“I don’t like it here. Everybody is up to something. Hiding something. Everybody’s got an angle. And everybody is guilty.”
Along with the ominous voiceover, HBO released the new Perry Mason trailer on Thursday and announced it would premiere on June 21. Based on Erle Stanley Gardner’ series of novels, the story has been adapted for films, radio shows and numerous television programs. Among the actors who interpreted the attorney over the years, Raymond Burr is probably the most famous Perry Mason of all. Appearing on the CBS television series from 1957 until 1966, he won two Emmys for his performance and even took the role for several movies, such as The Case of the Lucky Legs (1935).
Nowadays, the show is produced by Emmy winner Matthew Rhys (The Americans) who also stars as the famous criminal defense attorney broken by wartime and his dysfunctional marriage. While a 1931 Los Angeles is struck by the Great Depression, Mason gets on a kidnapping case that will change his career and here starts his origin story. According to the official log-line, Mason’s “relentless pursuit of the truth reveals a fractured city and, just maybe, a pathway to redemption for himself.”
The cast includes John Lithgow (The Crown), Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black), Chris Chalk (Gotham), Shea Whigham (Homecoming), Gayle Rankin (GLOW), Nate Corddry (Mom), Veronica Falcon (Queen of the South), Jefferson Mays (I Am the Night) and Lili Taylor (American Crime). Created by Ron Fitzgerald and Rolin Jones, the show is executive produced by Robert Downey Jr., Susan Downey, Amanda Burrell, Joe Horacek and Timothy Van Patten.
Perry Mason premieres on June 21 at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT on HBO. If you want to catch up with the first adaptation, the five seasons of the original CBS series are available on Amazon.