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Four seasons into TNT’s hit series Major Crimes, viewers have developed a personal connection to the LAPD’s fiercely loyal Captain in the same way that her detectives have developed a devotion to her. For Raydor, family extends beyond the people with whom she shares bloodlines or family names. For Mary McDonnell, the chance to portray a woman of equal emotional and intellectual strength and integrity is a source of joy for her as an actress.
When we spoke to McDonnell several weeks ago, season four of Major Crimes was just completing filming, and she was effusive about the season experience as a whole, and the people who have become her on-set family. She notes that this season’s super-sized episode order has allowed the team behind Major Crimes to have more creative liberty. “It takes a tremendous amount of energy and focus to keep the quality of the show high. I feel pleased by what we were able to do, because I don’t think that the quality dropped out at all. And knowing that gives us all a great sense of fulfillment.”
Despite the intensity of long work days and a 23-episode season, the longest of any TNT series to date, McDonnell says the tone on set and among the cast remained positive. “There was a very strong sense of ensemble this year, more than ever before; there were people working together easily, quickly, economically, and enjoying it. It had a wonderful feeling of familiarity and professional respect down there on the floor and a great appreciation for the continuing workplace. Everyone appreciates it, the cast, the crew. There are a lot of us on that floor every day, and to keep going with the flow, and knowing we’re coming back again, gives everyone a great sense of security.”
It seems appropriate then, that a season that has fostered such a sense of community off-screen should wield the most emotionally complex and rewarding season yet for her character, Sharon Raydor. While Raydor remains close to her adopted son Rusty, McDonnell reveals that she’s enjoyed exploring that relationship and its evolution as Rusty grows and gains more self-confidence. “I’ve liked the concept of continuing the relationship with Rusty while creating healthy separation. I liked the moments when we had little scenes together. They weren’t every episode like they used to be, because that would be very odd, for a young man and his mom to just sit around talking every day. But I liked experiencing how solid the relationship is between them.”
She goes on to describe the unique beauty she finds in Rusty and Sharon’s relationship, and the rarity that it is on television. “This odd couple, who never knew that there were on each other’s path, have become very good people for each other. And it now has more the feeling of the relationship between a mother and her adult son, and knowing it will always be there. So I really like that little bit of separation, and then feeling the naturalness when we were communicating. I’ve enjoyed that a lot.”
This season, another man has also entered Sharon’s life as a result of her work – Andy Flynn, played by Tony Denison. Fans collectively swooned this season when Lt. Flynn and Captain Raydor officially announced themselves as a burgeoning couple to their superior officer. The pair, dubbed “Shandy” by fans, have experienced a long and gradual build up over several seasons to finally reach this point. McDonnell shares, “I like seeing where Sharon has room for a relationship to slip in, and I like seeing where it frightens her and where it doesn’t, that was all very interesting to me. I was kind of surprised at how comfortable she could get with the relationship with Andy. To other people it feels slow, to me it feels swift.”
McDonnell says the comfortable friendship she has with her co-star has helped to make Sharon’s relationship with Flynn deeper and more believable to her. “I think the world of Tony, he’s a great guy and a great actor, and he’s very generous and kind to work with. So it isn’t hard to imagine why Sharon would begin to trust this man. I don’t have to work very hard to believe it. And that’s been very delightful, to be able to experience a relationship that isn’t troubled. It isn’t being profoundly threatened from something from the outside, and that’s been wonderful.”
The ease of the development of the relationship between Sharon and Andy and the chemistry between them has long been the focus of “Shandy” fans. McDonnell says that ease is also one of the things she likes best about exploring the reasoning behind Sharon’s deepening feelings for Flynn. “There were all the things that threatened Rusty at the very beginning of our lives together, and things that still remain complex with him in regards to his mom, and other threats from the outside world. And then while her relationships with her kids are pretty solid, her relationship with (ex-husband) Jack Raydor was always difficult. And heavy and rather burdensome. This relationship with Andy is not that. It is not burdensome. So that has been very wonderful to experience.”
Just as the relationship between Sharon and Andy has been handled with care and delicacy, McDonnell notes that one of her favorite things about the interpersonal relationships between the main characters of the show is the sense of mutual respect and admiration that the squad shows to each other. “Quite often, particularly many crime shows, the people fighting the crime are so dysfunctional. And I think there are a lot of really functional people in the police force. So I feel very strongly about representing them. And I admire James Duff and the writers so much for refusing to lean into the melodrama, by making all the characters in conflict. Because the bigger story to tell out there is crime and how to fight it, and the justice system and how to make it work. And it’s really cool to me that the characters in this show are actually pretty healthy. They don’t create too much melodrama in their own lives, because they’re too busy fighting the real deal.”
