Just like Robert Duvall’s character was in “The Godfather,” Robin Weigert’s is the consigliere to a family whose lifeblood is organized crime.
As attorney Ally Lowen on FX’s “Sons of Anarchy,” she rides in not on a hot Harley, but with her conservative business suit, medium heels and well-worn briefcase as her arsenal in defending the outlaw motorcycle gang in the fictional Northern California town of Charming.
Instead of asking the questions, Weigert recently sat down with reporters to answer some.
Q: We find out in this episode —assuming that she (Lowen) doesn’t know what exactly Tara was planning. I was hoping you could kind of talk us through what you think she did know and what your reaction was whenever you sort of figured that out.
R. Weigert: Yes. I mean, I had built such a careful case and this is a huge bomb that she drops right in the middle of it. You can understand why Tara would want total security, that she could keep Gemma away from the kids, but at the same time she’s wrought havoc on my work to try to—my work, as Ally Lowen, to try to prepare the way for us to have a solid case in court. There’s so many ways in which in what she’s done could potentially be penetrative.
I’m just thinking like a lawyer, you know, as I answer the question. I mean, in so many ways, what she’s done could be investigated and have, you know, and be punctured. If that happens, then it damages all the rest of what I’ve carefully orchestrated for trial. I think that’s a lot of what’s going through my head, and I have no choice really but to stand by her side in this chapter, but it’s a tough one.
Q: As a follow-up, I just wanted to sort of ask looking ahead, is there anything you can tease, vaguely, about I mean it seems like it’s something that could come back and bite Lowen as well? We know that Gemma may not be her biggest fan at this point. What you can say about that?
R. Weigert The thing about the way the parts are on this season is being a lawyer for a member of a house divided is a lot more dynamic than being a lawyer from a member house united, and this whole season has been about the fracturing of that family. I think there’s no way—early on, I had to take sides and it was said in no uncertain terms in that scene with Gemma, you know, whose side I was going to take. I think the line was, “I guess I’ll have to figure out which innocent is in need of a good defense,” with the word innocent loaded with irony. Really, none of them are innocent and to be a lawyer and sign up for this job, you’d have to know that you were doing a little bit of a dance, a careful dance.
It’s the same as being a lawyer for the mob, I guess. You are really working the law to try to help your client; and at the same time, you know that your client will have done a lot of things that are not on the right side of the law, so you have to kind of almost play the game of law. It feels like this has somehow gotten personal for her, for Lowen, because of her investment perhaps in the kids—herself, her investment in those kids, in a sense that their innocence and even their lives are in danger.
There are so many issues this season. There’s legacy, the audience is sort of I think at this point just rooting for the light to stay inside of Jax somewhere. He’s done so many dark, dark things; but for that light at his core not to be extinguished and so much about what is the source of that life and light is Tara. As we watch the relationship more and more in danger, I think, we’re wondering ultimately what will become of Jax’s soul, really, you know, his heart. I’ve gotten all tied up in that storyline this season.
Q: Over the course of Lowen’s involvement with the Sons of Anarchy we’ve seen her pretty much take everything in stride without ever even batting an eye, but it really seems like the developments with Tara have kind of gotten under her skin in a way that all of the other past events with the Sons haven’t.
You know, I think we saw it a little bit last week in the hospital room just like with the expression on her face when she was looking at Tara, and then we see it in this week’s episode with their kind of confrontation. Is Lowen, do you think, she’s more upset from a personal standpoint or more of a moral standing? Like she truly believes that Tara has done something wrong, and she’s conflicted with how she feels about it and whether she should do anything about it?
R. Weigert Well, you know, these little points of light characters like Unser and, to an extent, Lowen, who as morally ambiguous as their roles are at times, they are on the side of right somehow. They’re wanting good to prevail over evil and are fighting that fight. I think what you’re seeing is that these characters are more embattled this season and have to make choices; and as soon as you have to make choices, there’s no way not to become personally engaged because these aren’t choices dictated by the law, in my case or in his case, by you know the rules of being a former cop. They’re dictated by one’s conscious; and as soon as you start to make choices on that basis, you’re implicated, and you’re involved in a different level.
