The TV Chick

I am obsessed with Suits. It is so incredibly clever and well-written and such great summer fun. This season has ramped up the drama with Mike being in danger of losing his job (because of that whole didn’t go to Harvard Law thing) and his relationship with Rachel is maybe finished before it even started. One of the big bright spots of this season has been Donna. She has a bigger role this season and her budding friendship with Rachel is fantastic. I recently had the chance to chat with Sarah Rafferty (who plays Donna) about what’s coming up this season, what Donna was before she started at the law firm and an upcoming flashback episode.

I’ve been loving Suits this season so far. And I’m pretty sure Donna and Rachel might be the new Harvey and Mike. I’m loving their new friendship. Are there any great bonding scenes coming up that we can expect?
We’re not that far ahead of you. We’re shooting episode seven, and you just saw episode three. I’m pretty sure that there’s bound to be some more coming up for Rachel and Donna. It’s a great relationship. They’re pals. It’s great. Meghan and I were so excited when they kind of touched on it at the end of last season that we were friends, because it’s fun for Meghan and I because we’re such good friends.

It was a nice way to see both of you get a bigger role this season — to share things we might not hear in the office.
Yeah, and I was particularly excited about — it wasn’t just let’s go rage, let’s go party. Donna wanted to uplift Rachel. She had a purpose for going out — to build her self esteem back up after the break up. Helping her redefine herself in a more positive way. I thought that was cool.

I’m assuming she’ll eventually find about about the LSATs — that that wasn’t a date.
Right. Exactly. Yeah, Donna got that wrong. She was like, your hair, your clothes, you got a date.

Recently, I thought it was alluded to that Donna might have had some feelings for Harvey at some point, or there was something going on there. Do you think that they ever could be together or that they have ever been together?
I don’t know. I think it’s a good question. I can say unequivocally that there’s nothing going on between Donna and Harvey right now. And I think there may have been a really long time ago some kind of energy, some sort of romantic energy, in the way past. But I don’t think it was any big, involved relationship between Donna and Harvey because I think they’re smart enough to know that they would drive each other crazy. If for a second they were like “Should we date?” they probably both went “Ahh, no that would be dumb.” We could finish each other’s sentences like that would be jackassery. Not a good idea. We’ll kill each other. But it doesn’t mean that they aren’t great partners in that way. It’s interesting because I’ve spoken to different people about that scene, and I think most people assume that she’s talking about Harvey, but it could be that she was talking about somebody else.

Oh for sure…It could have been someone in the law firm. I really hope it wasn’t Louis.
(laughs)

I hope we get to learn more about that.
I hope so too. It’s always fun to dive into their personal lives and backstory because they’re all in the office so much and you’re like “Oh my gosh, we’re in Harvey’s apartment.” which is fresh. It’s a dope apartment. I want to go there.

That apartment was amazing.
Amazing amazing. So great.

Obviously Donna’s reputation around the firm is that she’s pretty perfect and super on top of everything. Are we going to get to see an imperfect side to her?
Totally. Yes, totally. She has a big ego and she’s arrogant about how great she is at her job, so she does get something wrong this season and that’s a great opportunity for exciting stuff to happen to her and for her relationships to be challenged and for things to get messy for her, which is definitely fun for me to be a part of as an actor.

Do you think we might get to see her home life at all?
Yeah. They haven’t built me the interior of an apartment yet but I do have a stoop. A stoop. So I have an apartment building. It’s funny, the day we got there, the first AD was like and your apartment’s going to be in this building, and I went “Can’t my apartment be in that building?” It was a lot nicer from the outside. I was like that’s a walkup! This is a doorman building. (Iaughs) I think I should be in a doorman building. Harvey compensates me very well and my clothes are incredibly expensive.

Unless you spend all your money on clothes and shoes…
Exactly.

Would you like to see her get a love interest?
I think that’s always fun, right? I think that always helps — you learn so much more about a character when they’re in a relationship. I think it would definitely be fun. I can’t imagine it would be at the office, though.

