Exclusive Interview: Pop Culturalist Chats with The Red Line’s Elizabeth Laidlaw

Elizabeth Laidlaw is an acclaimed actress, director, and producer. For over twenty years she’s worked in the Chicago entertainment scene bringing complex characters to life on TV, film, and the stage. She’s proven she’s a master of her craft.

Currently she’s starring in one of her most challenging roles: playing the morally-conflicted Officer Vic in CBS’ limited series, The Red Line. Pop Culturalist was lucky enough to catch up with Elizabeth ahead of tonight’s finale.

The Red Line Questions

PC: Tell us about The Red Line, your character, and what drew you to this project.
Elizabeth: The Red Line is a social, political, and family drama. While the Chicago police, its City Hall politics, racism, and a police shooting are the framework around which our narrative hangs, it’s a far cry from a police or political procedural. It’s a story about three families who find themselves in the blast zone and fallout of a single, terrible event: the shooting of an innocent black man by a white police officer and its larger implications for the city and its police force.

I’ve known our creators, Caitlin Parrish and Erica Weiss, for many years from the Chicago theater scene. We have been mutual fans and supporters of one another’s work. I saw the play on which The Red Line is based on, A Twist of Water, several years ago. I loved it; it’s a beautiful play. It was different, however, in that the deceased father dies in a car accident, the issue of police shootings doesn’t exist, and the issues of race–and specifically racial bias–were less focal. I know Caitlin and Erica were trying to get the pilot back to Chicago, and when I read it I was delighted to see that they had taken a terrific play and expanded it to make it so relevant to right now by introducing the inflection point of a police shooting as its central event. I was even more delighted to see what a good fit Vic Renna was for me and thrilled at the prospect of getting to be a part of the most Chicago of projects in my hometown.

PC: The social issues, events, and themes covered in the series are incredibly relevant to what’s going on in the world today. Does that add more weight to a project like this?
Elizabeth: Oh, certainly. I think there are so many procedurals, comedies, and fantasy shows out there in the network landscape–and that’s great. TV is definitely for entertainment [and] escape, but the purpose of art must also be to make us examine ourselves and the world around us. We have to reach out to others, reach across our differences. Sometimes art can facilitate that [and] start a conversation, make us aware of what we share–[or] rather than what separates us–as no other thing can. I feel a great responsibility to approaching the playing of Vic, a white career police woman in Chicago in the midst of these events, [and] being clear-eyed about her and never losing sight of her as a human being, however flawed.

PC: There are a lot of different layers to officer Vic. How did you prepare to play her? Which of her layers was your favorite to explore and why?
Elizabeth: I think Vic’s greatest strength and weakest joint is her fierce love and protectiveness over the people she cares about. It makes her heedless of her own well-being sometimes, but she really operates from a place of not necessarily putting herself first. She puts her children, her partner, her friends, and her chosen family first. It’s spills over into tribalism, protecting what you know verses doing the right thing by a stranger. But that’s what people do time and time again.

I’m also really interested in Vic’s unexamined racial bias. It reveals itself in the way she knows that Paul made a horrible call in firing on Harrison without warning; she knows why he did it and the unconscious bias that led to it–even that he may not be “cop” material at the end of the day. She knows about Jim Evans’ anger-fueled open racism, but she keeps biting her lip and avoiding calling them on it and protecting them. She maintains the “he’s a good guy who made a mistake” narrative; she protects Paul from himself–or tries to–rather than hurt him by making sure justice is served. She chooses the people she cares for over moral clarity and justice, and she’s paying a very steep price for that by the end of episode six. She’s suspended, has no income, [and] no idea if she will be reinstated. She has children at home she needs to provide for and has no means of doing so. She may also be about to lose her best friend, her integrity, and her professional reputation–not to mention her pension, possibly. I’m interested how these events might rather brutally force her to consider how she is part of the problem and what she is going to do about that.

