Q & A with Sons of Anarchy's Katey Sagal

Sons of Anarchy's Gemma Teller Morrow (Katey Sagal). Photo by James Minchin and copyright of the FX Network.

Back in 1987, Katey Sagal made her debut – and subsequently left an indelible mark in television history – as Peg Bundy, the nagging wife and inattentive mother with big red hair and a passion for shopping as well as male strippers in the long-running Fox sitcom Married…with Children.

The beautiful and talented actress/singer-songwriter followed that up by voicing the character of Turanga Leela, the curvaceous one-eyed captain of the Planet Express delivery ship in the futuristic animated TV comedy Futurama. Warping back to a more terrestrial locale, she then spent three seasons playing wife, mother and high school nurse Cate Hennessey opposite the late John Ritter in ABC’s 8 Simple Rules.

For the past six years, Sagal has portrayed yet another strong female TV character, Gemma Teller Morrow, the matriarch of a close-knot outlaw motorcycle club operating out of the fictional Charming, California in the hit FX Network series Sons of Anarchy. The series was created and is executive produced by her real-life husband Kurt Sutter, who also plays Otto. Season six of SOA premiered on September 10th 2013 and continues to air @ 10:00 p.m. EST/PST on Tuesday nights. Last week, Sagal very kindly took some time out of her very busy schedule to talk with me along with other journalists about her work on the show. The following is an edited version of that Q & A. Enjoy!

Gemma seems to have some pretty complex relationships with a number of the characters on the show, but the ones I’ve always been most intrigued by are her relationships with Tig (Kim Coates) and Unser (Dayton Callie) . What do you think the relationships are like with your character and Tig as well as with Unser?

Katey Sagal: Well, they’re a very close knit group, and are their own family members. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a sexual tension amongst all of them because they are a
very bonded group, and not by blood. I definitely think Tig has eyed her and Gemma has done the same with him. In that culture there is sort of an unspoken “rule” with some of the guys, that when they’re out of town, they do what they want with other women. I think there’s a loose approach to all of that, but out of respect to his best friend, Tig would
never behave like that. I think Gemma feels the same way towards him. She feels really close to all those guys, and I think there may be a blurry line.

As for Gemma and Unser, she grew up with him. To me, I’ve always imagined that he’s like an older brother to her. He also was from Charming, which is where Gemma is from. They’ve known each other since she was a kid. Gemma had a very strained relationship with her parents and wasn’t necessarily close to her own family, so Unser is like family to her. Then he has that unrequited crush on her, which he’s always had.

I find Gemma one of the most fascinating and boundary-busting characters on television, male or female, who’s just filled with surprises, but I would love to hear how she balances or manages her feelings for Nero (Jimmy Smits) and Clay (Ron Perlman) and what you see ahead for her this season.

KS: I think like all the relationships in the show, it’s a lot of duality. I think that Clay crossed some lines with her that she can’t get back from. Gemma is very family oriented, and at the time when he tried to kill Tara (Maggie Siff), it wasn’t even so much the beat down that he laid on her, but the things that he did to other people.

I think she was conflicted about what Jax (Charlie Hunnam) asked her to do, which then ultimately landed him in jail, but she made somewhat of a peace about it, and that that’s what was going to happen. At the same time, Gemma had this new relationship with a very different kind of outlaw. He’s an outlaw, too, but he may not be quite the ruthless, cold-blooded type that Clay is.

One of the things I really like about the show is how real it feels. Every character has to make a lot of tough choices and live with those choices. Thinking of all the tough decisions that Gemma has had to make throughout the course of the show, what action was the hardest to wrap your head around and justify and do on-camera?

KS: Well, at the time, sending Clay to prison last season was a tough choice because she knew it was a setup. There have been so many, though. Gemma kind of comes out of a situation and has to think on her feet right at the moment. So at the time she never thinks that there’s that tough a decision; they’re really what she has to do, if that makes sense. If you think about it, what you see in a season on our show takes place in a week or two. So there are high stakes going on all the time. The characters pretty much react instinctively and there’s not a lot of time to think “Is this a hard thing to do?”

How do you guys plan to celebrate with the finale coming up next year?

KS: This season we all kind of know the end is near. It’s a great vibe on the set this year. There’s something that happens when you realize that everybody really likes your show and the work you’re doing. We think the storytelling on SOA is great and when people respond as well, it makes it even more of an amazing and fulfilling experience. I know from personal experience that that’s really rare and doesn’t happen very often with television shows. Everybody has a sense of that, you now? We’ve all made such close relationships and friendships and done really wonderful work together, so it’s been extremely bonding for us.

So yes, there’s a melancholy that will start to set in. Everybody sort of clings onto every moment because we know that there’s a countdown about to start. It’s kind of bittersweet, but what’s really cool about our show is that there’s one big story in mind. It’s nice to have that and to be at this part of it. “Nice” is a weird word to use, actually, because I’m sure it’s going to be bloody (she jokes).

The first three episodes of this season are incredible, especially for Gemma. We’re seeing so many different layers of her that we haven’t seen before. How much do you relate to Gemma as a woman, maybe not in the situation she’s in, but as a woman? How much of her is Katey, or is none of it like you?

KS: Absolutely there are certain aspects. I’m a real family person. I have three children, and it’s of utmost importance to me how my children are raised. So I’m really involved in that, and that’s a quality Gemma also has. She’s all about her family and keeping this lifestyle of hers together along with keeping this group together. So there’s that similarity. I also think Gemma tends to be vain, as do I in certain ways.

What you’re seeing in Gemma this season is not a softer side but more a Zen-like approach. What’s interesting to play is when people start to have a realization about where their lives are going and what’s been happening. I think a lot of her viewpoint is being influenced by Nero, who is not as ruthless. I think that that shades Gemma and she tends to soften a little bit around him, which I think she likes.

All these characters have been changing. I really love how, for example, Juice (Theo Rossi) is changing, and you really see the difference in the Chibs’ (Tommy Flanagan)character now that he’s a VP. Over the course of the seven years there’s actual life to all the people. They’re not just one way and this is the way they always are every time you tune into the series. In real life, we are never the same day-to-day. Yes, we have certain things and certain codes that we live by, but our responses along with our reactions will change as our circumstances change. I think that holds true with these characters.

Gemma is just such a great character and you play her so beautifully. Echoing what everybody else has said today, she has been through so much. Your character manages to sort of justify acts of vengeance and betrayal as taking care of her family. What do you attribute this to? Is it Gemma being afraid to be alone or a need to control, given that she’s in such a patriarchal society?

KS: Well, I think it’s really this, that you have a group of people that live outside the grid. The whole point of anarchists is that they have their own rules, regulations and responses to their little world that they have created. So if you really think what that must feel like, it’s sort of you against everybody else. It brings an intensity to protecting and honoring that group. With Gemma, it’s her security and survival. This is someone who left home and her family, so she has no roots. Gemma’s back story is that when she was a teenager, she ran away from home, hooked up with this group of motorcycle guys that were coming right out of Vietnam, and that became her new life and roots. So yes, she would fiercely protect that system. Without it, what is she? So again, I think that there is a certain amount of intensity surrounding the protective quality of all that.

In the early ‘70s you were just getting started with acting and got to work with your father (Boris Sagal) on Columbo. With his amount of knowledge as well as experience in the business, what are the most important things that you learned from him and that still have a strong impact on your creative decisions? Also, do you have any memories of working with Peter Falk?

KS: About eight years ago I did a CBS Christmas movie with Peter Falk and it was interesting. He was charming and grumpy all at the same time (she says with a laugh).

My father was a director in the early years of episodic television. He worked really hard and very long hours. My household was not filled with movie or TV stars, and it wasn’t glamorous, either. My father had a passion for what he did and he felt very fortunate that he was able to do it.