I am super curious to see what Donna’s parents are like or who they are, because I want to know where she came from and how she got here. Do you have any picture in your mind of what they’d be like or if we might get to see some of that part of Donna?
You know, that’s so interesting. It’s so funny how these things work. Because when I first got the role of Donna and it got picked up to go to series, I did a lot of coming up with Donna’s life on my own. And I just kept it to myself. And then by the time we got to the sixth or seventh episode, I was like “Oh my God, this is what I thought of.” But it’s here, in the script. I had this whole thing about where Donna went to college and sort of how she became Harvey’s right hand woman and my thing was is she had been an actress or a writer/singer, some sort of artist. And it sort of started to become clear to me that it was actress because Donna has this tendency to play a lot of different roles. And how strong that was in her life at the office. I think she’s kind of spicy. And then all of a sudden, the writers were kind of writing that in. And I talked to the creator and he’s like “I think you used to be an actor.” And I was like “Oh my God, because I thought I’d been an actor and I had a temp job that I was rocking, that I was really amazing at.” Then Harvey and I were the same age and he was kind of green and new and at the DA’s office and he kind of was like I need you to always be my assistant, and I was like, you’re going to have to pay me really well and actually, this will be fun and I don’t have to worry about where the checks are coming from and I can have this great life. So that’s sort of what I thought it was and then they started writing when she starts crying on cue and all this stuff and I was like that’s so funny that that was there. I do know that she’s from upstate New York, she’s from Cortland. I sort of imagined that her parents were academics. Like worked in a University or something like that. And I imagine that Donna went to a college like Sarah Lawrence, something artsy like that. Just like a nice family and here she is in the big city. Smart, witty, well read [family]. She’s just so sharp.

She knows what’s going to happens before it happens.
Yeah, and she’s so confident about how smart she is and she’s a total people person. Whatever parent builds that.

You think she was an actress before she got her job at Pearson Hardman, do you think she’d be an actress if she wasn’t there? If she left?
Oh that’s such a good question. Yeah, I think she would be.

She’d go back to the acting world.
I think so. Or some sort of writing. Some sort of creative endeavor. She’s so smart, she could probably do something entrepreneurial. Create some web based company that would make her a ton of money.

I would love to see Harvey to find some sort of short student film that Donna starred in…
(laughs)

You are filming episode seven right now. Do you have a favorite moment or scene that you’ve shot so far?
Somebody said what was your favorite Donna moment to me and I had to go to one of the first Donna moments because it goes back to what we were just talking about, when Louis asks Harvey to borrow Donna and Harvey says ask her yourself and then Donna starts crying. She says “my soul hurts” and she kind of messes with Louis. So that was a favorite moment for me because it’s the first time that you see Donna messing with Louis and you see her histrionics which is using this to mess with him. That was like fun and kind of a real clue into who this girl is.

I love some good Donna and Louis moments. Will we see more coming up? They both use each other, it seems.
I think so. I think they’re a good match when it comes to messing with each other. I think there’s bound to be more of those coming.

Are we going to see Donna have to interact with Hardman? He’s been sort of the black sheep this season, we don’t quite know what his motivations are.
You know, I was wondering the exact same thing. I was actually going to ask the creators that. I really don’t know what’s going to happen but I think there might be reason to. I’m starting to get the sense that there might be reason for them to have an interaction but we shall see.

I know you can’t spoil too much but what can you tease about what’s coming up for Donna and what’s coming up in the next few episodes?
What I was excited about this season is that Donna, who thinks she’s always right, get something really wrong. And she means well, because she goes to great lengths to be loyal to Harvey and protect him, but she gets something really wrong and it’s messy. It makes her relationship with Harvey really messy, it makes her relationship with Mike messy. The wheels kind of come off a little bit and I think that’s great. And she’s definitely thrown off her game, so that’s fun. Also, we have a flashback episode.

Oooh, that’s exciting!
Yeah. We’re in the middle of shooting a flashback so that’s really cool. It’s really fun to see all the characters go back in time. We go back five years. And you kind of see — it’s a nice reveal.

Will Mike be part of the picture five years ago?
He will be in his own life. He won’t be at the firm, but you will get to see him in his life.

Donna five years ago…probably about the same.
Exactly. Slightly different hair.

Maybe different clothes…
That was actually fun. The clothes are not quite as put together. The budget wasn’t in place yet.

Be sure to tune in tonight at 10 PM to USA for an all new episode of Suits.

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