Rick Hoffman on Louis Litt Return, Movie With Original Cast

[This story contains spoilers from “Angry Sylvester,” season one, episode twelve of Suits LA.]

For all nine seasons of the USA Network legal drama Suits, Rick Hoffman brought equal parts heart, humor and hostility to the role of Louis Litt — the petulant, heart-on-his-sleeve frenemy of hotshot super lawyer Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht). Although he was initially positioned as a frightening foil to Harvey and his brilliant, unlicensed associate Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams), Louis, with his many antics and eccentricities, became an unexpected fan favorite — so much so that series creator Aaron Korsh even toyed with the idea of building a spinoff around the deeply flawed corporate attorney.

While their plans for an offshoot never panned out, Hoffman and Korsh always harbored dreams of revisiting the character one day. Following the unprecedented resurgence of Suits — which became the most watched title ever acquired by a streaming service — a couple years ago on Netflix, Korsh fast-tracked the development of the new West Coast spinoff, Suits LA, and knew he wanted to bring back a couple original characters to help breathe new life into the franchise. (Those attempts were ultimately unsuccessful; NBC announced on Friday that Suits LA won’t be returning for season two, canceling the spinoff after its freshman run of 13 episodes.)

“I was surprised that Aaron called me early on in the first season because, as I’ve always said, with any show, the actors need to find their own chemistry,” Hoffman, who reprised his role on Sunday, the penultimate episode of the season, after Macht did a three-episode arc, tells The Hollywood Reporter. With Suits LA, “you’re dealing with another firm completely, but at some point, I’m sure Aaron had in the back of his head: ‘Which characters would make sense in this new world?’ When I got the call, I was naturally excited and surprised, and thrilled to say yes.”

Korsh created a one-off storyline that fit Louis like a glove. Rather than going head-to-head with the new main cast on a federal court case, Louis comes face-to-face with just one character, Stuart Lane (Josh McDermitt), at a “hostility mitigation program” — which is really just code for an anger management retreat — at Calamigos Guest Ranch and Beach Club in Malibu. After getting into a petty dispute over who had possession over a hotel luggage cart, Louis and Stuart quickly discover during their first group session at the retreat that they share a surprising number of things in common.

For starters, Louis and Stuart both felt belittled by the men who they considered their best friend and main partner at their respective law firms. While Stuart was still licking his wounds after recently falling out with protagonist Ted Black (Stephen Amell), Louis had a history of undercutting his desperate attempts at gaining respect from the people around him, including Harvey.

Louis and Stuart certainly weren’t shy about airing their grievances about their best friend to perfect strangers either. According to Stuart, Ted had punched him in the face, made Stuart’s future wife cry, shaved half of Stuart’s beard while he was sleeping, and called him a flea in front of the collective leadership of their two firms. Not to be outdone, Louis revealed that Harvey once slept with Louis’ attractive sister and threw him into a glass table during a fight (in season five of Suits), peed in his Ficus tree 16 times (offscreen, obviously), and made fun of his “mankini” (season nine).

But after the head of the program points out the trivial nature of their complaints, Louis and Stuart each reveal the real reason why they are at the retreat. Louis admits that he has everything he has ever wanted — he’s running his own firm, and he has a wife and two children (aged 5 and 2) at home — but he is struggling to find any kind of work-life balance. To add insult to injury, another lawyer had made fun of Louis’ family — well, his cat Alice, but she may as well be one of his children at this point — and Louis had punched him in the throat. Stuart, for his part, was feeling particularly shaken after a cold-blooded killer threatened his family during a recent trial.

Shortly after realizing that their best friends shared an existing connection from their days as prosecutors, Louis and Stuart take a special liking to each other. Stuart offers Louis sage advice about not being too hard on himself as both a managing partner and a devoted husband and father. In return, Louis confides in Stuart about how he was once mugged (in the eighth season of Suits), and suggests that Stuart lean on Ted in the same way that Louis leaned on Harvey in the aftermath of a traumatic attack. While going mudding — one of Louis’ favorite activities — late one evening, Louis abruptly asks Stuart to be his second “federale” friend, which Louis says is the kind of friend that would drop everything to bail you out of a Mexican prison. (Harvey is Louis’ other “federale” friend.) Stuart not only accepts Louis’ offer but also finally mends fences with Ted over the phone.

For the entirety of its nine-year run, Suits was filmed in Toronto, which doubled as a more affordable stand-in for New York. While the rest of his castmates would move back to the U.S. at the start of every hiatus, Hoffman decided to stay and eventually became a permanent resident in Canada, where he became a father of two. He is happy to share that he recently became a dual citizen — which has become a particularly coveted honor among his family and friends, given escalating political tensions between the two countries. “Everybody says, ‘Wow, you knew,’” he says with a laugh. “I’m like, ‘Well, I would say that my 10-year-old Canadian son takes a little credit for my stay.’ Especially living up here in a small town, it really takes down half of the stresses and half of all the blood pressure.”