She’s had to create a kind of hierarchy of what’s more important than not and even at some risk to herself this season, because, certainly, she’s been threatened. She’s walking into deeper and deeper waters here where she stands to be ever more threatened, because the situation is becoming unbelievably volatile, and the potential for volatility is just escalating. She has to recognize with each step she takes that she’s committing more and more. I don’t know if I answered your question.
Q: You know, as obviously, Gemma suspects something is up and we have to assume at some point Jax will also find out that things weren’t quite as they seem, do you think Lowen is concerned about the fallout from that and what Jax or Gemma may do to her due to her being complicit in these actions?
R. Weigert Yes. I mean it is a question whether at this point my fear is more for myself in terms of my literal physical well being or more for the—it’s sort of more from an ego place of having built—worked very hard on a case and built a case and then watching it sort of crumble. I think, in terms of just non-altruistic fear that she might have, which for part of herself is coming from this sort of animal survival part or is it coming from this sort of lawyer ego part. I think it may be a mixture of both. I mean, surely, she is not imagining that she is going to genuinely get murdered because it’s such a—that would be such a huge standing thing to do, just that outside of her usual turf and be a thing like that.
But it can’t be outside of her mind, I mean, she’s seen for the first time lists of the atrocities that have been committed by various members of the club, because Tara’s been building this case with her, she’s showed her evidence and Wendy showed her evidence too of just exactly how egregious her clients have been. I think she may realize for the first time that anything is on the table. I think I just talked myself in circles but there’s a piece of—I think there’s a difference in terms of the intensity which she’s been experiencing from past seasons. I think past seasons have all been imagined power; and in this season, she may be slowly perceiving her lack of power, because she’s dealing with so many rogue elements that she can’t possible control.
Q: I was wondering if coming into the show where some of these people have been around for such a long time on this show, were they very welcoming of you?
R. Weigert Oh, God, yes. It’s such a good group. I think the saddest thing about things lurching towards the Season 7 is just that it really has become such a fraternity and sorority, but such a sort of brotherhood over there. There’s a lot of genuine love, and they’re very generous with that. I mean, it’s built on that over there, so I have felt really embraced and by the whole group of them. It’s really a great set to work on.
Q: I was wondering if you had ridden any motorcycles past or present?
R. Weigert It is so tempting when you live in Los Angeles to want to ride a bike, because you see them just getting away with murder in traffic. You know, everything’s jammed up on the 405 and they’re just running between lanes. I think it’s kind of dangerous, and I’m a little bit maybe at this time too conservative in my approach to life to want to risk it, but that doesn’t mean it’s out of the question for the future. It looks like so much fun.
Q: How would you like to see Ally’s role expand this season in light of Tara’s like predeal and the whole dealing with the DA … DA seems very tough? In the salvages of Ally and Tara’s professional relationship is it conflict with their friendship, do you think?
R. Weigert Well, it’s interesting that it is a professional relationship and yet the stakes have become personal. I don’t know that they’re exactly friends. I mean, I think as I begin to realize how much is being concealed from me, elements of trust are being savaged in the process, so the capacity to represent her well is being challenged and I think if there’s one thing I want to be it’s a good lawyer. I want to be able to do well by my client in whatever that would require. You know?
Q: How would you like to see her role expand or move on as Tara in light of her deal and it looks like she’s wrecking the deal almost?
R. Weigert This is something that there are one or two roads that we either have to get on the same page or I’ve got to get out. We’ve either got to get on the same page or I’ve got to get out. I think that’s clearly what’s going through my mind at this point. I cannot be at odds with my client and still do well by her. I can’t be kept in the dark and still do well by her. You know, we have to join forces.
You’re also starting to see in Tara a kind of wildness, I think, because as much as she’s working to save those kids, there’s just no way she doesn’t also love her husband, no matter how much of a defense she has up against him.
This is just so deep, season after season, you’ve seen it and it just doesn’t get washed away. She’s really plunging into the territory of unbelievably painful ambivalence right now and you’re watching it. I think Maggie’s work this season is so tremendous, and you can really feel how fragmented she’s becoming inside. I think that I as her lawyer am registering how extreme it’s getting for her, as well, you know. There’s just to a lot to weigh, a lot to measure in terms of what are the best steps to take on forward.
