One of the best shows to come out of television recently is the Aaron Korsh legal drama Suits. With never-ending threats of do-or-die situations and the eternally entertaining bromance of Harvey and Mike, Gabriel Macht happens to think that the television series almost had the potential to see one of them coming out of the closet and redefining their relationship on different terms.
However, the grandiose world of Suits is built on the subtlety of its elements – the Harvey-Louis riff, the Harvey-Donna slow burn, the Harvey-Mike bromance, and the Harvey-Jessica friendship. It doesn’t take nine seasons to realize Harvey is the one at the core of the show and it is his character arc around which every other character develops and revolves.
As such, it took immense patience for Macht to invest every bit of his wits and sensibilities into evolving the character who was essentially the backbone of one of the best shows in modern television.
Suits Almost Stumbled in the Beginning
As a brother, friend, lover, and lawyer, Harvey Specter was many things to many people. Without a single stereotype to box him in, Gabriel Macht‘s character soon became one of the most loved personalities on screen. Suits, in turn, grew in popularity as its reach increased manifold after Netflix hauled the show onto their streaming service platform.
What began as a quiet, witty legal drama soon turned into one of the biggest shows on the planet, making the entire production feel their way through a “Holy sh–t!” moment. In the aftermath, the world began to laud the characters for their brilliance and the actors for their devotion to their respective arcs – which, as the fans would later come to realize, meant a great deal to Gabriel Macht in particular.
In an interview with Harper’s Bazaar, Macht revealed how his association with the medium of film turned him obsolete in the medium of television. No longer was he playing an arc that had to perceive its beginning, middle, and end within the span of 90 minutes. Macht was now playing the long game which would run for over 100 episodes spanning a decade in real-time. And with that realization, the actor began to implement a few changes in his own narrative storyline.
Gabriel Macht Reveals Harvey’s Original Fate
It is not every day that one gets to peel off the sharp and pristine suits of Harvey Specter and analyze his internal workings. The suave lawyers working against the sexy backdrop of the New York City skyline surround Harvey Specter – the captain of the ship – while Gabriel Macht’s character holds the crew together through good times as well as turbulent spells.
Speaking of how the series oscillates between aspirational and grounded from the initial seasons going into the latter, Macht speaks of the transition that his own character went through in the beginning, saying:
Before I did Suits, I hadn’t done a series in a decade, and I only did 13 episodes of that show before going off to do movies. With a series, it’s slow turns and slow deepening of a character, and when I first approached it, I started to have Harvey change within the first season.
I had to pull the brakes, because if you do it that quickly then you have nowhere to go after the first two seasons. It was a bit of a learning curve for me, the slow-burn, and then it became really exciting to play because it becomes a bit more challenging. You can deepen the character so much more than in a film.
That slow change later became apparent in his constantly evolving relationship with Louis Litt as they turned from superficial enemies into real friends. Harvey’s relationship with Mike changed as well as they turned from boss-associate to friends and brothers.
Macht eventually transitioned his will-they-won’t-they relationship with Donna into one of the greatest unions in pop culture history. In that moment, Harvey Specter truly proved himself as the greatest closer in the city. Without these transitions, Gabriel Macht’s character would have only been one-dimensional.
Suits is streaming on Netflix.
