As new episodes of Suits LA continue to air, Josh McDermitt is already getting pitches from fellow actors — and fans of the show — who want to make an onscreen appearance.
“All my friends from The Walking Dead want to come over and play, which I think would be really fun,” McDermitt, 46, who plays Stuart, exclusively told Us Weekly. “Especially if we can have some fun with the relationships that we had on that show. We can invert them or build upon them in this show.”
McDermitt had so much fun with the star-studded cameos on the show so far. “Enrico Colantoni was in episode 4, and then, obviously, Patton Oswalt and Brian Baumgartner were hilarious. To me, I think that the show really fits when they’re playing fictionalized versions of themselves, and we can just make fun of each other and ourselves,” he noted. “I don’t think this person was announced [yet], but I just wrapped scenes with someone that is a good friend of mine — but I have not worked with her [before].”
According to the actor, there are tons of surprises still headed our way.
David Astorga/NBC As if there wasn’t enough anticipation around NBC’s Suits LA, the legal drama is bringing in some familiar faces — including a cameo or two from the original cast. Set in a fictional New York City corporate law firm, the original Suits followed associate lawyer Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams), who started working […]
“That’s where the show really is at its best, when people can make fun of themselves, we can make fun of ourselves and we have that witty banter dialogue,” McDermitt noted. “We got more [guest stars] coming. Rick Hoffman is going to bring Louis Litt to the Suits LA world and he was one of my favorites on the original show.”
Suits LA, which premiered in February, is a spinoff that was ordered by NBC in response to a resurgence in interest after the original Suits was added to Netflix and Peacock. Set in a fictional New York City corporate law firm, the original Suits followed associate lawyer Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams), who started working with Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht). The legal drama, which ran from 2011 to 2019, focused on Harvey and Mike winning lawsuits and closing cases while simultaneously hiding Mike’s secret that he didn’t go to law school.
NBC’s newest version stars McDermitt, Stephen Amell, Lex Scott Davis and Bryan Greenberg as fictional attorneys in feuding Los Angeles firms.
“I watched [the original Suits] when it was on Netflix,” McDermitt told Us. “I went through the first season really quick. … You could just tell the actors were having fun. The writing was great. I saw they were doing Suits LA, and then it kind of came my way and it felt like I was putting on my favorite shirt. It just felt very seamless to step into this world.”
Once McDermitt got cast, he decided to put his Suits binge watch on hold, adding, “I only got two or three episodes into season 2 before I realized I could really hear Yana Grebenyuk Aaron [Korsh]’s writing within that series. Then I went, ‘I’m going to start mimicking what they’re doing if I’m not careful.’ So I stopped but I’m going to get back to it and watch it.”
In the newest iteration, McDermitt gets to flex his acting muscles in the role of Stuart.
The Suits franchise lives on with another spinoff, Suits LA. Suits LA will feature new characters played by Stephen Amell, Bryan Greenberg, Josh McDermitt and Lex Scott Davis. It will be located in a new place, but it’s set in the same universe as the original series. Suits ran for nine seasons from 2011 to 2019 […]
“I don’t want to say he’s misunderstood because he’s very well understood. I had a lot of friends say like, ‘Oh man, I didn’t know you were the villain.’ And I was like, ‘He’s not a villain. He is in a [platonic] relationship with a man for years. It’s been toxic and they’ve beat each other up in this friendship,’” McDermitt said about the “breaking point” between Stuart and Amell’s Ted. “What you see Stuart do is not a good thing but if you get the full scope, it’s a self-preservation thing. He’s setting up boundaries for himself and that’s really what I was drawn to.”
Season 1 has offered glimpses into who Stuart is outside of his friendship with Ted, but McDermitt looks forward to pushing it even further, adding, “It was really important to me that as volatile as Stuart is or can be — and I obviously feel like he’s justified in how he feels about things whether or not I agree with how he goes about dealing with that — it was important to me that he had a good home life.”
He continued: “I didn’t realize how important that was to me until I read it in the script and saw that he’s got an amazing wife and a family that he loves and they love him. It’s a nice balance between this guy who is so volatile at work and in his relationships in the professional world. He’s very good at what he does. But then he’s not coming home and also just having a horrible home life. He has a great life.”
As for how the upcoming finale sets stories up for season 2? “We’re answering some questions. We’re leaving some questions unanswered and we have more questions that are popping up because of where we find ourselves,” McDermitt shared. “I haven’t read the final episode of the season yet so I don’t fully know. … But I do like where we’re headed and I don’t know that we’re putting a nice bow on things. It continues to get messier. And the more we get to know these characters and the relationships that they have with each other, the more entrenched we all become in the stories that are taking place.”
Suits: LA airs on NBC Sundays at 9 p.m. ET.
