🤐 SPOILER ALERT 🤐
Lana Parrilla is no stranger to playing a villain. You’ve watched her set villages on fire as the evil queen in Once Upon a Time, and as a gold-digging wife eagerly waiting for her elderly husband to die in Why Women Kill.
In The Lincoln Lawyer Season 2, Parrilla portrays Lisa Trammell, Mickey Haller’s (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) love interest turned-client — and the prime suspect in this season’s big case. But is her character also capable of murder, just like the previous people she’s portrayed?
The first episode of Season 2 introduces us to Lisa, the beloved owner and chef of Frogtown’s buzzy restaurant elysian. As her neighborhood and restaurant are jeopardized by gentrification, Lisa becomes a vocal activist who goes head-to-head with a notorious LA developer, Mitchell Bondurant (Clint Carmichael). She’ll do anything to stop his building plans from destroying the life she’s built for herself. However, when Bondurant turns up dead, their public feud paints Lisa as the prime suspect.
With Mickey representing her, the case seems to be going in her favor. But of course, it’s not The Lincoln Lawyer without a shocking plot twist. Parrilla sat down with Tudum back in June to unpack The Lincoln Lawyer Season 2 and share how she really feels about the season finale.
Why did you want to play Lisa in The Lincoln Lawyer Season 2?
I met Dailyn Rodriguez, who’s one of the showrunners and an executive producer, and she said, “You would be the love interest to Manuel.” I was like, “Oh, I’m interested.”
I played an evil queen for 7 years on Once Upon a Time and then another sort of villain-esque character on Why Women Kill. This seemed like something that was outside of both of those realms, and that’s really good for an actor: to show just all types of diversity. I was intrigued immediately from a creative standpoint, because I was going to be able to play someone that I’d never played before.
We definitely get to see you play someone who’s softer and more romantic. Why do you think Lisa and Mickey are so drawn to each other?
I think they’re drawn to each other for a few different reasons. One of them is a sort of cultural connection. Secondly, their passion and love for food connects them. Thirdly, I think they have a sexual connection. Within five minutes, they’re in her bedroom.
Because of their new professional connection, their romantic relationship has to be put on the back burner. There’s frustration that comes out of that, too, because there’s this sort of human desire to want intimacy, to be held at night, all those things and comforts that partnership can bring. And yet, they can’t entertain that, because they need to maintain a professional relationship — at least for the time being.
Lisa and Mickey’s relationship definitely goes through the wringer. What was it like filming with Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, going from intimate scenes to tense courtroom scenes?
It was very easy with Manuel. We were very comfortable being intimate with one another, but that also comes from being very professional. We would always discuss things beforehand anytime we had to do anything physical. As far as anything related to the case, it was like talking to a friend. He’s a lovely, charming human who works extremely hard. Having him as someone I can play with every single day was a joy.
Are there any similarities between you and your character?
I’m very similar to Lisa in the sense that I love to cook and feed people. Early on with Manuel, if I noticed that he wasn’t eating properly, I was like, “Okay, you need to eat this.” I was ordering him food, I was bringing him supplements. Latinas are always like, “Are you eating? Did you sleep? Did you get any exercise?” And I was very much like that with him. It became very familial.
You mentioned the cultural connection between Lisa and Mickey. Why do you think that came across so seamlessly?
Because we have writers in the room that understand the Latin culture, it was in the writing. At times I would say to Manuel that I feel like the writers are flies on the walls in my house, because certain things that Lisa would say are identical to how I would say things. It’s literally part of my DNA. I think for Manuel, it came very natural, too, because like I said: Latino cultures are very nurturing.
At the end of Season 2, Part 1, do you think Mickey truly believes that Lisa is innocent of Bondurant’s murder?
I think that he questioned her. There were certain things about Lisa that were a bit questionable. Anytime the subject of her ex-husband came up, it was really a sore subject. Who wants to talk about their ex-husband anyway? Not many people want to — especially if it ended poorly.
At the same time, because he’s representing her, it doesn’t really matter if she’s innocent or guilty. He still has to do his job and represent her. But in his personal viewpoint, I do think that he wasn’t quite certain. Because their intimate relationship was put on hold, it probably opened him up to more suspicion because there wasn’t a sexual undercurrent that was influencing his perspective at all.
In the finale, Lisa is found not guilty of Bondurant’s murder. But it turns out that she murdered her first husband and buried him in her garden. What was your reaction when you read that in the script?
I was having such a hard time with it, and it felt like such a big betrayal. This whole time, you’re rooting for [Mickey and Lisa], and now you’re going to basically break them up in the scene. How’s the audience going to react to that?
Playing Lisa, I was like, “I don’t want this to happen.” It was hard for me because I feel like we’re going to be breaking the audience’s hearts.
Knowing that the twist was coming, did that change your approach to playing Lisa?
Throughout the season, I was like, “How do I find moments where I could lay down suspicion for the audience?” Because we’re playing her so innocently, we want to confuse the audience and we don’t want to give away that she’s actually guilty of something. At what point do we see that something isn’t quite ethical with her?
We wanted to play that this is complicated and that not everything is so obvious. Sometimes you think you know somebody and you find out that you really don’t. And yet, you can walk away from a relationship not having all of the information and knowing the truth of a situation. You’re walking away because your intuition and gut instinct says that something is off — and I feel like that’s what Mickey ends up doing.
Which he rarely does because Mickey’s whole thing is getting down to the truth. In the end, do you think Lisa is a cold-blooded killer?
I don’t see Lisa being that kind of person. I think she found herself in this situation. She, probably in self-defense, hit him over the head. He bled out and she had to do something with the body, and she just buried it under the ground and thought it would stay there and never ever be found.
On a lighter note, since we now know you love to cook, what’s your go-to dish?
My No. 1 go-to would be an Italian-style Bolognese. I love making a great meat sauce. I cook more Italian food than I do Puerto Rican food. Puerto Rican food is a little bit more complex. No one can ever capture the flavors that my grandmother used to capture.
The series highlights so many different local restaurants and food trucks. Do you have a favorite LA dining spot?
I love so many places. I’ve been going to Bestia, Mother Wolf, L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