Q: When you first got the role did you actually do research and talk to lawyers? Especially lawyers who deal with fringe element of the law likes of the anarchy or the mob and stuff like that?
R. Weigert No. You know what was really cool that it was just sort of offered up to me that there’s a member of the cast who actually was a Hell’s Angel and was talking about how incredibly intense and important his relationship with his lawyer was to me when I was on set. That was actually a very useful conversation that was just sort of a gift.
You can read all you want to, but books are pretty dry and fictional accounts tend to be over dramatized. I found out when I was researching Jane as well it’s like people had agendas with her, Calamity Jane, and it was very hard to glean anything from what I read and only when I was able to talk to Jane Alexander about her, who had interviewed some people who actually knew her because she was young enough when she played her that there was some people still living that had done things like … for Calamity Jane so that was a similar thing here where a first hand account felt like I just got so much more out of it. He’s a real tough guy and a huge-hearted guy as well and just feeling the way he worked that out through his lawyer was an important piece.
Q: Did you build a back-story for your own self? We don’t get to see a lot of it in the show, but did you build her a back-story?
R. Weigert Yes. This is one thing that if I could ever plant a seed with our wonderful showrunner, it would be this thought; I think her life has been about her work. I think she’s one of those girls and women who just works so hard, studied so hard, and became a very high achiever and sort of that there’s been a bit of a disconnect that she hasn’t given—she’s so much about controlling that she hasn’t given herself free rein to express her more passionate side, you know, so I just don’t even see her in a relationship at all. It’s almost like she’s married to her work.
I think it would be interesting if something happened to upend that where she was suddenly caught not being able to be in the driver’s seat because of a set of feelings that she hadn’t chosen. That, to me, would be sort of like a great next step for the character, if she continues on into next season. I’d be very interested in that.
Q: Kurt Sutter writes some really incredible roles for women, especially in a testosterone-fueled show like Sons of Anarchy. Incredibly deep, passionate roles. Is that one of the things you like about doing it or—a lot of shows aren’t like that.
R. Weigert Here’s the thing, when you—again, I don’t mean to keep drawing comparisons to Deadwood, but, obviously, Kurt had an affection for that show as well because he keeps cycling different members out of that cast … but there is something about how women emerge against a backdrop of violence and roughness like this. How what women have innately sort of pops, has focus in an atmosphere that’s so sort of scary and male dominated. You really see what metal they’re made of, and they’re really put to the test and challenged.
I, actually, kind of like playing a female character in what you’re calling a very ‘testosteroney’ show. I like that because the imperative to sort of define what you are against that backdrop makes interesting colors come forth.
Q: I really resonated with what you said about your role being compared to a mob lawyer, because I actually rank SOA right up there with the Sopranos. I wonder more about Ally’s back-story, how she came into the family, so to speak, what other clients she’s dealing with, and court victories or legal victories that she’s most proud of.
R. Weigert Yes. I think she sort of loves working the clay of the law; and if that’s your passion, than a certain amount of moral relativism comes into play because you’re seeing what you can make happen and that becomes your interest more than sort of like the literal right and wrongness of everything. That’s what makes me feel like she’s someone who’s gotten way up into her head and has almost by degrees lost touch with her viscera, you know, her visceral self, because she’s excellent at what she does. She’s almost at a certain point had to made sport out of it, which is I think the compromise of certain lawyers make.
It’s like being really, really good at a certain kind of board game or excellent at poker or something like that where you just get good at it and you lose sight of the bigger picture sometimes. This is a season where she’s being thrust into a relationship to herself that she’s probably not that familiar with over the long-term of having to really decide where she stands as a human, so I think it’s kind of cracking her open slowly. I think it’s why there are little peeks of more emotion showing from the character. You know, I can only imagine.
My brother’s a lawyer, not in this kind of high-stakes game, but he’s a lawyer for the Environmental Defense Sector of The Department of Justice. He’s had a couple of cases even there where he got very caught up, because, you know, he’s dealing with environmental pollutants and things like that, but there was a case where they were pursuing some stuff in Providence where it was a pretty mob-heavy situation. He was afraid to ask certain people to take the stand because he knows there’s consequences for them, and he really had to weigh what that’d be like so that’s a little firsthand taste of that.
