‘A Million Little Things’: Chris Geere Teases ‘Awkward Chats’ for Maggie’s Love Triangle
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Season 3, Episode 7 of A Million Little Things, “Timing.”]
Roommates-with-benefits Maggie (Allison Miller) and Jamie (Chris Geere) are once again living together, this time in Boston (instead of Oxford) and in her ex-boyfriend Gary’s (James Roday Rodriguez) apartment. (Gary’s staying at their friend Delilah’s house, watching her kids, while she’s in France.)
Jamie flew in to be with Maggie after she found out she was pregnant (when going in for a cancer screening) and decided not to keep the baby in Episode 6. And when he’s ready to fly home in Episode 7, she suggests he wait until after her screening and they go back together. He quickly agrees.
Geere tells TV Insider what’s ahead for the Gary-Maggie-Jamie triangle and more.
I’m happy Jamie’s staying in the U.S. because he’s so fun.
Chris Geere: It’s very hard coming in on the backend of a really successful relationship. I think I’m really making a name for myself here, coming in and disrupting everything.
Maggie and Jamie’s relationship status is best described as “it’s complicated,” right?
The move to Boston has moved the goal post completely. It’s giving them an opportunity to really question whether they have a future together. Quarantine and Jamie staying in Gary’s house makes it even more complicated, so it’s disruptive, it’s complicated. But Jamie stays on course to do what he sets out to do: make [Maggie] feel like she could get her independence back again. That’ll give her the confidence to make decisions on her own.
Jamie’s not helping snooping around Gary’s apartment and finding the ring [Gary had for Maggie].
I don’t think his intention was to disrupt things to that magnitude, but obviously it does. Sometimes even when things happen that aren’t necessarily good on paper, they invite a conversation that will progress things slightly. In future episodes, there’s going to be some quite awkward chats within the love triangle. They’re very funny.
Will Darcy [Gary’s girlfriend, played by Floriana Lima] be part of that?
Yes. It’s a love square. I think it’s a love triangle with the three of them and I’m kind of the comedy jester that pops his head in every so often disrupting things. Fingers crossed it’ll all work out. That’s a season-long play.
Jamie’s expression when Maggie was leaving for Boston strongly suggested he’s developed feelings for her beyond roommates-with-benefits.
He’s fallen for her. He fell for her very soon and yet he’s trying to hide those feelings because he’s very aware of her situations. He’s keeping guarded to protect her.
There’s this ease between Jamie and Maggie. Why?
It goes back to when all of us didn’t have to revolve our world around relationships and the longevity of a relationship. It goes back to the basics of whether you actually just enjoy spending time with another person before you have to commit to paying mortgages together, buying houses, and having families. You can dance and sing and be silly. It reminds them that they brought out the little kid in each other a little bit. That was refreshing for both of them because he’d been married before, and she’d been through everything with the cancer, [Gary], and moving to England. It’s just a bit of light in what has been a year of darkness. They use each other for the light.
Is there anything besides his feelings for Maggie that made Jamie say yes to staying in the U.S.?
He wants to see through his agenda, which was to make sure she was OK. He will only leave once he believes his work — to make her feel like she can be the best that she can be — has been done. It’s a bit of sweet love story in that way.
When will Jamie interact with the rest of the friend group? First he was separated by being in another country and now COVID.
Unfortunately, that’s it. There isn’t any interaction with the rest of the gang, on and offscreen. I only met them on Zoom for the table reads, which was very strange, trying to form a bond with an already-established cast that, through COVID, I wasn’t allowed to interact with in real life. I personally was very nervous about potentially being part of a full scene with all of them but because of the storyline and because of on and offscreen COVID, it was pretty much just Allison and I doing a two-handed play throughout the season. It was very peculiar as an actor to do that and as a character for these two people who really don’t know each other very much to be thrown in the deep end with many issues, especially pregnancy.
I’d love to see Jamie’s reaction to everything going on with the rest of the group.
I know. He’d get on really well with Romany and Christina’s characters [Rome and Regina]. He comes up with suggestions as how to fix things and it doesn’t always work and he puts his foot in it quite a lot, especially when he goes snooping around someone’s house.
Are we going to be seeing a different side of Jamie while he’s in the U.S.?
He’s less harsh, more supportive than he’s ever been. There’s a lovely line, which I can’t really talk about at the moment, but they reference a very famous fictional character and he’s like that. He’s there to do good. That was my role going in: to be a reason why she can feel like she can be herself again, be that strong, independent person again.
How much more are we going to learn about Jamie?
Quite a lot. There’s quite a few more episodes after this I’m in. He drops his guard. At the moment, he’s either been the shoulder to cry on or the comic relief. There is a time where he reveals a sweeter, more sensitive, sentimental side. I really enjoyed doing those scenes.
A Million Little Things, Thursdays, 10/9c, ABC