Grief, Masculinity, Montana: Patrick J Adams Talks New Show “The Madison”

“He’s so great, by the way,” a publicist chirps as you make your way towards the hotel room. “The most lovely, salt-of-the-earth guy.” You hope she’s right.

As the door glides open, you notice a few things: a clean beige carpet, tastefully-dim lighting, and, sitting by a large brown desk and toying with a Rubik’s Cube, Suits star Patrick J Adams.

“Even before I understood that [acting] was a profession or vocation, it was something that gave me a place to put my feelings.”Patrick J Adams

You’re here to talk about The Madison, a new series penned for Paramount+. Michelle Pfeiffer stars as Stacy Clyburn, a widow in shock. Pfeiffer’s late husband, Preston (Kurt Russell), has left behind a ranch in Montana — across the continent from the Clyburns’ New York City residence — and Pfeiffer must sort out the logistics. It’s a family affair: Stacy brings her two daughters, Abigail Reese (Beau Garrett) and Paige McIntosh (Elle Chapman), along for the ride. Paige takes her husband, Russell McIntosh (Patrick J Adams), while Abigail is accompanied by her daughters, Bridgette Reese and Macy Reese (Amiah Miller and Alaina Pollack).

When you ask Adams how he likes Toronto, he offers a smile and says, “This is my town!” Conversation flows fast and freely. As the chat moves onto Adams’ role in The Madison, the actor peppers in casual-yet-profound insights on fatherhood, masculinity, and learning from castmates. Fifteen minutes slip by like seconds. By the time you leave, it’s clear the publicist was right — Patrick J Adams is so great.

What is it like to come back to Toronto and promote the show?

It’s so cool. I mean, we haven’t had much time here — it’s been, like, two full days — but anytime I land here, I feel quieter and peaceful and so happy to be here. This was the town where it all started. I remember in high school, I found theatre, and I found a theatre teacher who changed my life, and really convinced me that this was something I could do if I took it seriously.

I spent a lot of time being young and angsty, walking around the city, listening to music, and praying that I could live this life and do this for a living. At first, I shot Suits here and that was remarkable. Now, to be having this new experience, with a new show, and come back and be able to talk about it — this is pretty phenomenal.

Is that how it started for you, an initial interest in theatre?

Yeah. Ever since I was little, film and television were solace for me. I would watch movies religiously. I would study performances. I would wonder how they did things. I would fall in love with characters. Even before I understood that it was a profession or vocation, it was something that gave me a place to put my feelings — sort of like church.

I discovered theatre too. I lived in London for a bit when I was seven, so I would go to the theatre and find myself really connected to that. So, I knew early on that this was the world I wanted to exist in, but like I said, I needed that encouragement when I got to high school. This teacher really changed things for me.

In The Madison, there are moments of comedy, there’s drama — it does feel a bit theatrical, if you were to categorize it any which way. You mentioned studying movies and performances; was there something that helped you get into character for this?

It’s different for everything. It’s a good question. For me, I just wanted to be as uncomfortable as possible. A lot of times, your job as an actor is to get as comfortable as possible, right? It’s like, ‘Oh, I want to relax. I gotta relax, because that’s where I’m gonna do the best work,’ and that’s not always easy to do: lots of people, high stakes, a lot of pressure. Usually, the challenge is, ‘How do I ignore all of that and get comfortable and get present?’ But Russell’s so uncomfortable. So, part of my job with him was to actually do the opposite, which is to like never get comfortable. So, if I’m nervous to work with Michelle Pfeiffer, embrace it.

That was the work in this: find as many things to be uncomfortable about as possible. If it’s a hot day, it’s too hot — I’m sweating, I’m wearing the wrong shirt. If there’s a noise somewhere and I don’t know what it is, it freaks me out. You know what I mean? I was just looking for discomfort. I don’t really know if that answers your question, but every day, it was like, ‘Okay, get to work, get uncomfortable.’