In addition to her evolving 
relationship with Flynn, Sharon’s relationship with Flynn’s fellow curmudgeon, Provenza, has changed drastically since the first season. The evolution of how Provenza and Sharon relate to one another is one that McDonnell is grateful to have been able to play out over the last four years. “It’s a beautiful part of the story, to get to watch everyone respond to their friends’ vulnerability with themselves. And I love what’s happened with Sharon’s relationship with Provenza, vis a vis Flynn’s health issues. That Provenza and Sharon have really become a team now – they run smoothly together, and they trust each other I would say pretty deeply at this point. And that is a huge growth if you think about it, from where they started.”
The trust and ability to relate to others doesn’t simply end with Raydor’s improved relationship with her officers, but also plays a large role in how Raydor relates to the crimes she investigates. Time and again viewers have seen how deeply Sharon feels about the victims and other people involved with the cases she’s investigating. McDonnell says experiencing those feelings as Sharon requires her to internalize a good deal of turbulent emotion as well. “For me as an actor it’s easier to open up to the feeling state of the reality of it, than it is to try and not do it. It takes a lot of effort because I’m an empathic person, so I will naturally empathize with a person’s dilemma.”
“It’s just a difference with the way you’re built. So for me to not do that would take a lot of work. What I have to do, and what Sharon has to do, is to both not be afraid of it, and to let it move through you, as opposed to it being something that makes your job bad. Or hurts your health. There are a lot of really empathic police in the world, who feel this stuff very deeply, and they have found a way to cope. If you try to simply steel yourself to the reality of life, you can really hurt yourself that way as well. And finding that balance is really a part of who she is.”
Previewing the upcoming five-episode winter arc, McDonnell says the chance to tell a continuing story over multiple episodes brought with it some unexpected advantages and freedoms. “We didn’t suddenly have to learn 20 new characters each week. We knew who they were from the last episode. And that was a wonderful freedom in that, because you didn’t have to memorize new names, new faces, new families and new relationships, new lawyers, new DDA’s. It’s all the same. That was fascinating and a wonderful thing to do.”
The sustained arc also brought about a change of pace in how the actors approached the story, as the “whodunit” mystery was just that – a mystery to even the cast and crew as they were filming, leading to much speculation and a more organic storytelling experience. “I loved being able to reflect backwards on what we had already shot, in order to go back, as you would in real life working on a case. You would go backwards and review the information again and again. And in this case we had the episodes for which to review the situation. So there were times when we were discussing amongst the cast, and you would say ‘remember when we just shot in the last episode, what did I say…’, and we could look it up quickly on the script, and that would inform the way we played the moment we were shooting. So in that way it felt much more like making a film, than shooting television. And because that’s the world I came from, it has been feeling very natural for me and very luxurious.”
On the other side of the spectrum, McDonnell says telling a five-part story led to some unexpected and unanticipated emotions when dealing with the crimes from the characters’ perspective. “The difficult part of this arc is that when you’re used to being crackerjack crime solvers who do one of them a week, suddenly, you have one you can’t solve. You are on the 4th episode, and you still don’t have it done, and you as the character are now tearing your hair out. And it brings up all these different feelings of frustration, and complex issues and trying to continue to hold each other up when you haven’t really slept in nights, and you’re still not there. It might not be clearer by the end of an episode, it’s even more complicated by the end of an episode. So it’s a completely different feeling to experience, and I’ve just loved the newness of the adventure.”
With Major Crimes renewed for Season 5, McDonnell is already looking forward to what the new season might bring, and hopes that this new format of a multiple-part episode will return in future seasons. “It has been really thrilling for all of us. I hope that we can incorporate this idea into the future if we have big long seasons like this. It’s a great idea, and has been exciting for everyone.”
Major Crimes is all-new tonight at 9pm/8c on TNT. Stay tuned for part two of our interview with Mary McDonnell coming next week, where she talks about the correlation between Sharon Raydor and her iconic President of the Universe, Laura Roslin, and gives us an exclusive look at her fundraising efforts with Sinte Gleska University.