Calling from his home “in the sticks” near Lake Huron, Hoffman opens up to THR about the experience of revisiting the “craziest” character he has ever played, his all-time favorite inappropriate “Louis-ism” — and how he feels about the prospect of a potential Suits movie with the original cast. [Note: This interview took place before the cancelation news.]

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Suits was a global hit during its initial run, but the show came back into the cultural zeitgeist in a way no one could have anticipated during the Hollywood strikes in 2023. Once it became clear that this universe would be expanding, how did creator Aaron Korsh pitch this one-off guest appearance to you? Had you guys discussed the possibility of revisiting this character in the present day prior to the development of Suits LA?

Even while we were finishing up on Suits back in 2019, there was always talk from Aaron and myself about [working together again]. We had different ideas throughout the pandemic, and it wasn’t necessarily just Suits or Louis the character, but just things in general. It’s hard to say goodbye to a character like that. It was a life-changing experience for me as an actor doing that character, and Suits, of course, was Aaron’s baby. So, naturally, one would want to say, “Oh, what if?” But nothing was ever going to come to fruition. And then the strike happened, and I was the last to know of the whole resurgence. It’s not that I’m antisocial, but I’m not outwardly looking to see, like, “Oh, I wonder if people are watching Suits five years after it finished.” And then out of nowhere, I was getting phone calls from high school friends I hadn’t heard from in years. And then the conversations that I had with Aaron on a regular basis stopped, but I didn’t know why.

And then I see in the trades, out of nowhere, [an announcement about] Suits LA. Everything came together in one fell swoop. It was like this alternate universe, and I was thrilled. I was just like, “You gotta be kidding me!” I didn’t know, ultimately, what that would present in the future, but I was surprised that Aaron called me early on in the first season because, as I’ve always said, with any show, the actors need to find their own chemistry — their own lightning in a bottle, if one is so lucky. Obviously, you’re dealing with another firm completely, but at some point, I’m sure Aaron had in the back of his head: “Which characters would make sense in this new world?” When I got the call, I was naturally excited and surprised, and thrilled to say yes. We have always discussed working together to some degree of something “Louis-y.” We just didn’t know ultimately how, so this was a great excuse.

What did you make of the experience of revisiting Louis in the present day and having him connect with Stuart in this unexpected capacity?

Well, that’s why I was excited because it fit like a glove: Louis, anger management. It’s like chocolate and peanut butter — it just makes perfect sense; it does not feel inorganic. So many fun ideas can come from that world of anger management with that character. When Louis volunteers at that moment where they’re sharing what’s going on [in their lives] at anger management, he pretty much tells you that he’s got the best wife, he’s got two children, he’s running his own firm. I didn’t expect the two children — that was cool, but not meaning that that was new news [to me]. I had always known, based on my discussions with Aaron of how we’d seen him, that he’s still in love with Sheila [played by Rachael Harris] and running the firm.

How they were able to fit this new relationship that has now formed in one episode, I thought, was just really well done. I liked how they were able to do it in such a small amount of time; they were able to deal with some actual, real, existential moments, as well as ridiculous buffoonery. I found it to be a really well-balanced episode, and I could not have been happier especially working with Josh, who was incredibly warm and welcoming. He’s one of those actors that was self-aware and kind. It was a wonderful two days of work with Josh.

Louis is the kind of polarizing character who people either really loved or loved to hate. You’ve often described him as the “walking heart” of Suits, because he underwent the most dramatic arc over those nine seasons. How did you work with the writers to craft him into the kind of bruised, beating heart of the show? What stands out to you from his journey?

It’s such a good question, and I don’t know how to answer it succinctly, but so many things stand out to me that I’m proud of. Ultimately, he was like this piece of clay that they molded for nine years: “Let’s have it shaped this way. And now let’s curate it back.” For an actor to play a role like that, it’s a dream because you get to do everything, really. You wish that everybody can evolve like that in real life. This was a guy who was almost like an Iago character from Othello and ultimately became … Barney. (Laughs) So that’s the range of the character!

Whatever the end result was was really a discovery between myself and the writers together of what you can build off of him. So they put something out there, I do my best job, they’re happy, and then they want to try this and I’ll do that. It just seemed like each thing we tried, whatever was given — and this is with everybody on that show — everybody really smacked it out of the park. That’s what I think made the show [so successful] between the six main actors and then all the guest actors. We were so lucky to have the best actors work on that show. What happened with my character was he became this rainbow of emotions all over the pendulum — that was the writers taking chances; it was me taking chances. But the other actors were given similar tasks, and they hit it out of the park. It’s hard to find a show like that, and we got so lucky.

