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Is that too much to ask?
Amid this gallery of weirdo men stands Camps Raymond, whose comparatively grounded presence makes for a fun counterbalance.
This isnt to say that Raymond doesnt get explosive moments at times, literally.
In Camps perspective, though, that idyllic conclusion might itself be a head fake.
I dont know if Raymond could happily retire, says Camp.
I just dont see that.
What does Raymond want?
Hell find another obsession.
And I dont think its gardening.
This version ofPresumed Innocentis quite different from the movie and the book.
What did you think when you first learned about the ending?I thought it was really clever.
Really fun and also moving.
I didnt really think it was going to be Jakes character.
Thats not something that was in my landscape.
But I, Bill Camp, was always curious.
The show plays around with ambiguities to a point where several characters are on the table as suspects.
A co-worker of mine thought Raymondcould be the wild-card murderer.
I wouldnt have thought that.
But I dont know how one would come to Raymond.
Thats far-fetched for me.
Did you go into the shoot not knowing who the killer was?No.
It was just presumed, no pun intended.
I didnt know how it was going to end.
I didnt necessarily want to know.
I dont always want all of the information.
I think those who knew were probably keeping it quiet.
Again, it didnt factor into the performance.
The priority was not to find a killer.
Our objective is to show that the prosecution has not met the burden of proof.
I like that Raymond and Rusty regard each other as best friends.
Especially given the age difference, which makes it charming.Oh yeah, absolutely.
How do you understand that relationship?
Its a little paternal, its a little mentor-mentee.Theres mutual respect for each other.
I think Raymond listens to Rusty, and I think Rusty respects the experience that Raymond has.
They have the same vocation.
They have the same love for their job.
Thats what makes them effective partners.
Theyre just two people who feel comfortable and trust each other.
At the very end, does he fully believe in Rustys innocence?He does.
He arrives at that point much earlier on in one of his scenes with Lorraine.
Because Im not sure if I do.And those things get projected.
But by the end, yeah, he believes he did not do it.
How did you prepare for Raymond?
I didnt think at all about that connection.
I guess both men are just interested in getting the job done and not getting tangled in emotion.
Facts are the only things that are important to them.
Dennis Box always dealt in murder.
He was a homicide guy.
He sort of only trusted himself in the darkness of that job.
The landscape before them is very similar.
Thats a very particular vocation and mind-set to put oneself in.
The things that were more a part of Raymond were external.
I made up where he came from.
What was his history?
Where did he grow up?
When did he move to Chicago?
What were the things that he liked to do?
Tell me more about that.
How much of Raymonds biography did you come up with?
Theres a line in the last episode where he says hes from Maine.Yeah!
All of that was in my mind.
Hes a physical guy.
Theres a presence to Raymond.
Hes got a center in him that is just there.
Those little things may not make any sense to other people, but they help me.
How was working with Jake?
I know this is not the first time you shared a project; you both worked together onWildlife.
Or I like to think were very good friends.
Weve hung out; weve gone to see plays.
We laugh a lot.
We have similar interests, similar senses of humor.
I wanted to ask about the head-exploding scene, because its so weird.
It really threw me for a loop.
Was the explosion practical or CGI?
Whats the story behind that?Oh, it was practical.
The studio made two prosthetic torsos of me.
Wait, did they look like you?
Or was it a generic model?Oh my gosh.
Oh, Nick, theyre scary, scary replicas of me.
And we did it in one take!
So theres another one somewhere in a prop warehouse someplace.
Really, its amazing what these people did with a lot of cameras and scanners.
There was no goop or anything like that, which Ive had done before.
They got it down to the finest detail, even with the weird little capillary breaks on my face.
Did you get to be in the room when it exploded?No.
The room was covered in plastic.
The way it came off on the show was brilliant.
Then I went through what I felt would be the stages.
There is a breath or two of everything is static, and thenkaboom.
I have to say, I was even sort of shocked.
I dont know if my mom has seen that episode yet.
She hasnt told me.
You better give her a call after she does.Yeah.
I dont think Ill warn her, though.
Shes seen a lot of things happen to me onstage and on TV and screens of various types.
Its so easy acting with her.
Shes so honest and such a brilliant actor that I just sort of go with it.
Its an absolute joy working with my wife.
In that final montage, Raymond and Lorraine are seen gardening.
Do you garden much in real life?No, we dont.
We dont have a garden.
We lived in Vermont for 13 months during the pandemic, but we did not garden then.
We were faking it.
