‘Presumed Innocent’ Director on Rusty & Tommy’s Courtroom Showdown

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers from “The Witness,” the seventh episode of the limited series “Presumed Innocent,” now streaming on Apple TV+.

Even without a law degree, most people know it’s a bad idea to take the witness stand when you’re on trial for murder. But Rusty Sabich (Jake Gyllenhaal) must’ve missed that day in law school.

In the penultimate episode of Apple TV+’s “Presumed Innocent,” created by David E. Kelley, former ADA Rusty decides the best way to fight for his life is to represent himself in court and take the stand to answer questions from lead prosecutor (and his work rival) Tommy Molto (Peter Sarsgaard). All of this happens in a matter of minutes after Raymond Horgan (Bill Camp), Rusty’s original lawyer, has a heart attack and nearly dies in the middle of the courtroom –– a rather important deviation from Scott Turow’s 1987 book on which the series is based.

Rusty valiantly jumps to his friend’s aid in front of the jury, a sympathetic reflex that complicates the prosecution’s case that he is the cold-blooded killer of his mistress Carolyn (Renate Reinsve). Tommy and District Attorney Nico Della Guardia (O-T Fagbenle) fear they have lost the jury with that heroism, and push for a mistrial. But Rusty is arrogant enough to keep going as his own counsel, a wildly reckless action that sidelines Raymond’s smart second chair, Mya (Gabby Beans).

When the time comes to take the stand, Rusty must put his self-generated chaos aside, as he gathers his composure in the bathroom beforehand. The ever-antagonistic Tommy comes out swinging, but Rusty fends him off with calm words and refreshing candor that seems to appeal to the jury. But then Tommy rattles him by pointing out two people who have been on the receiving end of Rusty’s violent temper. However out of context, it unmoors Rusty, and completely discredits his assertion that he is not an impulsively dangerous person.

It’s a devastating blow to Rusty’s defense, and one that Tommy takes as a victory lap — his first real win in the case and against the shining-star former coworker of whom he has long lived in the shadow. But Tommy’s high is short-lived when he returns home to someone having broken in and left him a gift –– a fire poker, a.k.a. the missing murder weapon, with a note reading, “Go Fuck Yourself.”

Does the poker mean someone is defending Rusty, or just slighting Tommy? And in order to protect his recent momentum in court, what will Tommy do with the key evidence? Those are questions left for next week’s finale.

But the dust hasn’t settled on Rusty and Tommy’s showdown just yet. Director Greg Yaitanes helmed five of the limited series’ eight episodes, culminating in this head-to-head showdown between real-life relatives Gyllenhaal and Sarsgaard: Sarsgaard is married to Gyllenhaal’s sister, Maggie. In addition to “Presumed Innocent,” Yaitanes has previously worked with production company Bad Robot and J.J Abrams on “Castle Rock,” and most recently directed three episodes of HBO’s “House of the Dragon,” including the Season 1 finale.

To break down the show’s penultimate episode, Yaitanes spoke with Variety about his first meeting with Jake Gyllenhaal, how he made the most of this courtroom sparring match — and the biggest difference between directing “Presumed Innocent” and “House of the Dragon.”

What do you remember about your first meeting with Jake Gyllenhaal?

We met at his house in L.A. while he was training for “Road House.” It was like a 10 a.m. meeting, and they asked me if I had any dietary restrictions, but I just said I would have whatever Jake was having. Literally, they plunk down 20 ounces of wagyu in front of me, because he was bulking up for the movie. I immediately thought this had to be a test. Like, can you endure steak with Jake? So I cleaned my plate.

After that, we really hit it off, and I came on board to direct two episodes. As we were getting underway and the cuts came in, [executive producers] Dusty [Thomason] and David [E. Kelley] and I were talking about what was needed for the approach to the material. But Jake was also simultaneously getting attached to me. So when I was going to leave after those episodes, he said, “You can’t leave! We have to keep it going!” He didn’t want to change directors, so it was worked out that would stay on and direct five of the eight episodes.

That’s certainly a vote of confidence. What was about this show that piqued your interest?