PC: What can you tease about finale?
Elizabeth: I will play it safe and say that there are several startling twists before the final moments of this season and that these characters have a lot in front of them to navigate. I am also pretty sure that if you were moved by anything you have already seen, you have more “feels” in store. I’m very proud of how we wrapped up this season and where we leave these characters, for the moment.

PC: Besides The Red Line, do you have any other upcoming projects that you can chat about at this time?
Elizabeth: Just this week the web series I co-executive produced, co-directed, and performed in, The Haven, was released on OTV-Open Television. It’s the culmination of three years of work for myself and the writer/creator and my co-executive producer, Chicago playwright Mia McCullough. It’s a dramedy set in a domestic violence shelter based on Mia’s experiences being on the staff of one for many years. It deals with not only those seeking shelter, but [also with] the underpaid, underfunded, and overworked staff trying to manage. While domestic violence is a deadly serious issue, there is a certain zaniness in the ecosystem of a shelter, the personalities and friendships and tensions, [and] the fires that constantly need putting out. Our first season consists of four episodes averaging about twelve minutes each. So our next project is getting people to see it and putting together a proposal for a full-length version should we catch the interest of people who can make that possible.

I’m also currently looking at several stage plays I may direct in the upcoming couple of years.

Career Questions

PC: How did you discover your passion for acting?
Elizabeth: I think I have always loved telling stories. As a young kid I was an avid reader, and then when I would be sent outside to play, I used to spend hours by myself in the yard, or in the summers on the beach, or in the woods playing out complicated narratives. They all took the shape of a hero’s journey, of coming through some great trial. The older I got the clearer it became that it was my natural element, being a storyteller–and that if I worked very hard and was a bit lucky, I could feed that creative and very hungry beast inside me and possibly get paid to do it. The best part about it is that I could do it in rooms with other people.

I love being a PART of a bigger act of storytelling. I’m never happier than in the creative part, the putting it together, whether it’s rehearsing a play, sculpting a new script, directing a show, or putting together a cast and crew. It’s all about putting together a story to tell and hopefully connect with more and more people.

PC: What’s been the biggest lesson you’ve learned being a part of this industry?
Elizabeth: Treat others as you would like to be treated. Be fair, be generous, be kind, be wise. Try everything. Be fearless.

Pop Culturalist Speed Round

PC: Guilty pleasure TV show?
Elizabeth: I Love Dick on Amazon. It’s a terrific show. I’m only guilty of watching it again and again when I should really be doing something else.

PC: Guilty pleasure movie?
Elizabeth: The 1980 Dracula with Frank Langella. I watch it every year and wish I could go back in time with the same cast and locations and fix it, but I can’t, so I just watch it anyway.

I guess these probably fall outside of “guilty pleasures,” huh? [laughs]

PC: Favorite book?
Elizabeth: Impossible. I’ll tell you that I’m re-reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein for the fifth time right now. I read John Adams twice and everything Neil Gaiman and Margaret Atwood have ever written.

PC: Favorite play or musical?
Elizabeth: I think Macbeth is Shakespeare’s greatest play, and I’ll fight anyone for that. Angels in America is still the greatest play of the last 50 years. I have a ridiculous affection for Oklahoma! that probably has as much to do with falling in love with Curly (Gordon McRae) at age four as anything else.

PC: A band or artist that fans would be surprised to learn is on your playlist?
Elizabeth: I have a playlist that has both Django Reinhardt and Pat Benatar on it.

PC: Last show you binge-watched?
Elizabeth: American Gods

PC: Hidden talent?
Elizabeth: I am uncannily good at horseback-riding for someone who has never owned a horse–or really even taken a proper lesson. I can also bend my tongue into the shape of a three leaf clover, which is a fun little ice-breaker. Or very alienating. Depends on the company and the timing.

To keep up with Elizabeth follow her on Twitter and Instagram, and catch the finale of The Red Line on Sunday, May 19 at 8/7c on CBS.

Photo Credit: Joe Mazza