I mean, as soon as the human stakes get really high, I think you’re very much put to the test. It’s not for the faint of heart, this kind of work. My God. I can only imagine.
Q: I know this isn’t in the script, but does she have other clients that she’s juggling?
R. Weigert Yes. I kind of loved—it was fun to sort of play a little bit of that with the thought of like I sort of—I’m forgetting which scene it was … Kurt’s really dealt with Tara, and I’ll be in court all day and I was on my cell phone dealing with what was clearly other business, the idea that this is just one case of many is an interesting piece to play. I mean the stakes exist for her elsewhere in her life as well; and on any given day, this is going to be priority one or priority seven depending on what’s really coming to head where. That’s been—not that I have a ton of scenes to play that out, but I always look for opportunities to sort of paint in that outside life as well. Yes.
Q: When you’re not working I’m wondering what TV shows you like to watch.
R. Weigert Oh, God. I sort of binge watch or jag watch things, so I’ll pick up and watch a season of something. I can’t help but be hooked this season by American Horror Story. Part of it is I just have so many friends who are actors who get to do sort of deliciously wicked things on that show. I mean sometimes it’s beyond my ability to tolerate the gore or the violence or something, but it’s mostly just kind of, especially this season, it’s sort of the deliciousness to it all, which is always fun. God, I love watching Jessica Lange in that.
I’ve gotten, like everybody else who’s an actor, and I got really into Mad Men at one point. I think that’s where I first saw Maggie on TV being really great was in that role she had on that show. I’m looking for places where there’s really a high level of acting going on, I guess.
One show I regret not having tuned in on from the beginning because I feel like I can’t watch it now until I go all the way back is Homeland. I feel like I missed the boat on that. I should’ve started watching it long, long ago, so I think I’d be utterly lost now. I understand it’s a very complicated plot, but there are some great people on that, too.
I think there’s just some really good TV. I think TV is an amazing medium right now. There’s just so much good stuff going on. It’s not at all what it used to be. It’s such–some of the best people are working in TV as writers and as actors, and it’s just an exciting place to be right now. Yes.
Q: Hello. I was interested in when you had spoke about the back-story and how driven that Ally had been with her career, and I was wondering if you think that that flavors her concern? I know that Tara’s her client, but you know there are children involved and maybe, as you said, if she doesn’t have children of her own, maybe she feels protective of Tara and her kids.
R. Weigert Yes. This is where I really feel like the character is being put to the test because I think up until now in other cases I’ve represented, I’ve been able to stay cleanly on the side of just being there as a representative. Here as I’ve peered into sort of the hell of what these kids have facing them, if they don’t get cleared of this club, it’s starting to be a cause. It’s starting to be a real cause for me, and it’s sort of impossible to not get caught up and engaged.
I appreciate every little beat that’s outside the chief functional storyline that allows me to fill that in. Even if the moment of passing by one of the kids at a table and smiling at them and touching them for a second, you know, it just shows that my heart is starting to get wrapped around those children. There’s no way it doesn’t have personal …. Also having witnessed, really right at the beginning of this season, Tara is so dismantled in prison and sort of helpless right at the beginning so—
I think that charged the character up, too. I mean there’s a real difference between what its like to see her behind bars and what it’s been like to see Gemma in danger and so on, she just hasn’t felt like she has had the teeth for it. She comes from such a different world. Even though we’ve been watching Tara in some ways, you know, become more like Gemma, it’s also quite clear that she’s more sensitive and she’s more apt to get crushed than to sort of become the she monster …. I think there’s no way that I … defend her. I’m not picking up on some of that and getting sort of engaged also as her champion and rescue her even or some of those feelings. I think it’s become very complex, and there’s a certain point, too, at which when a lawyer recognizes, the same as a shrink recognizes, that they’re getting over invested.
Q: I was very interested in when you were talking about how women like in the example of Calamity Jane or in Ally, Gemma, and Tara’s roles within Sons of Anarchy about the woman—the fellowship with the women that they have to kind of band together and it’s a very kind of male-dominated arena and that they will have to find ways, either behind the scenes or to kind of have these alliances, and how that kind of plays—and it really makes these wonderful, rich female characters within this male-driven show.