I wanted to get into the business to direct ‘90s thrillers, so this was a chance to go back to source material from that time when I was so in love with the genre. These are the things that made me, and to be able to do it through a modern lens and through the experience I’ve had was so exciting. And when I heard what Episode 7 was going to be about, I said, “I have to direct that one.”

Did you look to the 1990 “Presumed Innocent” movie for any type of visual inspiration?

Not so much with this; I am already so steeped in that genre. I was in film school from 1988-92, so I really worshiped on the altar of those movies. I just wasn’t directing early enough to make one of my own. But I wanted to give this a more modern approach in this kind of witnessed way that we are in this case and a certain realism for what it was.

We have seen Rusty and Tommy spar all season, but this episode is different. Rusty getting on the witness stand gives them an audience, so they can’t just go at each other. How did you set the stage for their courtroom showdown?

The episode itself had a little more kinetic energy and movement and momentum to it, because everything has been upended. Within this episode, Raymond is being rushed to the hospital, and Rusty is going to make a chess move to step in to represent himself, which was my favorite thing when I heard that was coming. To not only have to represent himself, but also put himself on the stand. There are just two huge moves that got me excited. I really wanted things to be nonstop until he got to the courtroom to represent himself, and then he has to kind of center himself in the bathroom.

Interestingly, that scene in the bathroom was shot for an earlier episode, and I really loved the moment. It was originally going to come right when Rusty’s trial was starting, and there was something about holding that moment with him and Tommy in the bathroom for later. So I used the same wardrobe from that episode when we got to this scene in order to be able to drop it into Episode 7. David said this worked so much better here than in Episode 5, because the stakes are so much higher now. It’s one thing to be on trial, but to then represent yourself and to know what the potential dangers of that could be. So the episode really goes 100 miles per hour until you are in the bathroom, and we go into a more planted camera.

In the courtroom scenes, the camera is very mobile. Where were you pulling your inspiration from, since you’ve never done a courtroom drama before?

The cinematic references I was looking at were “JFK,” because Oliver Stone did such a beautiful job in that 45-minute courtroom scene with Kevin Costner. Throughout these courtroom scenes, the passage of these proceedings can be very tedious. So I wanted to give court this kind of life and energy, and I love the more kinetic editing and the flash cuts away that take us out of the courtroom to either get an interpretation of what we are seeing or actually what happened.

I think destabilizing Rusty was also important. The other references were “Compulsion” by Orson Welles and, of course “The Verdict,” where you had Paul Newman to trust — so not cutting away, and being able to stay with the character. With Peter and Jake, I think my choices were to trust them, and also to not miss the emotional core by trying to get too technical with any kind of move.

I found that Jake works best when there is a single camera to act to, and that is something he really taught me. I saw that when he knows what camera he is acting to, how much his performance can shift gears. So, I was very cautious to use multiple cameras in the courtroom, but not three cameras on him. I would shoot Tommy and Rusty at the same time. I didn’t want to interrupt their eye-line, because the connection of their performances is what matters.

In real life, Jake and Peter are brothers-in-law. How did you play on the fact that they have this personal history, but are very much at odds in this story?

It would come up anecdotally with Jake in the course of conversation — stuff about Maggie or Peter. They each were definitely bringing their own personal experience. But there wasn’t much conversation around them being related, and having to duke it out. What it did provide was that there was a safety and trust and love there, which I think is important to go as far as they did — and into nuance as much as they did.

I think they were rooming together for all or part of the shoot, so I have a feeling they were working that on their own as well. But having that safe place to be able to act, I found it pretty incredible.

My friend Gary Fleder was shooting “Runaway Jury,” and he said that when they did the bathroom scene with [Gene] Hackman and [Dustin] Hoffman, all the crew were up on ladders looking over the set to watch them work. The same was true here. Everybody was most excited to see a real showdown happen in front of their eyes, and watch two great actors do great work in this episode.

Rusty’s gamble of going on the stand blows up in his face, and Tommy gets his first big win in the case. But we don’t see Raymond questioning Rusty on the stand to try to do damage control. Did you ever shoot any of that, or was this always how the scene ended?

History in courtrooms will tell you that once the damage is done, it is hard to go back. So once the damage is done, that is the stronger dramatic exit for the scene — anything trying to back pedal wouldn’t be as interesting, frankly.

