‘Bull’: Annabelle Attanasio on Cable’s Decision to Stand Up for What Is Right
Q&A
Sure, they have their ups and downs, but the trial consultation team at the center of CBS’s Bull usually get along. As a family, they’re much more Walton than Soprano. (Well, except for the time that woman blew up the office and held them all at gunpoint. But you get the point.) However, in the May 16th episode, a disagreement about internet privacy sparked by the group’s latest case (and a terrorist bombing) causes a pretty big rift in the crew—especially between boss Bull (Michael Weatherly) and uber-hacker Cable (Annabelle Attanasio), who walks out in protest. We won’t spoil the rest. But we did talk to Attanasio about what went down, and more.
What is Cable’s beef?
Our client is a company that’s like Dropbox. We’re defending them in a privacy case. There is an eco-terrorist attack in New York City and the people responsible have information on the company’s servers. They don’t want to release the info, because if they do that, they’ll lose all their clientele. You use a thing like Dropbox for safety and privacy. Imagine if you knew Dropbox had released someone else’s files, you’d want to pull yourself off there right away! They’d go out of business. But for Cable, who had a friend whose face was burned off in that blast and is in terrible shape, they are on the wrong side of justice. She thinks they should be finding the people who committed this horrible thing. Cable has a really, really strong sense of right and wrong. For better or worse, she has moral code that she adheres to and she is willing to put her job on the line to stand up for what she feels is right.
Do you understand all of Cable’s hacker speak?
I look it all up, but I’ll never understand it nearly as well as she does. It’s second nature to her. She’s a technology prodigy. It’s pretty remarkable what people like her can accomplish in their lives. She not at all the scary kind of hacker, though—what she does on the show really even tap into the viciousness of that.
She gives a speech about the importance of privacy and how the Internet threatens it. Do you agree with her?
I actually really agree with that. As we learn on the show, email stands for “evidence mail.” You can’t really do anything in life now without using the Internet. This show is a window into the voyeurism and shows how none of us are safe. It is so easy for someone to get into your Facebook account or your texts or call logs or see where you live and how many times you moved. I don’t think that’s healthy.
Do you see her as a positive representation of a millennial? She’s hardworking. She’s unselfish.
Millennials are so torn apart on TV, not that we don’t sometimes deserve it. But Cable loves what she does, to the point of it being dangerous in that she really invests all of her time and is somewhat addicted to her work. She is a positive millennial!
Bull, Tuesdays, 9/8c, CBS
