Team Downey's detective series Perry Mason investigates corrupt cops in 1930s Los Angeles

Team Downey-produced series Perry Mason is set to be aired on HBO come 22 June, and interestingly, the show comes at a time when Black Lives Matter protests are sweeping the world.

With the widespread protests and increasing awareness of the violence police departments inflict on black communities, critics have even questioned the acceptance of glorifying cop shows. Reacting to community pressure, networks have pulled the plug on titles like Cops and Live P.D., by cancelling them permanently.

Detective series Perry Mason enters the void, with a crime investigator as its lead (played by Matthew Rhys), who aims to pursue the truth and free the wrongfully accused victims by slipping past incompetent and crooked cops.

The series comes from executive producers Susan Downey and Robert Downey Jr. under their Team Downey production company. The show was originally scheduled for production in 2016 with Downey Jr. to star as the main lead, but his schedule last year prevented him from acting in the series.

In an interview with Yahoo Lifestyle SEA, director Tim Van Patten and executive producer Susan Downey, who is married to Downey Jr. (in case you haven’t figured this out by now), note that the show’s story was vital to be told today, as Detective Mason’s relentless pursuit of the truth reveals a fractured city of Los Angeles, clouded by crooked cops and a corrupt law system.

“These people were power players of the time, who have an agenda, some of which were very aware that they’re corrupt, and others who don’t even see it. They’re blinded by the bigger game that they’re going to get,” Downey shared.

Set in 1932 in Los Angeles city, the series also stars John Lithgow as Elias Birchard “E.B.” Jonathan, a struggling attorney and a semi-regular employer of Mason; Juliet Rylance as Della Street, E.B. Jonathan’s creative and driven legal secretary; Tatiana Maslany as Sister Alice McKeegan, the leader of the Radiant Assembly of God, preaching to a hungry congregation and a radio audience across the country; Chris Chalk as Paul Drake, a beat cop with a knack for detective work; and Shea Whigham as Pete Strickland, who is hired by Mason as an extra set of eyes on his various investigations.

This show is an important reminder to the audience that the system has always had a fractured social and judicial system, but there is always someone trying to fix things. Was that one of the main discussions of the series?

Susan Downey: Absolutely. It was the original design to create these three outsiders and place them against these very corrupt systems.

These people were power players of the time, who have an agenda, some of which were very aware that they’re corrupt, and others who don’t even see it. They’re blinded by the bigger game that they’re going to get.

These three main characters (Perry Mason, E.B. Jonathan and Paul Drake) are very different; they want to do the right thing, even if it’s difficult or against everything that they’re being told to do just to be safe and to get along.

The choices that they made were really important for that time period and it’s important for today - those are the stories that need to continue to be told.

As this show was set in the early 1930s, I was curious to see how it is going to look like because it was still a white men’s world and how much of a conscious decision was it to incorporate more inclusion in the show?

Susan: Yeah, it was absolutely a conscious decision, but it's something that we do with all of our projects. So when it first came to Team Downey, the idea was to make it as a feature set in contemporary times. But that was not interesting to us. Robert (Downey Jr.) wanted to go back to the source material and delve into Los Angeles and the ‘30s era.

He thought there was so much opportunity there that hadn't been done recently. The two directives that we gave the writers were, we needed strong female characters, and diversity because that is our audience today.

It was done (this way) because we wanted it to be authentic and to be a story that we all cared about. It wasn't done because that's the right thing to do in creating a show these days; we believed we were going to give you the best version of a new Perry.

Could you share the idea behind forming the visual world of the show?

Tim Van Patten: It's to lose your mind, I'll answer that. For me, it's about finding a visual language that supports the narrative.

Everything has been seen in LA and everything's been photographed. So how do we do it and make it fresh?

You go into the world with that character and you feel it on the edge of the frame. You build the soundscape, and you stay true to your palette, the socio-economic palette, the character palette, and the texture of the world. And you make it very visceral.

The goal was to make it visceral. So we referenced visual films like John Huston's Fat City, and The Day of the Locust. As for Chinatown (in the series), we didn't really look to imitate anything. It was just creating this overall detail and texture for the show.

What kind of projects do Team Downey always seek?

Susan: Well, we're always looking; we always start from the character. We both, Robert and I, like highly entertaining shows. We’ll watch indie movies that are maybe darker or dreary.

We're always trying to tell a story that feels authentic and is giving you something in a way you haven't seen it before, but playing with themes that are going to resonate for people today.

And if we do something that is more dramatic, there's always a sense of wit or humour to it; even Perry Mason gets dark, but we intentionally worked very hard with the writers and with Tim to create a tone that isn't just bleak throughout because that's not something that I want. It's not a world I want to live in. I want to be entertained. I want to see the twinkle in Perry's eye and have characters like Pete Strickland, who you know are going to make me laugh.

How fun is it to work alongside your husband in any project as a producer, partner, and also as a creator?

Susan: As far as working with Robert, I can tell you it's always entertaining. He loved this job because he didn't have the pressure of a call sheet and his schedule in the line. So for a large chunk of shooting, he wasn't even available to be around, but he was seeing what I was seeing, and I think he loves looking at the marketing material now and having a good opinion because it's a different level of pressure.

But the thing is, the guy has been part of over 70 over something movies. So fortunately within that entertainment business, he actually knows what he's talking about, usually. So there's a lot of value in that and he absolutely loves what the show has become and all the performances in the beautiful world that Tim and all of our department heads have created.

You know, we were watching some materials last night and he’s just like, we're just beaming with pride all the way, with the result this has yielded. It has been a pretty long journey for us.

HBO Original drama series PERRY MASON, starring Emmy winner Matthew Rhys, debuts same time as the US on Monday, 22 June at 9am exclusively on HBO GO and HBO, with a same day encore at 10pm on HBO.