Do you have a particular theory why people have such a polarizing reaction to Louis? Why do you think he has stood the test of time?

You’re never in the middle with Louis. He’s just not that kind of personality. I think Louis represents the insecurities in all of us. Even the worst parts of Louis are in everyone — I’m not saying that people act on it, but those insecurities are in every human being, so that could really trigger a [strong] reaction. When it comes to reflecting and understanding [human behaviour] or something’s familiar [to an audience], either you love him or you hate him, but you are never like, “Meh.”

Louis has a lot of quirks, some of which were intentionally brought up in his interactions with Stuart. There’s, of course, his love for mudding and “prunies” (or prune smoothies) and his catchphrase “You just got Litt up!” — but there’s also his propensity to shout wildly inappropriate sexual innuendos without realizing it when he gets overly emotional.

It’s because he sees red, and when somebody sees red, then nobody cares what’s coming out of their own mouth. It just seems like with Louis’ bad luck — and this goes back to season three, where he says he eats cock for breakfast, lunch and dinner. (Laughs) That’s ultimately where that started. That was perfect for anger management [in this episode] because nobody knows what they’re saying when they’ve gone from zero to 60; nobody really has any control. It just so happens Louis has this knack for all these sexual innuendos that he has no idea what he’s talking about. (Laughs) I love it so much.

Do you have a favorite, wildly appropriate sexual innuendo that Louis said on the original Suits?

There was one in particular. We were way, way deep into the seasons. And every time I think it’s too much and it’s not going to work, and I try to ground it, it ends up working — like the one where I tell Harvey that I’m going to ride him bareback. (Laughs) You can talk about wood with [Sarah Rafferty’s] Donna, and I was like, “That’s a little too much.” But then we go to bareback, and I’m like, “Holy shit!” It is so much fun to shoot because you’re constantly worrying about breaking. Whenever I read any of them — like Angry Sylvester [which is what Louis calls his own penis in this episode] — I’m like, “This is never going to work.” And then I think the more anxiety I get, the more adrenaline I have to try to ground it as much as possible so it could be remotely believable coming out of his mouth. (Laughs)

I’ve spoken with both Gabriel and Patrick in recent months, and I wanted to pose this question to you as well. Your characters on Suits have become cultural icons, joining other powerful male antiheroes like Tony Soprano, Walter White and Don Draper. Jon Hamm told THR last year that those kinds of male characters are often celebrated for the wrong reasons; a certain demographic seems to think of them as “a paragon of masculinity.” How did you approach the depiction of masculinity with Louis on Suits?

There was nothing that I consciously was aware of. I just looked at him as the little guy, and I looked at him as an incredibly insecure beta male who wanted to be alpha. As far as me approaching it, it was just making sure I was always in tune to where he stood and why he was saying the things he was saying. So, of course, I would use whatever came from me. But I never looked at it in terms of, “Is he masculine enough or not enough?” Because I always felt Louis was comfortable in his own skin, surprisingly.

Aaron clearly wanted to create a link between Louis and Stuart like the one he had tried to establish between Harvey and Ted early on in the season. How would you feel about getting the original band together for some kind of TV movie in the vein of other USA Network hits like Monk or Psych?

I mean, if you’re asking me, that’s like asking my mother. She would say [imitates Long Island Jewish mother accent], “Oh my God! I want to see him do his own spinoff!” I would be more than happy to do more of this character. At this point, you would think that ship has sailed. I’m not in those positions up there in the studios and networks. But for me, it’s all about fun. If you have a fun character, why wouldn’t you want to see more of them? I get him not fitting into the world of Suits LA, but you’re preaching to the choir here. Do I want it? Would I do more? Absolutely. How could I say no to a role that changed my life?

There has been talk, I should say, of a Suits movie. There’s been talk of that stuff from Aaron. I don’t know if that’s something that’s still on the table. It’s just stuff I don’t want to talk about [right now], but there is something very much at play with Louis and his firm, I think, in Aaron’s head. That is something that I have been told, but it has been a while, so who knows? I just hope that Suits LA has life and [NBC will] let them continue, and maybe you can ultimately throw in some more Suits characters. But I’m just of the belief that you never believe the best thing said about you and you never believe the worst thing said about you, because if I believe those, they’d be like, “Oh my God, Louis is coming back!” You listen to the fans, and that’s all they want. But it’s now been six years since [the original Suits] finished, so I would be teasing myself if I said he’s coming back.

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Suits LA airs Sundays at 9/8c on NBC, and episodes stream the next day on Peacock. All episodes of Suits are now streaming on NBC and Peacock. Read THR’s summary of what to remember from Suits while watching Suits LA.