“[Montana] is a metaphor for grief. […] Taylor’s a genius by saying, ‘Well, isn’t that what it feels like to be completely taken by grief?’ By taking this family out of New York and putting them in this natural environment, he’s really physicalizing that sensation of losing something and feeling completely turned away.”Patrick J Adams

Was that how it felt to film in Montana? Had you experienced that type of landscape or environment before?

I’d never been to Montana or Wyoming or that part of the country. I hadn’t even driven through it at that point. So no, that was brand new to me as well. In my mind, Montana was just mountains, everywhere, almost close-up, but Montana is spread out. Mountains are always at a distance. Then, this river environment where the cabins are built… it’s just such a particular kind of space. So, I was happy that I had never visited it before in all my travels, because you got to see me discovering that as Russell on screen. Like, ‘What is this? landscape? How do we survive here?’

I mean, such a big part of the show is adapting to a new element — grief — and a new environment.

That’s the whole thing, yeah. [Montana] is metaphor for grief, like, as far as these people having to go through this horrible time after a surprise loss — Taylor’s a genius by saying, ‘Well, isn’t that what it feels like to be completely taken by grief?’ By taking this family out of New York and putting them in this natural environment, he’s really physicalizing that sensation of losing something and feeling completely turned away. We don’t know how life works. I don’t know if you’ve lost anybody close to you, but I have, and, you know, you wake up the next day and you don’t know how anything works: ‘What am I supposed to do, and how do I go to the bathroom, and what do we cook for dinner?’ Like, nothing makes sense anymore. I think it’s a cool way to talk about that.

That’s definitely the experience; like, you feel depersonalized, you don’t recognize things. What was it like to find those moments of confusion and grief on set with your co-stars?

It was wild. You know, we never talked about anything, but we just all fell in together. I’ve been trying to remember how we did it so fast. I mean, I’ve been friends with Beau [Garrett] — who plays Abby — for twenty years, so that’s helpful. We know each other, so that was easy. But, also, our characters didn’t do a lot together at first. But there were a good amount of get-togethers before we shot: a couple of dinners, good conversation.

Ultimately, it’s a testament to who these people were, that everybody got it — and also Taylor’s writing. It was clear. Everybody knew the assignment. I think he cast an incredible ensemble that looked out for each other. We just hit the ground running. As soon as you see Michelle [Pfeiffer] step into this part, I think we understood, like, ‘That’s the goal with what we’re doing. We’re all here to service that.’ [Pfeiffer] is such a giving and remarkable actor as well that she’s doing the same thing and giving us back everything that we need. It’s hard to describe what happens when a cast gels like that — or any team in any industry. It’s just this alchemy where you go, ‘I don’t know why this is working, but thank God it is.’ Then, it’s just about fanning the flame and shepherding it to make sure you keep that mutual respect going.

“[Russell] was the seed of a really important comment about what it is to be a man: show up for people who you love and show up for your family, despite how uncomfortable it might make you.”Patrick J Adams

That’s something you can really see, especially when you’re playing a family on screen. There’s those nuanced relationships: Russell’s trying to figure out how he can exist without stepping on people’s toes.

Yeah. It’s a very particular vision of masculinity that I enjoy. I mean, Taylor’s obviously known for writing very hyper-masculine, Western, cowboy men — and he does it so well — but that’s why I was taken with Russell: on the surface of it, he’s sort of anti-masculine — a city boy who can’t really handle it, can’t be here, can’t do all the things that these other men can do — but at the same time, he’s the only man who’s showing up, right? He’s completely uncomfortable in this environment. He doesn’t know how to do anything, and yet he is putting all of that aside so that he can show up for the people he loves. I thought that was the seed of a really important comment about what it is to be a man: show up for people who you love and show up for your family, despite how uncomfortable it might make you.

That’s an interesting way to put it; Taylor Sheridan is known for a certain depiction of rural masculinity, and Russell, being a city guy, is sort of outside of that. How did you use that to build your character?