Through the show and in court, we see flashbacks of Rusty and Carolyn’s affair without knowing what is true and what isn’t. As you are directing, how do you navigate a scene that will have crucial flashbacks inserted in later?

I love using these flashbacks as punctuation. Some of them were scripted, and some of them were things we would see in the moment — part of my pact with Jake over steak was that we would chase the magic.

I found that these flashbacks are great to drop in, because we can improvise them or come up with a scenario and work from there. We wanted a mix of flashbacks, dreams-slash-nightmares, and then kind of more expressive type things, like when you had the black-and-white courtroom moments that were very theatrically lit.

One of those more expressive scenes was definitely Raymond’s nightmare in Episode 3 when his head explodes, which might be the most unexpected and gruesome jump scare of the year.

Well, thank you! Bill Camp’s contact photo on my phone is the prosthetic head they made of him, which was spooky and good. It was a practical effect, because I had gone back to watch “Scanners,” and I said we had to do this for real. When I saw it in the script, there was some tonal conversation — and some push back — questioning if this was the right thing. But I said, “Let’s do it. If it doesn’t work, we cut it.” But I think it takes you down the road of what feels like a heart attack, and then to blow up his head gets the audience asking, “What the fuck is happening?”

And I felt like I was getting my own David E. Kelly moment, like in “L.A. Law” when the person steps out onto the elevator that isn’t there and dies. It’s one of those things that is a little bit of an absurdist, playful thing. But it also knows how to ratchet up the tension and leave you asking what you are really seeing.

You went from directing the Season 1 finale of “House of the Dragon” right into “Presumed Innocent.” Those are two very different shows, but were there any lessons you learned on “House of the Dragon” that you brought with you into this?

First of all, it was wild to be able to walk the entire courtroom set in 10 seconds. When you are in The Keep on “House of the Dragon,” that set is for real. You can go in, up the stairs, around the corner. To get anywhere requires real effort. We had some shadowing directors on that show, and we always say that the thing you learn doing “Games of Thrones” is how to do “Game of Thrones.” It is such a different experience than anything else in television and film. Aside from the big world building and the massive tectonic plates of ideas and such, there is a lot of thematic crossover.

Why I was interested in the first half of Season 1 of “House of the Dragon” is that I am a single dad to a daughter. So Paddy Constantine’s character and his connection to his daughter Rhaenyra, I could connect to that. That story was interesting to me. And here, I was interested in a marriage under pressure and in peril, and a man in crisis who is on the front end of what is considered middle age. So those themes were fascinating.

At the end of the day, “Presumed Innocent” is a whodunit. Viewers are gathering evidence with each episode, but as the director, are you able to muddy the waters a bit to create questions?

That’s exactly it. All of the heavy lifting of who the suspects are and where you are looking really fell on my episodes, and my work. That was the juiciness that excited me.

What’s been really fun is that as it has come out, my friends and people DMing me have been speculating about what they think is going on. Some of it is solid and interesting, and some of it is stuff I never even thought about.  But as I was going along, I had my own theories of what could be happening, and I definitely wanted to express some of those.

The episode ends on this slow pan shot of what appears to be some crucial evidence left for Tommy –– the much-talked about murder weapon. How many different ways did you try to reveal that fire poker?

It was one of those things that you come up against, and you don’t know the right way to approach it until you are in it. I had three ideas that it could be, and I wanted to experiment with them. It was always about when we see it. You know, the cat takes us to it, or his eye take us to it. We tried it with and without the note to see which was better. And to go into Tommy’s world and see what his life is like is what is so interesting about that scene. And the tension of whether the person is still in the house.

But at the same time, did you have to keep yourself in check and not reveal too much — or linger on a moment too long — as you got deeper into your episodes?

One hundred percent. We were all gut-checking those things as we went along. I really believe that we have stuck the landing with the finale, and I want to believe that we aren’t tipping our hand — and where we get to is earned.

You can look back at the experience and see it through that lens once you’ve seen the finale. We wanted to earn everyone’s reaction to what’s coming next.

This interview has been edited and condensed.