Insiders Look at ABC’s Quantico with an Exclusive Interview with Michael Seitzman and Marlee Matlin

In part of our AVENGERS: Infinity War Red Carpet weekend in LA, we also went to ABC to get a sneak peek of the season 3 premiere of Quantico. It premiered on Thursday April 26th but you still have time to jump on board. We got to meet and interview Quantico Executive Producer & Showrunner Michael Seitzman and Academy Award winner Marlee Matlin (“Jocelyn Turner”) who has joined the cast.

I started to binge Quantico two weeks ago but if you haven’t watched it from the beginning you won’t be lost if you start now. The new Season 3 is a reboot and will satisfy new comers as well as loyal fans. *Spoiler Alert Ahead* I will say that as a fan of Quantico, I was blown away when I found out that Alex and Ryan were not together and that Ryan was married to Shelby. My first response was WTF! When we sit on our couch watching these shows, we get so mad at the writers and often ask WHY??? Our interview with season three new showrunner Michael Seitzman made me understand from his point of view as he gave us an insider’s look.

I loved Michael and Marlee’s response when they saw us all sitting waiting for them!

Seitzman: God, I can’t believe how many people are here. This is so exciting. They don’t really tell you anything. They just say walk across the lot. You don’t really– I saw you tweeted this morning. Though, I recognize your picture. I tweeted you back. Yes, I did. Oh, my God, Marlee.

The shocker….why?

Seitzman: Well, okay, so how often does shocking happen on television anyway? So, let’s just start with that response, how surprised you were, is not a bad thing, right? Because we’ve come to expect certain things on the shows that we all love. They tend to settle into a template. So, whatever the show is, not just Quantico, but every show tends to settle into a template. We know this is gonna happen by the end of Act 1. This is likely to happen by the end of Act 3. There are shows that we all watch where if you really peeled back the layers–

Probably the guy on the computer looking through the DMV records figured out who did it in Act 1, do you know what I mean, if you really broke it down. That’s how sort of template oriented it can get. Well, it’s the same thing with relationships on television is that a relationship can settle into a groove and can give you exactly what you’re expecting. So, the mandate here both external and internal was how do we shake the show up and change what it is that people are expecting and frustrate the viewers, frankly?

We are as storytellers I think people that watch television or watch a movie, they don’t realize that the primary job of the writer and the filmmaker is to frustrate the audience, not to give the audience what they want. To put it another way, the audience always wants their favorite couple to get together. And we sit in a room. The bulk of our time is spent trying to figure out ways to keep them apart. That’s the biggest job is how do you keep them apart?

Why the big jump of 3 years?

Seitzman: When I started, I thought, well, they got everything they wanted. At the end of Season 2, Ryan and Alex flew off into the sunset together. And what’s left? Like, they did it. So, are they gonna have marital disputes for the next season? Is that what’s gonna happen? Is that the show right now? Or, did something go wrong? And maybe if something went wrong, and I could buy that by giving us three years. I could buy a lot by giving us three years.

Serve both the new and the loyal audience!

Seitzman: If you think about it, you want to invite new audiences into the show as well as serve the loyal audience. So, give the new audience and the loyal audience an unknown back story that they can both share as opposed to the new audience not being able to share the two years prior. Now, they can share the three years in between.

Michael and Marlee worked together on Code Black and the two wanted to work together again so Michael found a way to write her in on Quantico!

Working with Marlee was the first time the cast worked with a deaf person. Marlee actually went into the writer’s room because she felt it was very important.

Matlin: I felt that the writers needed to see me in person to get a feel for who I am. To be able to pick up the different situations that I might find myself in and the situations that I’ve been in in my life or what I envisioned could happen as a result of the character that I’m playing. The writers are all brilliant. It was really helpful that I was able to be there in the writing room.

Seitzman: It was a great session for us because we had to learn. We also had a deaf writer in the room, which helped us. But, really, the session with Marlee was the most illuminating for us because we got to ask the questions head on and ask how it feels to be in this situation, how it feels to be in that situation. We got to learn a little bit. We’re constantly texting with each other so that we can make adjustments to make it work. Here’s a good example. A hearing person, somebody who’s not deaf, I wouldn’t think right away that everybody has to look at her when they’re talking to her. It wouldn’t occur to me.“

Marlee and Michael both showed us that as you work with a deaf person you automatically adapt. At the beginning of the interview we were all looking at the interpreter, but after a few minutes, we were looking at Marlee. When speaking to Marlee we automatically faced her so she could read our lips if she was looking at us and not the interpreter.

This was also the case with the cast, not before long they would direct each other to move or look at Marlee so she could read their lips. Marlee explained how the entire cast and staff had the process down.

Marlee and Michael’s Favorite Episode

Matlin: It is something that I have never done in my career. I was so excited about it when Michael told me initially because he gave me the option to play and to do stuff in 306 that I really was excited for everybody to see. Jocelyn Turner, is deaf and an FBI agent but what we’re seeing is her back story, how she got to where she got to. Marlee added in what she learned while filming this episode, and while preparing to film it. You might already know this, but she was deaf at 18 months, so she doesn’t remember hearing.