Inside “The Residence”: Creator Paul William Davies on Crafting a White House Whodunit

The Residence, produced by Shondaland for Netflix, is the much-anticipated whodunnit that is Shonda Rhimes’ second show set in the White House. The first, of course, was another beloved, Kerry Washington-led Scandal, which dealt in the shadowy world of Washington’s Olivia Pope, the queen of fixers. Now Rhimes and her collaborator Paul William Davies return to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to follow Uzo Aduba’s Cordelia Cupp, a world-famous detective and obsessive birder, a quirky, intense, self-assured genius who is about to take on the case of a lifetime.

The case is a murder that takes place in what’s supposed to be one of the most secure buildings on Earth. What’s more, the murderer is in the White House, too. For Cordelia, this means she’s not only got a crime to solve, but she’s got to solve it amid some of the most influential people in the United States, some of whom have no intention of aiding her investigation. The whole thing feels a bit like the love child of Wes Anderson and The Cohen Brothers.

The Residence features a delightful ensemble cast that includes Giancarlo Esposito, Jason Lee, Randall Park, Ken Marino, Al Franken, and more. It was inspired by former White House correspondent Kate Anderson Brewer’s book The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House. She researched ten administrations and interviewed dozens of butlers, maids, chefs, engineers, and other staff members who made the White House run every day.

Davies is perhaps the perfect person to lead the new series—his previous work includes, crucially, Scandal, where he was a story editor, producer, and writer, and the creator of For the People, another Rhimes collaboration, this one set in the Southern District of New York Federal Court. He’s haunted the halls of power before, and he and his stellar cast and crew are now prepared to deliver a high-stakes whodunit in and around the Oval Office. He used elements from Brower’s book in his storytelling and in developing the fictional characters woven through the show’s 8 episodes.

The Credits spoke to Davies about what it took to bring this multi-tonal murder mystery to the small screen, the singularity of Uzo Aduba’s Cordelia Cupp, and the incredible team he assembled in Los Angeles. 

I know the inspiration for your show is Kate Anderson Brewer’s book. Are any of the characters or stories loosely based on the folks she talks to for the book? 

Nobody is based on any one person. There were definitely inspirations for certain folks. There is a family, I think, the Ficklin family, that has had nine people over the generations who worked in The White House, and some of them even had the same name, John Ficklin. I use that reference for the three George McCutcheons, and that’s one thing that comes from Kate’s book I thought would be fun to use. There’s also a rivalry between the executive pastry chef and the executive chef that harkens back to a tense relationship around the time of the transition from Bush to Clinton. I liked the idea that these two had their domains in the kitchen, and they stopped talking for a while. Also, in terms of little bits of story and the president’s fixation with the shower, LBJ was obsessed with both the water temperature and the water pressure in the shower and was maniacal about it. He had to have it incredibly hot and with intense pressure, like a fire hose. He put one of the engineers who worked in The White House under a lot of pressure to get his shower right, and that’s in Kate’s book. I thought that was amazing, so I used some of that. 

Those are great. In terms of character, how did Cordelia Cupp come together?

Of course, my two biggest inspirations are Sherlock Holmes and [Hercule] Poirot, because I grew up reading them, and David Suchet’s Poirot, to me, is so iconic. I loved his meticulousness, and Cordelia has that, but she’s still very much her own person. I don’t even know if she and Poirot would get along, but I do love the detail and iconic nature of those detectives. The birding thing was very important to me, and I had this notion early on with Cordelia of her using silence a lot. I’ve known people in my life who are like that, and that is both who they are and also a tool, in a way, and that converged with the birding. A big part of a birder’s life is being patient and quiet, waiting for things to come. I also liked the idea that she was somebody who was totally comfortable in what other people would think would be uncomfortable situations. To me, that’s a fascinating part of her. Sometimes, it goes back to the silence, but it’s not just that. I don’t want to sound all mystical about it, but she just kind of wrote herself. I just kind of came up with it long before Uzo came, and yet, of course, Uzo is a genius. There is no Cordelia Cupp without her, and she brought so much to it and is my total creative partner in it. We both really wanted her to be a detective that you remembered well.

You filmed in LA. Did you use all local crew? 

Yeah, it was all LA with an LA-based crew, and they were amazing. François Audouy, our production designer, is someone I had not worked with before, but when I hired him, he was really passionate about doing this in LA with the LA craftspeople. He was really excited about it. We built all the sets and shot at Raleigh Studios in Hollywood. We also shot stuff down in Palos Verdes for some of The White House exteriors and lawns, and there’s a gardening shed we go to. We used part of Palos Verdes Botanical Gardens for when Cordelia goes birding, and we used that for Ecuador, and it turned out great. 

Were there particular companies or collaborators you were particularly impressed with? 

In terms of the LA crew, there were some great folks that our set decorator, Halina Siwolop, drew upon from her vast network. The head of our props team, Trish Gallaher Glenn, who is a legend in the industry, also has a huge network in LA, including the crew that built the set that became Ecuador. We built part of that at Raleigh, like the birding hut, on the lot, and we had this incredible greens team. All are local LA. 

The editing on The Residence is essential to the storytelling and tone. It must have required a lot of nuance. 

I had four editors, and they were extraordinary. Ali Greer, who worked on Barry and Hacks and Portlandia, is an amazing editor. Hacks and Barry are both multi-tonal shows, very funny, and very different than The Residence. Ali is really great with comedy, obviously, but also things that have more than one tone and pace.  She edited the pilot and episode 3. Heather Capps did 2 and 4. We also had Roger Nygard, who’s got a great comedic background and did Curb Your Enthusiasm and Veep, and John Daigle, who did Episode 5. They’re all really good comedic editors but also experts at subtle, textured comic editing. Ali really got us off to a great start. I really think she got who Cordelia was and the pace of it. They worked together. It was really important to me that even though these are individual episodes, it’s like an eight-hour movie cut into segments. It required that the editors all think about the show as part of a collective project and to be able to talk to each other. The level of collaboration was extraordinary. 

All episodes of The Residence are streaming on Netflix on March 20. 

Featured image: The Residence. (L to R) Uzo Aduba as Cordelia Cupp, Giancarlo Esposito as A.B. Wynter, Susan Kelechi Watson as Jasmine Haney, Ken Marino as Harry Hollinger, Isiah Whitlock Jr. as Larry Dokes in episode 101 of The Residence. Cr. Jessica Brooks/Netflix © 2024