2 days Ago By Erik Pedersen
High Potential ended its Season 1 run in February as ABC ’s most watched new series in 6 years. A second season is on the way, and it will include “a little bit more” episodes than the 13 the first was comprised of, series star and producer Kaitlin Olson said during the ABC series’ panel at the Deadline Contenders Television event alongside creator/executive producer Drew Goddard and EP/showrunner Todd Harthan . Goddard recalled getting the renewal call from the network in January on the day he got back to his house in Encino having had to evacuate like so many others impacted by the L.
A. fires. Related Stories Deadline Studio At Contenders Television 2025: Jack Quaid, Aldis Hodge, Erin Moriarty, Benito Skinner, Brian Tyree Henry & More Deadline Contenders Television 2025 Arrivals Gallery: Ellen Pompeo, Bella Ramsey, Melanie Lynskey, Christina Ricci, Paul Feig & More “I called Todd and I said, ‘I’m so grateful right now that we get to be putting people back to work’,” he said, referring to the fact that High Potential is a rare hourlong series filming in Los Angeles amid an industry-wide effort to keep production from leaving the city.
Watch on Deadline “I thought to myself, this is such a gift and a privilege to get to put people back to work,” Goddard continued. “We take it very seriously, and we want to show the studios that it’s cost-effective, but that we can do beautiful work. So every single day we are fighting to get jobs in Los Angeles.
” Olson added her own distinctive quirks and unique nuances to her role as Morgan Gillory, the intellectually gifted but stability-cursed single mom who puts her heightened brainpower to work as a police consultant, but she believes there are many similarly brilliant-but-challenged people operating in the real world. “I think there are people walking around this world who have very, very high IQs and are neurodivergent in some way and don’t particularly find it a gift,” Olson said. “I know there are many people like that in my life who are just really, really smart, and there’s a lot that comes along with that that can be troubling,” Olson explained, though she didn’t tap any specific individual for direct consultation.
“Did I seek one person out? No, but I know a lot of people like that.” “I just fell in love with this character,” Olson said of venturing from her signature comedic turns on series like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Hack s into a more dramatic, procedural vein, albeit with Morgan’s amusing foibles. “I love the idea of playing something different.
This woman is a very good mom and a really good person deep down, and my other characters not so much, and I just wanted to do something different.” Olson noted that tonally, High Potential offers something very distinct and often difficult to articulate, “so it’s important to me to sort of get in there and feel it out.” Generally, the characters around Morgan aren’t there to provide comedy, other than in response to her.
“But Morgan comes in and she’s just her own person who doesn’t really care what other people think about her, and so there’s just some natural comedy that comes into her interactions with people. So I think I’m bringing a bunch of that stuff.” Among the external flourishes she added were Morgan’s colorful, ever-changing fingernail and eyeliner shades.
Closer to home, she invested the role with some of her own experience as a working mother. “I love my kids and I’m gone a lot and I want to make the most of the time when I’m with them,” she said. “You can’t help but bring some of that in.
Just loving your kids more than anything else and making sure, just wanting them to be okay, respecting the fact that they’re two very different people and they need to be parented differently. That’s why I deal with that in my house too.” Harthan, who joined the series after the pilot was shot, recalled watching Olson rising to tackle a big dramatic moment during a scene while a bevy of studio and network executives watched, nervously from video village, wondering if the show had hit potential.
“It was a scene where Kaitlin was coming in and really unloading on the cops because they were moving a mother from basically one side of the crime board to the suspect side. She lost it and she hadn’t slept in a couple days,” said Harthan. “I remember watching what she did over and over and over again, and that’s the moment where I realized there’s nothing we can’t throw at her, nothing she can’t do.
” “I went, ‘I think we’re going to be doing this for a while,’” the showrunner added. “I like when people doubt me: it puts a chip on my shoulder,” said Olson. “I knew they were back there.
” The High Potential writers are currently mapping out the new season. Morgan’s romance with her detective partner Daniel Karadec, played by Daniel Sunjata, may not blossom as quickly as some fans would have liked; “I’ve been known for a slow burn” Harthan said. But he promised “progression” on that and the mystery of Morgan’s missing husband Roman.
“The Morgan-Karadec of it all and the Roman of it all are two massive serialized threads that run through this show,” he said. “So I guarantee you this: there will be lots of satisfying answers, progression on both of those fronts this season, for sure.” Check back Monday for the panel video.
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