John C. Reilly & Hadley Robinson Talk Father-Daughter Dynamic in New Season of ‘Winning Time’
Q&A
[This interview was conducted prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike.]
It’s one thing to reach the top of the mountain, and another to stay there. That’s the challenge John C. Reilly’s Dr. Jerry Buss and his Los Angeles Lakers find in season 2 of the HBO series Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers. The drama picks up after the 1980 NBA Finals in 1980 and sees the Lakers having a rollercoaster time in the seasons that follow, building up to Magic Johnson (Quincy Isaiah) and Larry Bird (Sean Small) facing off on the court.
Of course, the show, based on the book “Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty” of the 1980s” by Jeff Pearlman, extends beyond business and basketball. For Buss, that means struggling to find that balance in maintaining successful relationships including with family. At the center is the NBA owner’s driven daughter Jeanie Buss, played by Hadley Robinson. Someone finding her own place in the sports world.
We sat down with Reilly and Robinson to talk about how their character’s evolution in the second season.
How would you describe the father-daughter dynamic in season 2 as Jeanie takes on more responsibilities? You can really see a lot of her in Dad.
Hadley Robinson: Jerry gives Jeanie more responsibilities at the beginning of this season. It’s really exciting. Jeanie is excited about that. It’s an interesting thing that happens the more capable she becomes. At a certain point, even when she is given these responsibilities, she realizes her father is veering her away from the basketball business and isn’t really talking about it with her and the other family members…I think at this point Jeanie, who used to lean on her father a lot, now starts to go in her own new direction through the middle of the season and the end. Or at least tries to.
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Jeanie’s brothers Johnny (Thomas Mann) and Jimmy Buss (McCabe Slye) have more of a presence. With that, Jerry seems to start thinking more about wanting to be a good father
John C. Reilly: The show is exciting because it’s about sports and about culture and our society at this moment. It’s also exciting because it’s about essentially very relatable relationships. In the first season, I had this whole relationship with my mother. In the second season, we get into what it’s like to be a good father with Jerry looking to make up for some of his shortcomings in the past. Part of that is this exploration of his relationship with Jeanie. One of the features of the second season is we bring two of his sons into the picture, Johnny and Jimmy.
There was a very beautiful thing about Jerry. Even though, things didn’t work out in his favor in terms of the responsibilities he gave the family members. I think it was a very noble thing to keep the family involved. He kept something that had personal meaning for them and that it wasn’t just a business or an investment.
It was also creating a lasting legacy.
John: To this day that is how that team is run, unlike many major sports teams, which are owned by conglomerates with groups of investors. The Buss family is still the majority stakeholder in that team. It’s run kind of like a mom-and-pop business in a way. I always really loved that about Jerry. He wasn’t just an unbridled, ambitious guy who just wanted to make money no matter what. It was very important for him to put the family at the center of it all and have it be a family business. To have all the success he had and share it and build his own dynasty. Not just the dynasty of the team. The dynasty of his family That everyone, after he passed away, would go on to great things and achieve things like he did.
Hadley, when Jerry’s mom and Jeanie’s grandmother Jessie (Sally Field) passed away in the first season, do you think Jeanie felt the weighted pressure of taking care of her dad?
Hadley: Absolutely. It’s a really interesting dynamic that you see play out. His mother passes, and my grandmother. That’s a huge loss for both of us. You see us both processing that in the second season. I think the natural thing would be for Jeanie to fill that space in his life. But for whatever reason, and this is fun to watch, he kind of swerves and finds another woman to fill that place in his life. And maybe that does or does not work out. There is a huge noticeable gap in both their lives, which you see played out in the second season.
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John, in your eyes, how do you feel the loss impacted him? Maybe this was the catalyst for him to look for a sustainable love connection and fill that void.
John: My own mother was such an important part of my life. She passed away suddenly. So, I know what it’s like to be in the aftermath of a loss like that. It can take a very long time to process. You find yourself working stuff out years after the fact. The fact we find this guy right after that happens gives us some rich veins to tap into. Both my parents have passed away. So when they are not there anymore, you are empowered in a way that feels different. Now you don’t have this person over you watching what you are doing. They are gone. Then it becomes who do I want to be. You emerge into who you are to become. That happens with Jerry. He tries to replace his mother with these various people. Ultimately, there is no replacing someone like that. That’s one of the things the character learns over the course of the season. That you’re going to have to be your own mentor.
The Lakers have a championship under Jerry’s ownership, but now they have to keep the momentum going. There is this real rivalry bubbling over with the Lakers and Celtics. With Jerry and Coach Red Auerbach (Michael Chiklis)as well as Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. What was it like to delve further into all that?
All the relationships get deeper and more complicated this season because, in the first season, we were just trying to establish who these people were, so you can understand where they were coming from. Now that is all done. It gives us a chance to dive into things. I loved my scenes with Michael Chiklis. He is such a great rival to have onscreen because he is very strong and very intense and very intimidating. At the same time, he is like an actor’s actor. He is really there to work with you, which was great to have when you have such a combustible relationship between these two guys. That is really what the second season is about now. That you have won, who are you? Are you a winner? Are you a champion? How do you continue what you’re made of now that you have accomplished this big thing? Now what? You had your whole life to win your first championship. You have one season to win the next.
Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers season 2 premiere, August 6, 9/8c, HBO
