUITS LA

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede CTV’s SUITS LA is now fully “lawyered up,” and lead actor Stephen Amell is courting even more success. But could Amell, who grew up in the Toronto area, ever envision having turned out like his character in SUITS LA, a high-stakes, ice-in-his-veins, entertainment lawyer and former prosecutor named Ted Black? “I don’t think so, because I never had the patience for school, quite frankly,” Amell replied. “I mean, I’m good at memorizing things, obviously. I’m good with lines and whatnot. But I could barely get through biology class in 11th grade, so I don’t know how I would do with law school.” Regardless, for anyone in Hollywood, having a Ted Black on your side is a beneficial thing, when you really need one. “I really like my lawyer, my entertainment lawyer, but you know, I only ever want to talk to him in good circumstances, like, if it’s an elective call, right?” Amell said. “Any time that he is proactively calling me, it’s not good, it’s bad.” For the benefit of TV viewers, Ted Black deals with a bunch of celebrities in both good and bad circumstances in SUITS LA, which is in the midst of its first season, airing Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on CTV, CTV.ca, and the CTV app (and streaming the next day on Crave). SUITS LA, of course, is the long-awaited spinoff to SUITS, all nine seasons of which are on Crave as well. The connections between the two shows have been teased ever since the spinoff was announced, and the payoff on that front finally began for fans in the most recent episode (SPOILER ALERT: some details are about to be discussed). SUITS LA has been advancing in two timelines, one in current-day Los Angeles, and another flashing back to 2010 in New York. Gabriel Macht’s Harvey Specter, one of the main characters in the original SUITS, made his first appearance in SUITS LA last weekend, in one of the flashback sequences. Harvey and Ted are clearly close friends, and Macht is due to make a couple more guest appearances – possibly in the present-day timeline – as the first season of SUITS LA continues. The two characters share confidence, cockiness, brilliance, and a certain degree of self-absorption, which is fun to watch, but it can be a fine line to walk for any actor. “Well, first of all, I’m not concerned with people disliking the character (Ted), because I think if a character has flaws, it makes it ultimately more appealing, even if it elicits some negative responses,” Amell explained. “I really need to just trust in the people that I’m working with. Our directors have all been people from the original show, and we have the same creators, and a lot of the same writers. So I will push something as far as I think I can take it, and if they tell me to go further, I will. And if they tell me to pull it back, I will.” Ted definitely is driven by professional ambition and raw competitiveness, but his past haunts him as well. Contentment does not appear to be right around the corner. What would happiness even look like for Ted? “That’s a great question – I don’t know, and I haven’t really given it much thought,” Amell said. “I would think that at a very simple level, it would just be to have some peace of mind with what’s happened with his family, because there are certain things that he clearly has not let go. I’m sure he would want these things to be settled, because he has risen to the top of a very competitive industry in Los Angeles, and it hasn’t fulfilled him yet. So you might be right, he might get everything he wants, and then wake up the next morning and say it’s not enough. But hopefully that’s not the case, because I don’t think people who are like that last very long.” Speaking of lasting a long time, Amell has built a lengthy career with shows such as HBO’s HUNG, ARROW, STARZ’s HEELS, and now SUITS LA. He acknowledged that his personal working attitude has changed over the years. “I used to really try and micromanage every aspect of an experience for me, but now I’m just more focused on the work that I do, from when they call action, and when they call cut, and the type of atmosphere that we foster on set,” Amell said. “Because we all spend a lot of time together, and if I can control those things, or at the very least have a positive influence on those things, then I’m doing my job. I’ll let the people in the editing room, and the people that are promoting the show, and packaging it, and selling it, I’ll let all of them do their job.” One of Ted’s jobs in SUITS LA is to look good all the time. It was pointed out to Amell that in one of the early episodes of the show, Ted even woke up in a suit. “I think I went to bed in my clothes, but yeah, I still did look pretty good the next morning, I will give you that,” Amell said with a laugh. “Probably no one would look that way after sleeping in their clothes in real life, but it is a network television show, and we do want to have pretty people. Actually, wearing the suits is one of my favourite parts of doing the show. They’re so beautiful. Everyone in our wardrobe department does such a great job. I feel so comfortable, and smart, and put-together in those things. And that really informs my character, and the way that I behave. It makes life easier for me, believe it or not.” billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv