With ‘High Potential,’ Kaitlin Olson Finally Gets to Go Darker

If there’s one thing Kaitlin Olson has perfected since making her television debut as Cheryl’s snarky sister, Becky, on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” 25 years ago, it’s playing wacky, edgy, self-absorbed characters with questionable moral codes. She’s done it for the better part of two decades on FX’s “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” TV’s longest-running live-action sitcom (and still going), where she portrays narcissistic pub waitress Deandra “Sweet Dee” Reynolds. She did it for two seasons on Fox’s “The Mick” as a foul-mouthed smoker unfit to raise her wealthy sister’s kids. More recently, her performance on Max’s “Hacks” as Jean Smart’s entitled daughter, DJ, earned Olson two Emmy nominations. So it was more than a surprise when “High Potential,” ABC’s freshman crime procedural adapted from the French/Belgian series “HPI,” piqued Olson’s interest.

“I was not looking to be on a network crime drama at all,” the 49-year-old actress and producer said of her unplanned move to more serious fare. “What I was doing was looking to do something different than I had [already] done. I wanted to play a character that was darker and had more layers, but was still vulnerable. And I wanted to add comedy to that character as well. People are not just one note.”

To put it more succinctly, Olson didn’t want to stay comfortable in her comedy wheelhouse: “I don’t want to get bored.”

Kaitlin Olson and Javicia Leslie on “High Potential” (Credit: Disney/Mitch Hasseth)

Olson found a goldmine in “High Potential’s” Morgan Gillory, a single mother with three children who makes ends meet as a late-night janitor for the Los Angeles Police Department. She also has a genius IQ (160, if you’re keeping tabs), which she masks with neon-bright acrylic nails, barely-there skirts and faux fur coats.

“She doesn’t want the attention on how smart she is,” Olson said. But her high intellect and extraordinary ability to make outside-the-box connections lands her a consulting gig with the Major Crimes team after she inadvertently steers an investigation in the right direction. It makes her partnership with Detective Adam Karadec (Daniel Sunjata), who’s initially skeptical of Morgan, to be rife with professional and romantic tension. 

“She’s smart, she doesn’t need anyone else and she’s scrappy,” Olson said. “I love that we don’t know exactly how she grew up — clearly there was some trauma there.” There’s another motive behind Morgan’s team-up with the police: to take advantage of their resources to find her ex-husband, Roman, who vanished 15 years earlier. “I haven’t really gotten to play someone who’s loud and brash and doesn’t give a shit about what people think, but goes home at the end of the day and is a loving, wonderful mom who would do anything for her kids.” 

Amirah J, Kaitlin Olson and Matthew Lamb in “High Potential” (ABC)

Audiences have since flocked to Morgan. Olson believes her character’s lack of polish, unfiltered opinions and disinterest in embracing her intelligence makes her uniquely relatable.

“I love in the pilot that [Selena] Soto, [the head of Major Crimes played by Judy Reyes], says, ‘It’s a gift,’ and Morgan absolutely disagrees,” Olson said. “It would be a much different show — and much less interesting — if she loved the fact that she was a genius, flaunted it in people’s faces and weaponized her intelligence. [Her gift has] caused her a lot of pain in her life and it’s important to show the humanness in people. It’s one of the big things we talked about for Season 2.” 

Filming began in Los Angeles for the new season at the end of May. The first season ended with quite a few cliffhangers, many of which left fans buzzing. Chief among them: that Roman is still alive, that Karadec knows where he is and the introduction of a puzzle-obsessed serial killer (played by David Giuntoli) who may be Morgan’s biggest adversary to date.

“We’ve got our work cut out,” Olson said with a smile.

A version of this story first ran in the Drama issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine. Read more from the issue here.

Bella Ramsey photographed by Jessie Craig Roche for TheWrap