You’ve both been on long-running shows. Was it a fun change of pace creatively to do an anthology-style gig?
COBIE: It was really interesting showing up to a set where the crew were the ones who knew everybody and we were the newbies. It’s like shooting a movie in a very short amount of time, and there’s obviously an intensity that comes with that . . . but normally to do something like this, you’re like, “OK, I’m going to do a whole season — and that’s eight months of my life.” [Here] you get to pop in and play a character without committing to a huge chunk of time.
VELLA: It is kind of crazy that, at the end, you finally feel, “OK, I’ve got my footing, I know the crew, I know the stages, I know where to get my coffee in Toronto . . . and then you’re like, ‘Bye!’” [Laughs]
What exactly is your episode exploring about the justice system?
COBIE: I think that this kind of case, when you’re dealing with an abuse situation — it is so [about] everybody’s point of view, everybody’s talking about their own experience, and it’s hard to put evidence to that. What they do really well on Accused is show the grey areas of
the law. And especially in this episode, it becomes more a plight of the personal . . .
VELLA: Yeah, there are so many grey areas that let people get away with things because they’re technically doing things within the confines of the law. At the top of the episode, Val has partial custody of her son. Even though she’s been in an abusive relationship, the father has partial custody. It didn’t really matter. The law worked for him.
COBIE: The show, what it’s doing each episode is . . . these are just normal people living their lives. Never in a million years would they expect to find themselves in the courtroom. It’s always interesting to see how humans react to that. It is a show that makes you go, “God, that could happen to me!”
Vella, was it fun to try and pull off a Jack McCoy-style cross-examination?
VELLA: Yeah. Big shoes to fill . . . Lawyers are really performers. They’re actors, in a way. They’re telling a story on this “stage.” It was a very meta experience. I’ve never done a courtroom scene before, so it was really exciting as an actor to step into that kind of iconic space and feel the performing — and then the performing of the performing. [Co-star] Dina Shihabi is an old friend, which was a huge treat to get to do that scene specifically with someone that I knew . . . It was a fun challenge to try and figure out how do we not just do the [usual thing], shouting and bullying the person into the reveal . . .
On that note, the most interesting part of Val’s story may actually be her evolving bond with her husband’s new wife, Jordan [played by Shihabi] . . .
COBIE: It is really the arc of the show — this relationship. And at the beginning, it’s quite contentious. Personally, I had a mom and I had a stepmom, so I know that dynamic quite well as a child, and looking at it from a different perspective is fascinating — these two women who are both mothers to this child, and who were and are married to this man, who has a huge presence. The way that they see that presence is in conflict with each other at the beginning, and then we see this sisterhood develop over the course of the episode. And it really is about points of views. From Val’s point of view, it’s about survival and it’s about trying to win and it’s mostly about protecting her son, and creating the most emotionally normal environment for him to thrive. So, selfishly, she doesn’t want another mother to raise her child. Then, I think she grows to see, “Oh, this is a person that really does love my son — and that can only benefit him.”
Accused airs Sunday, December 22, on Global
MEMORABLE ROLES:
A native of Vancouver, Cobie Smulders made her first Hollywood splash in 2005, when she landed the role of Robin on soon-to-be-iconic sitcom How I Met Your Mother. On film, the actress is revered by comic book fans for her turn as steely S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Maria Hill — trusted lieutenant of Samuel L. Jackson’s super-spy Nick Fury — in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Meanwhile, Vella Lovell spent four seasons as charmingly aimless college student Heather on musical rom-com Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and these days can be found quipping it up opposite Joel McHale on Fox’s Animal Control.
CURRENT GIG:
In the latest episode of Toronto-shot anthology Accused, Smulders portrays Val, a struggling single mom implicated in the death of her abusive ex. Lovell plays Marta, her savvy young lawyer.