‘The Lincoln Lawyer’ Season 4 is ‘most emotional’ one yet with new faces

Ahead of the Season 4 premiere of “The Lincoln Lawyer,” USA TODAY caught up with cocreator Ted Humphrey and Manuel García-Rulfo on the set of the show.

LOS ANGELES − As Mickey Haller on “The Lincoln Lawyer,” Manuel García-Rulfo is a flashy big-shot Los Angeles lawyer, always in a tailored court fit. But when the director calls “cut,” Rulfo slips out of character, untucks his button-up shirt, and trades his dress shoes for comfy Hokas.

The signature Haller charisma, though, is part of Rulfo’s DNA.

After wrapping a court scene from Season 4’s Episode 5, “You’re The One That I Want” (streaming now on Netflix) with newcomer Constance Zimmer (Dana Berg) and Neve Campbell, who makes her highly anticipated comeback as Maggie, Rulfo makes his way through the set, warmly welcoming, giving thanks to, and acknowledging anyone that crosses his line of sight.

The LA courthouse hallway, which is usually filled with extras dressed in their best legal looks onscreen, is absolute chaos during a muggy June afternoon last year.

At the L.A. Center Studios, where “The Lincoln Lawyer” is primarily filmed, the set is bustling with crew members duct-taping electrical wire to the floor, moving around monitors and chairs, working quickly to make TV magic happen.

Less than an hour later, duct tape is cleared, and they’re ready to shoot another scene. Over at the set built for the Haller & Associates office, Rulfo, 44, walks in to join us for our interview before Ted Humphrey, the cocreator and showrunner of “The Lincoln Lawyer,” arrives.

Rulfo is visibly tired, but still makes the effort to put on a smile. At the time, the actor had just returned from a “Jurassic World” press tour stop in Mexico City with costars Jonathan Bailey and Scarlett Johansson.

So, how does Rulfo muster the energy to juggle filming a movie and a hit Netflix show plus press tours, movie premieres and interviews like this one?

“I just pray to the Gods,” he laughs. “I just jump in. There’s no time to think or anything.” Humphrey chimes in: “We have a whole apparatus dedicated to keeping this poor man healthy, well fed, and hydrated − and not just him, all of our cast, because making a TV show is a grueling schedule.”

‘The Lincoln Lawyer’ Season 4 picks up after Season 3 cliffhanger

Even after multiple seasons of “The Lincoln Lawyer” under their belt, Humphrey and Rulfo are still learning new things and rolling with the punches. “It’s always a challenge with a TV series: you’re making for budget, you’re trying to make it look as great as it can look, and we’re always pushing the envelope,” Humphrey says.

The showrunner, who directed the Season 3 finale and the first two episodes of Season 4, said this new batch of 10 episodes is “the most emotional season we’ve done.”

After a cruel cliffhanger in Season 3, we pick right up as Mickey is pulled over by a traffic cop for a missing license plate and instead is arrested when the cop finds a dead body in the trunk of his powder blue 1963 Lincoln Continental.

Season 4 revolves around Mickey’s fight to defend himself and his reputation while in and out of prison after being accused of a murder he didn’t commit.

In court, Mickey grasps at straws, trying to clear his name, and in jail, the usually calm, cool and collected attorney is struggling to stay sane. “It’s also the most emotional season between our characters,” Humphrey adds. “Emotion is kind of our secret weapon − emotion and humor are our two secret weapons, and this season has plenty of both.”

The new season also features many tense in-court moments with Mickey’s nemesis Dana, a close call and surprise season finale visit from “How I Met Your Mother” star Cobie Smulders, and the return of a familiar face.

Neve Campbell’s emotional return to ‘The Lincoln Lawyer’

After the Season 2 finale of “The Lincoln Lawyer,” fans learned that Campbell’s Maggie was set to exit the show after her character takes a new job.

Now she’s back, and the roles are reversed. “One of the big, emotional plot beats of the season is that yes, Maggie comes back not just as his ex-wife, not just somebody who’s in Mickey’s life, but actually ends up representing him,” Humphrey says. “It’s one of the best moments we’ve done in the show.”

“I love her, not just her as a person but as an actress,” Rulfo says of Campbell. “She brings so much warmth, and I think people love the relationship between Mickey and Maggie. They’re always like, ‘When are they gonna get together?’ And we love that. I love having her back on set, everyone does.”

Since “The Lincoln Lawyer” book series by Michael Connolley was adapted for television, the women surrounding Mickey − mostly love interests, ex-wives, his daughter, and a quirky, overbearing mother − have been at the heart of the show.

“One of my favorite things about the show is that Mickey is surrounded by a lot of strong women and they drive him crazy, but he couldn’t live without them,” says the show’s coshowrunner Dailyn Rodriguez (“Queen of the South,” “The Night Shift” and “Ugly Betty”). Rodriguez also directs this season.

On the importance of shooting ‘The Lincoln Lawyer’ in LA

At this point, the show is also synonymous with LA. Sure, there’s a fake backdrop of the downtown LA skyline inside the L.A. Center Studios set, but the team films all over the city.

The city has become “totally like another character inside the series,” says Rulfo, adding that his favorite scenes are those when he’s out in the open air, driving the convertible (which Humphrey actually owns IRL).

For Humphrey, it was a no-brainer: if the show is set in LA, then “we shoot in LA.”

“The LA locations are such a huge part of the allure of this show and the success of this show,” he adds. “You see all these different parts of the city, and it’s not all glamorous, it’s not all the beach. It’s got a familiarity to it. It’s got a realism to it that really makes the show work.”

The books, written by Connolley and adapted for TV by Humphrey and David E. Kelly, are set in LA as well. “It was very important to everybody involved, including me, that we shot here, and so we were able to build that into the world of the show, and it just wouldn’t work the same without it,” Humphrey says.

Ted Humphrey on bringing Michael Connolley’s novels to life

Humphrey says that collaborating with bestselling author Connolley on the book-to-screen process was surprisingly seamless.

“That’s daunting at first to work with the novelist,” he says. “There’s a long history of novelists not necessarily appreciating what Hollywood does to their work, but Michael is not like that at all.”

The author, who’s also penned the “Blood Work,” “The Black Echo” and “The Dark Hours,” “loves when we change things” on the show. “He’s the first person to say, ‘Hey, let’s do this,’ or ‘I didn’t like how this was in the book,’ so that’s really exciting,” Humphrey adds.

As of now, there are eight books in “The Lincoln Lawyer” book series, so when there’s no material left to go off of, what will be its future onscreen?

The future of ‘The Lincoln Lawyer’

The Netflix show, which was renewed for a Season 5 a week before Season 4 even premiered, can exist beyond the final page of Connolley’s literary journey.

“I don’t know that we’re necessarily going to do every book, and we do have plans for how to branch the show off and just keep telling stories in this world with these characters,” Humphrey adds. “As long as people want to watch the show, we love making the show, and we have a lot of different ideas for the direction we can take the characters.”

And who better to continue leading that vision than Humphrey, says Rulfo.

“He knows where he wants it to go; it’s just easier as an actor when you have somebody point you in the right direction, especially in a series where there are so many things happening. He knows the characters,” the actor adds. “He just brings this calmness.”