Iantha Richardson on Making Her ‘Voice’ Heard in Directorial Debut & What’s Next

Will Trent got both lighter and heavier than ever on Tuesday’s (March 2) new episode, “It Was a Meat Cute.”

On the one hand, Will (Ramón Rodríguez) threw caution to the wind to help Ava (Julia Chan) on an oddball personal mission — returning the ashes of Meatloaf after she stole them to settle a professional debt — and things got chaotic in the most hilarious way, with Will surprisingly taking it all in stride.

On the other hand, the case Michael Ormewood (Jake McLaughlin) rallied Amanda (Sonja Sohn), Faith (Iantha Richardson), and others to help him with one that was deadly serious. A man convicted of a heinous murder was hours away from being executed, and a witness came forward to confess that he’d lied in his critical testimony about the defendant. Ormewood, facing the possibility that an innocent man might die, raced against the clock and all hopes to clear his name before it was too late.

Overall, it was an episode that drew out mixed emotions from audiences and its creatives alike. Iantha Richardson joined some of her costars (namely, Rodriguez and Erika Christensen) in taking a step behind the lens to serve as director of the episode, and here, she breaks down the key points of the episode, gives us insight into where Faith is at after experiencing a personal tragedy, and what’s still ahead on Will Trent this season.

Faith’s been through a lot this season. The Malcolm situation was a heartbreaker, but she does seem like she’s bounced back at this point. Do you think there’s still residual hurt there, or that she’s kind of just, “Lesson learned”?

Iantha Richardson: I feel like with any love — no matter how short or small, but depending on the potency of the love, and this one was really big, especially for her — there’s always residual hurt, understanding, and lessons learned, and I think she learned a lot, so there’s definitely residual feelings to be resolved.

She seemed to have understood his motive. Maybe there’s still a door ajar there, or no? 

I don’t think so. I don’t know. I won’t say there’s an absolute no, because obviously I’m not the writers, but I think she had on rose-colored glasses, and those take a long time to untint, if you will. So I think that’s a part of the residual pain. With time and space, she might see herself, him, and the situation a little different.

In last week’s episode, there’s a really cool moment where Faith finds Amanda in a state of PTSD, and she just knows the right thing to say after the mall incident. It reminds me of last season, when she had the perfect thing to say to Angie when she was in the bathroom in her own moment of suffering. What makes Faith everybody’s rock, despite having her own questions about life? 

Me and my coach Ted talk about this often. It’s ironic because she’s often a rock without having her own to lean on. And I do believe the things that she’s gone through in life have required her to grow up, in a sense, really fast. Having a child, you are a mother, so you’re able to be maternal even to people who aren’t your child. So that’s part of it, and then being on the task force, she was thrust into it. But I always say she has the most empathy of many cops that I know — not to say that cops don’t have empathy, but she is one of the leading cops in empathy. She is an example of how cops can have empathy. So I think those two things combined her nature and nurture. Both are what make her able to be a rock for so many people around her and see them — genuinely, just see them.

And just forgive a lot, too, obviously, over time, especially with Will and her son and everything last season. They seem to be finally in a good place, don’t you think? 

Yeah. I think it’s really lovely to see two partners be partners again. And I think that’s where they are, like, “I see you. You see me. I get it. We’ve been through a lot, and let’s do the job.” And also, there’s a little bit of camaraderie there, which is lovely to see, too. She forgives, but I think that’s a part of empathy. When you can understand where somebody’s coming from, then you have the capacity to forgive, as long as they’re not toxic.

Digging into this week, what made you want to step behind the lens?  

So, since 2018, when I did this show called American Soul, I had had a big “aha” moment, just about the ability to control the narrative and have your truth creative say in any art piece, think piece, set piece that you’re in. And I find that directing is an opportunity to have even more leverage and voice in what you’re doing… Obviously, it’s all collaborative at the end of the day, and with acting, it’s my literal voice on screen, but I thought it would be a really cool opportunity to be able to say something in a different medium. And so I’ve been doing short films and web series since then, and now I have the opportunity — thank you to the show runners and everybody to be able to do this. And I think it was a great way to have a full scope of what’s happening when it comes to filmmaking, not just an actor’s scope. So it attracted me because you’re able to control the narrative a little more and have a little more of a voice, in my opinion.

Having that control and getting that other perspective, was there anything you learned about the show itself, or maybe some of your costars and how they work? Things that you didn’t know before?

That they’re amazing! Literally, the first couple of days, I was like, “You guys, I just want you to know that the highlight of this time is me working with you.” And I genuinely meant it. They are so talented. Their hearts are so pure. I think they’re just amazing humans, and even more so than when I was working with them as a counterpart, as an actor, just that is the biggest thing that I’ve learned. I enjoy being on set. I enjoy working with them. And everybody has their own ways. I made an effort, at least for some of my cast, to ask, “How do they like feedback? What do they like? How do you want to be talked to on set?” Because everybody works a little differently. I do know that, and I think learning that about them and being able to hopefully give that to them the best way that I could, it was one of the highlights of my moment.

Disney / Matt Miller

So what made this particular storyline a good fit for your first time behind the lens for this show?