So I like to think that I had sort of a grounding experience from him in terms of knowing that this is a hard job just like any other job. I mean, it certainly has its perks, but it requires a certain amount of work ethic that I think I modeled from him. I don’t take it for granted. I grew up in Los Angeles and I have seen people who come here thinking that it is really easy to get into show business. They think it’s just this light, airy job.

To me, the business of what we do is to make people think that it’s easy and entertaining. The service we do is to entertain, so you don’t want that to seem like it’s laborious. This is kind of a long answer to your question, but it’s sort of how I look at what it is I do, which is it’s a hard job. I’m blessed to be able to do it. It’s nice to make it look easy, but it’s not always easy. I think I got a lot of that from my dad. He loved what he did. As hard as the job was, he loved his work, and I feel the same way.

Nero has made it really clear that he’s not so much a fan of guns, but for Gemma
it’s just so engrained in her and so much of her life as part of the club. Up to this point we haven’t really seen that cause any major tension in their relationship. Is that something that will play out at some point this season?

KS: This whole season really gets set up by that school shooting, which involves everybody’s ideas about guns. Clearly, the guns got into the hands of the wrong people. Nero is somewhat connected to that and we will see how he feels about that. It’s a big statement about the misuse and handling of guns from a show that’s about gun runners. I think that everybody’s going to have their opinion and Nero clearly will have his opinion
about that as well. In episode two, which I’m assuming everyone has seen, he has that speech with Jax where says, “We don’t do this. We can’t do this.” So I sort of have a sense that Nero is in a little bit further in than he’s really comfortable with and is really conflicted by that.

When an actor plays a doctor they can go talk to a doctor. When an actor plays a lawyer they can go talk to a lawyer. When an actor plays the president of an outfit or the wife of one, who do you go talk to in order to kind of study and check that authenticity?

KS: That’s a good question. I tried to do research on women in the motorcycle culture when I got the job, but there’s very little written about them. However, there’s really a lot written about the presidents of very famous motorcycle clubs. We actually have TAs on our show and Kurt has had relationships with some of those people since beginning the show, so it was kind of easy to find out that.

I have quite a bit of creative license with Gemma in that she’s the matriarch of a little society. Definitely her wardrobe and her saunter and all of that are easy things to find just from observing women in the culture. Her attitude and “stand by her man” are reminiscent of any high political or regal figure that you could name. She’s the queen bee of that society. I don’t know if that really answers your question, but I guess the answer is that it was very difficult to find actual people to talk to.

When you played Peg Bundy on Married…with Children you were able to have creative input in Peg’s wardrobe and make a statement on the American housewife. What other creative ideas were you able to use with that character and how much creative involvement are you allowed to have on SOA?

KS: Well, it is that sort of thing that happens when you’re on a show for a long time between the writer and actor. They kind of pick up from you and you give them stuff they can use. Certainly with Peg Bundy a lot of it was her physicality, and certainly with Gemma a lot of it is the physicality. To me, they’re both very extreme characters coming from their look. I don’t look that way. I like the whole costume, wardrobe and hair. I think in creating who somebody is, particularly in these two different worlds, with Gemma it is part of who the entire character is.

So with Peg Bundy, that was just the housewife she was, which was that she didn’t want to be a housewife. She wanted to be dolled up. That was my choice about her. I thought, “No, no, no, she doesn’t want to cook and clean. She wants to wear high heels and tight clothes.” That was a choice, and those were contributions that I made.

Katey, did you always want to work in this industry while you were growing up or did you have another profession in mind?

KS: No,no, I really just wanted to be a singer/songwriter. I taught myself music and started writing music when I was around 14 years old. When I was in my late 20s, nothing was happening work-wise and I was like, “Man, I wish I knew how to do something else,” but I couldn’t figure out what else to do. I really had no skills. I was clearly just an artsy kid and that was all I knew how to do. This (acting) was either going to work out or I don’t know what I was going to do. So it was either music or acting; those were my choices. I probably would have figured something out, but I was lucky that things started to happen.

As noted above, photo by James Minchin and copyright of FX, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!