Exclusive: Simone Missick Talks “All Rise” Season 2 & Lola’s Pregnancy

Currently airing on Mondays at 9pm is the second season on the CBS drama series, All Rise. Starring Simone Missick, ALL RISE is a courthouse drama that follows the chaotic, hopeful and sometimes absurd lives of its judges, prosecutors and public defenders, as they work with bailiffs, clerks and cops to get justice for the people of Los Angeles amidst a flawed legal process.

Among them is newly appointed Judge Lola Carmichael (Simone Missick), a highly regarded and impressive deputy district attorney who doesn’t intend to sit back on the bench in her new role, but instead leans in, immediately pushing the boundaries and challenging the expectations of what a judge can be.

For Season 2, the producers and showrunner Dee Harris Lawrence have chosen to incorporate the pandemic crisis that’s currently affecting the world into the storylines for the characters and the series. BlackFilmandTV.com recently caught up with Missick as she spoke about the surprise ending to this season’s opener where it was revealed that Lola is pregnant as her husband came home from being away.

At what point did you know what your character would be installed for with season two, especially when you ended the first season early because of the pandemic?

Simone Missick: We definitely spent some time in late July, August, talking with our co creator and showrunner Dee Harris Lawrence and Greg Spottiswoode. We spent some time talking about where they saw the arc of Lola going for season two, what was the original arc had we ended the show without a pandemic, and how they were going to try to adjust that. It was interesting, because of the schedule, we were originally on a typical fall schedule, and so the thought was that we would be going through the election with our viewers. But now, based on airings, we aired post selection and so that kind of changed. It didn't match up with the way that they were originally envisioning the second season. And so they had to pivot. 

It was also exciting because the pandemic episode was so present and real with what so many people were dealing with, that CBS said, "take it and run. Deal with what's going on, because that is speaking to people." This is one of those situations where life steps in and changes the course of the plan. It's still amazing to experience and a blessing. We have so many fans who are saying thank you for dealing with the pandemic, thank you for dealing with quarantine. Thank you for showing proper mask usage I've seen from nurses and doctors. And also, thank you for speaking to what is really happening right now in this country. 

There’s been mixed reaction to some of the shows, including yours, who have the pandemic crisis in the storylines. Some folks want their shows to be an escape and others don’t. 

Simone Missick: You have people who appreciate it, and you have people who like you said, say, "I want my television to be an escape.” Even on our Monday night lineup, there are some shows that dealt with the pandemic, and some that didn’t. Some that are dealing with real time events, and some that aren't. There are people who didn't want to watch The Wire because it felt too current, it felt too real. There are people who didn't want to watch Oz. And then there were people who absolutely loved Orange is the New Black. That was dealing with women in prison. It was a different way of dealing with it. But it's still a very real current, every single day issue. At the end of the day, you just have to be proud of the art that you're making. I always have wanted to make art that speaks to what is happening in society and that that speaks to people. To be able to do this show on a network like CBS and bring these stories to its audience and then bring new audience members to the network, to the people who don't appreciate it, I don't know what to tell you. 

What is the difference from filming the last episode of season one where everybody's filming out of their own home to actually be on set and filming under new COVID restrictions?

Simone Missick: It was really, really odd. There’s nervousness. There's anxiety. There's a certain level of comfort and it's a complete different experience from the first season. The beauty of filming from home, you know that you're safe here inside your four walls. If they send you over any equipment, it's all been wiped down and sanitized, and you're the only person touching yourself and this virus seems far away. But when you're on set, you're absolutely aware that you are in the middle of a pandemic, and that everyone has to practice safety and that every action that you take could affect someone else. What was interesting was coming back. Our producers decided to shoot with these black magic cameras.

So there can be anywhere from six to eight to 15-16 cameras going at one time, in the room with no operators there. The room gets preset with the cameras in order to limit the exposure that the actors have to the crew and vice versa. Because sometimes the actors have to unmasked. Sometimes they can only wear shields. Sometimes they can wear both, but just everyone trying to figure out the best way to keep everyone safe.

There was a level of freedom with just having the cameras there and you and the other actor because you don't have to worry about somebody in my eyeline checking their cell phone, or have they drifted off and they're not paying attention. You don't have any of that. It felt like theater almost, when we first came back, which was an unexpected surprise.

Most of the shows that have aired this season had some sort of twist, literally in the last scene. From Grey's Anatomy to Big Sky, it's almost like watching a football game and you wait to the last end to see what happens. With the end of the first episode of this season, why make that a twist and not just have Lola be pregnant from the start? Was this part of last season? Or is that a way to bring home the husband and have him as a regular than recurring?

Simone Missick: Like you said a lot of shows, on that opener, they wanted to surprise and to shock and what our writer of that episode, Dee Harris Lawrence, I think was perhaps looking for was a way to show the theme of this season; which is that everyone is going through a bit of an awakening. You see it with Luke when he was really struggling with what is it like to be an officer and a black officer in the middle of these protests? You see Emily, who was struggling with how does she continue to do her job knowing that the system is so unfair, and so mounted against her and her defendants? How does she maintain her sanity and all of that? With Lola, you see her and Mark dealing with their friendship, as well as their own individual responses to this altercation with the cops. What other way to deepen that experience, then for us, as the audience to find out that this woman has just found out that she is going to be a mother. And there were so many people who were thinking, “Wow, she just found out she was pregnant, and she jumps in front of a young child who is having a gun pulled on her by the cops."

That only deepens that experience. I think it makes it more universal, especially for black women who sacrifice their bodies so often to protect the black child, the black man. To me it’s wonderful writing on Dee's part in terms of not just giving it up from the beginning, because then the audience is going to spend the entire episode like, “Oh, wow, I wonder how long her husband's going to be back? Are we going to get rid of him? Is he going come back? Whose baby is it? All of those things, as opposed to using that as a jumping off point. And thankfully, yes, that will mean that her husband gets to come home and spend more time and we get to see that version of their marriage, which is exciting.

With the show bringing in the pandemic crisis into the show and some of the storylines reflecting it, does it ever get too deep for you?

Simone Missick: It's interesting. I prefer that. I prefer to deal with issues that are present. Even with Luke Cage, starting out with the image of a black man with a hoodie was extremely revolutionary at that time; especially to then put him in the form of a superhero, because we knew how many young black men were being targeted and killed based on just that one simple article of clothing. It opened up dialogue within a genre, that normally, you don't have that kind of direct social commentary. I think that the same thing is true when it comes to this show. You’re dealing with a legal show, and what better usage of the platform than to talk about what's happening every single day to men and women in this country? So for me, it doesn't get tiring, It makes the work that I do important. Because it definitely speaks to a lot of what people are feeling and thinking and going through; that they might not have words to put to, or they've never seen someone express it on television in that way before.

How’s working with the cast? You can’t socialize in person as you did during the first season.

Simone Missick: We spend a lot of time text messaging. We have several different group chats that we participate in, but you're right, it makes it tough. First season, we spent a lot of time on set together, laughing, singing, dancing, and now, you come in, you get your conversations and your catch ups where you can with with your people, and then you separate in order to keep yourself safe. Thankfully, we do love each other. We have a very family bond. We spent so much time together in the first season, it's similar to the way that we all are with our individual families. I love you but for safety purposes, I can't visit and we can hop on the phone. I can't sit up and laugh and joke with you the same way that I wanted to, or that I could last year. So that’s where we're at it. It definitely has made on set time feel more precious. Sometimes they are the only people that I will see. My husband is off filming his show, For Life. In order to keep my family safe, I don't see them on a daily or weekly basis. And so my on set family is the family that I will see from day to day.