You just have to ground everything in relationships. You can get lofty when you shoot things like this and there are too many big ideas in your head. Ultimately, my job — or any of our jobs — is just to relate to each other. So for me, it was Elle [Chapman] — like, she’s my world. I’ll do anything to protect her and, by extension, here I am with her nieces. They’re two young women who are in the wild; their dad isn’t around and their mom’s distracted. They need me. How can I help? How can I look after them? Stacy’s in mourning and she can’t see straight. Let me get the car. Let me get the pizza. Let me get the ice cream. This is stuff I related to in my own life, of having just gone through it with my family. Like, ‘I don’t know how to even cry right now, but I can go get the pizza. I can get the ice cream, and I can drive the car, and I can get the bags out of the car, and let’s start there.’

There’s something heroic about showing up in that way before you really can get the more classically-heroic stuff. And I don’t think that’s me coming up with this. I think Taylor’s written that on the page. And again — coming from the guy who’s written some of the most iconic “cowboys staring off into the sunset” and living up to that sort of masculine American ideal — I was really stoked to be a part of turning that on its head and doing something different.

“If I get to raise women that are half as incredible and talented and committed and heartfelt as the women that I got to work with on this show, then I’m a lucky man.”Patrick J Adams

On a show that deals with these heavier themes, how does it feel to be vulnerable with your co-stars on set?

My job here was to bear witness to vulnerability — I mean, you always have to be vulnerable and open — but it’s not about Russell’s feelings. That’s not to say that they’re not there, and it’s not to say that I don’t have to investigate those and know how this is affecting me, but I saw my job on the page as being more like making space for everybody else to have feelings.

I’ll say, growing up in a house full of women, a lot of times it’s like: Don’t try and fix anything. Don’t go in and think you have the answer to fix everything. Make space for people to have a feeling. Sometimes, that’s your number one job. Sometimes, what I want to do is to stop everybody from feeling things — ‘Don’t cry, I don’t want you to cry. How can I make you laugh?’ — that would be me as a kid sometimes. I didn’t want my mom to cry. I didn’t want my sisters to cry. I wanted to make them laugh. I certainly have that instinct. I think Russell has it too. But I think he’s learned (as I have) in life to say, ‘Let me build a force field around you guys so that I can do all the stupid stuff — make dinner and pack bags and move clothes — so that you guys can fight and cry and do whatever you need to do to start moving through this.’ I don’t know that he’s consciously making that decision, but I do think, by virtue of being surrounded by so many women, he’s learning it quickly.

Are there certain takeaways or lessons that you feel like, as an actor, you’ve learned from being Russell?

That’s a good question. What do I think? … I think I’ve learned that the entire [project] is about the people you’re working with and how you support each other. As soon as you’re interested in, ‘What do I get out of this scene? How do I look cool? How do I make this scene about me?’ — which is stuff you can do subconsciously; you might not even think about it, but you can be in your own head and wanting to service your own needs — you’re dead in the water. Sometimes, you get around a group of people where your love and admiration for them and their process just naturally overwhelms your desire to do something for yourself. Those seem to be the projects that stand the test of time, that you love, and that the world reacts positively to. It’s less of a thing that I’m taking away from Russell and more a reinforcement of what I’ve already learned.

In terms of in my own life? Identifying how blessed I am to be surrounded by women. I have three daughters, I have two sisters, I have an incredible mother, I have an incredible wife, and I feel so grateful. I’ve learned so much through that process, and now that I have the responsibility of raising three young women in the world — which is daunting, daunting as hell, and I’m going to screw it up, and I’m going to get lots wrong — but if I get to raise women that are half as incredible and talented and committed and heartfelt as the women that I got to work with on this show, then I’m a lucky man.

The Madison is now streaming on Paramount+.

This transcript has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

FEATURE PHOTO COURTESY OF PARAMOUNT+.

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