R. Weigert If you look at Padilla and then you look at Gemma, and you look at Nero; he’s in the female role. You know, I mean traditionally. He’s the one bringing out the soft and loving side of her, and he is having a profound affect on her, no doubt, but she’s a warrior.
He’s a feeler and he’s a lover. He’s a gentle man caught in a rough life. I think there’s some really interesting role reversal there. Typically, it would be—I mean Gemma’s such a fantastic character. Typically, the dynamic that exists between them with the locus of love being in the female character sort of softening the male character whose living … that’s typically the way that’s set up in these shows and this is exactly the opposite. God, I think Jim is such an amazing…
He just brings so much—I mean it just breaks my heart when I watch him in this because he’s so caught, he’s so caught, and every turn you feel what he wishes his life could be versus what his life is. It’s just beautiful. Anyway, though, that’s sort of a sidebar. In other words, I don’t think Gemma is like any other female character I’ve seen on TV because you’re not looking to her to break. You don’t think that she’s about to get broken. She’s tough—to the point where she isn’t breaking anywhere. You just wonder what her next move is going to be. Usually, you’re thinking that about a male character, not a female one.
Q: You know Kurt has said that a lot of the writing he does is based on the actresses he hires. They’re the muses for their character in a way. So it begs a question, how much are you like Ally or are you totally polar opposites?
R. Weigert That’s a good question. I have really, really contradictory sides to me; so if somebody chose to draw on one side, they’d get a completely different character than if they drew on another. Maybe that’s why I’m interested I having there be somebody who puts Ally in to real conflict with herself, as well, because that would actually be true to me than the either/or of it. You can probably hear in my wordiness, as I mention these questions, I’m fairly free role, but I’m also apt to be swept up by a tide of emotion, too. I’m sort of extreme in both ways. Just to say, I’m very much a feeler and I’m very much a thinker and so far what’s been drawn on for this character is in her mind, her logic, reason, and her mind have been very much at the helm, so, again, I’m curious to what she’s like when that gets exploded somewhat ….
Q: Well, you mentioned television shows, and a quick aside; you’ve been on some of my favorites of all time Deadwood Life, which is one of my favorites of all time. You have a great resume, and of course you’re still doing this and I did see Full Circle. You have a film coming up called God Behaving Badly?
R. Weigert Yes. That’s the tiniest role I’ve played in my entire career, but I do exist in that.
This part I’ve just played in this movie, Concussion, was a major step for me because it was about 140 scenes to play of a movie, and I really was a very thorough, character study piece and that was a wonderful departure and it was really, really interesting.
Right now I’m doing a role in movie called Pawn Sacrifice, which is about Bobby Fischer, and I play Regina Fischer, his mother. This is more in keeping with some of the roles I’ve played in the past in the sense it’s a really interesting character part, a departure for me from who I appear to be. She’s a Brooklyn leftie, a communist, you know. Her life spans 1952 to 1972 in the film, so it’s period peace. It’s just sort of delicious fun, and I love this kind of stuff.
It’s funny I’m at a bit of a transition point because it used to be that my favorite, favorite, favorite thing—and Deadwood was an example of it was to totally vanish from view and just become somebody totally unrecognizable, and I’m still in love with that. I’m still in love with sort of disappearing into a role, but I’m ever more interested in the reveal aspect of it, as well, kind of like letting private colors and emotions and feelings and textures of subtler things just sort of shine through and let the audience track you.
Q: How is it different working with Maggie on that, as opposed to—do you change your whole attitude? What is kind of the process?
R. Weigert Well, I mean it was an utterly different backdrop because it was sort of all women over there and it’s sort of all men on Sons, and it just creates a different vibe. You know, it was a great thing to be able to work with her in a different context and also on two such different characters, you know, we’re both these sort of in some sense bored or frustrated suburban housewives in that, and she ends up hiring me as a prostitute.
It was crazy, but yes, it’s just a joy to work with a good actor. What can I say? It’s like she’s very available. She’s very—one of the openers were free and that was a really good experience.
–Hillary Atkin