It was fun and a wild ride, and I think the audience will really enjoy it. But I think we have a lot of action sequences, and I won’t say that there’s no action in this one, but this one is really just a good time in a way that we haven’t seen on the show in a really long time, up until this episode. And I think it was good for me because I bring a lot of buoyancy to rooms, and I was able to bring that to the set. And although I can bring depth as well in its own right, I think the ability to stay light and stay airy and be able to bring the comedic flair to things,

The Will and Ava storyline is, like you’re saying, bubbly, bouncy, and really kind of silly in a way. But also, the episode is serious, too, with what Ormewood is trying to achieve. What was it like for you to find that balance? And then was it kind of like two different experiences when you’re directing those two plots?

It was hard. One of the biggest things that I would ask is, “How do I find a throughline between both of the narratives?” Because you want to be able to connect everything and bring it home in one central theme or idea, and I couldn’t. I had to just let them exist as two separate things. And I have themes in my head about what everybody’s going through and how that goes hand in hand, but to find it through a loophole and one line between everything, that was a really hard balance. But I think also, speaking to myself, like I said, I can go from my buoyancy to depth, and being able to do that was really fun. And I found that my castmates — specifically Jake, I will say, I’m going to shout him out because he had a lovely moment to be able to highlight his depth in this episode in a way that I don’t think the episodes prior have been able to. That was really a highlight for me, on top of Ava, Will, and their fun, wild ride. It was really, really fun.

I think I know the moment that you’re referring to with Jake, maybe when he storms Amanda’s office and kind of has this desperate plea for her to help him. Can you just talk about framing that scene? Because it does bring it to such drama, and I just wondered what that was like to work on the other side of it?

There were so many ways that I felt like he could play it. And I think we judged some things from both of them — not only him, but I thought [Sonja Sohn], Amanda, had so many ways that she could play it. [She could] get extremely angry at somebody coming up in your face, yelling at you, and you can assert authority in a multitude of ways. But I thought the way that Sonja played it was extremely lovely, which was internal authority. I don’t have to yell in order for you to get what I’m trying to say. I am your boss, so understand that. That was lovely. I thought that Jake’s character, in terms of how the rhythm that he played it, although it was coming in heavy, it was really compassionate. You see it behind his eyes. And those are the moments that I was just like, “Yes, it’s more than the lines. It’s more than what you’re saying and what you’re doing. I want them to see that you’re a good person behind the eyes.”

Disney / Matt Miller

The Will and Ava storyline must have been really fun to explore him letting go a little bit, because it seems like he was kind of loosening up at her behest and on her behalf, but also just in general. So I just wondered, as a fan of the show, as a part of the show, what was that like for you? 

So fun. The two of them riff off each other so well. Ramon is naturally funny. He’s a funny guy, so it’s not nothing is difficult or hard to get him to do. He has such great range. So it was lovely to work with that. But I just thought this one-night, wild adventure of him releasing Will, releasing all of the things that you see pent up so often in this show, was such an opportunity, and I think we took it, and I think he explored it extremely well. I think that you get to see a side of him that’s just like, “All right, let’s go. Fine. All right, cool.” It gives other people permission to do that, too. So I hope that relays that message to the audience as well, that life won’t fall apart if you choose to let go.

I know you said that you wanted to use your voice, so I wanted to ask about the storyline at the center of it. Did you feel it connected to the case that Michael was working on with the innocence project issue at hand? 

I did. It’s such a common one, unfortunately, that one is disgracefully redundant, I’ll say, in our country, and sometimes the world in general, but I’ll speak to what we have right now. And I felt extremely connected, considering the fact that none of it is far removed. It’s right here. It’s right now. It’s happening. And the ability to show the other side of it isn’t something that I ever thought that I would want to talk about. But I thought the opportunity was very interesting to say other people can see this and understand it and not be them reflected. That was a great opportunity to be able to tell that story and show the innocence, no matter what somebody looks like. It’s always helpful to reignite a narrative.

Faith is obviously not in the episode a lot, but you do pop in there. So what was it like to direct yourself in those couple of moments? 

Yeah, I had an extremely trustworthy crew — and DP, specifically. So it felt good. It was like, things are snapping and snapping and moving, and I consistently had to stay present in two ways, like a split mode. But I trusted Tim, who was my DP, and I trusted the rest of the crew around me to say, like, “Y’all think it’s great, then I trust it. I will watch it, obviously, and give my two cents, but it’s okay if I’m split, because I know you guys won’t let it go to waste.” So that was fun. It was a lot of fun. Honestly, it felt like I was on a ride mentally. At some points, it got overwhelming, just depending on the situation, because there’s always little fires going on on set. But overall, I was extremely grateful to have people who were waiting for the goodness to show through what I was doing, and so they were always uplifting me. And that was great.

Moving forward from this episode, what can you tease about what’s ahead on the journey for the rest of the season, or what you’ve seen of it so far?

You’ll get a lot more cases that I feel like are clearly parallel to what we see today, and I think that’s really awesome when art can represent life in a beautiful way. You will see Will in so many different ways. I think rage is a theme for him this season, and you’ll see how hard he genuinely goes in his head in a way we haven’t seen before. You’ll have some really joyful moments and some extreme, heartbreaking ones.

Will Trent, Tuesdays, 8/7c, ABC