As White Collar reaches its final season, Willie Garson shares how the economics of the show fluctuated in its final leg and how it got the entire star cast in tears
What is the most exciting part of the final seasonIJ
What excites me the most is that we got to do it because it was a little in jeopardy to due to economics. It was really important to us to finish up the story as much as we could. So we’re really excited because our fans are so into the show, which we’re very thankful for and we really want to give them some kind of closure.
Do you think that Neal and Mozzie still want the same outcomes as the show comes to an endIJ
I believe they do, I don’t know how much it’s discussed in the episodes. But I believe that the characters are cut from the same cloth in a lot of ways like of we’re con men. What’s great about the show is even when Neal has been deeply involved in an FBI situation, the show never forgets that he is an international con man.
Now knowing that these were the final episodes that you were all making, what was the experience like on the setIJ Was it different than it had been on previous seasons knowing that it was coming to an endIJ
It was sad and horrifying for all of us. It came too quickly. There were a lot of tears. It came too quickly, I mean, none of us were ready. We have been pretty open about that none of us are rewriting history. It just was a situation where art and economics just did not mesh on the same page. And we are ending too early and we’re all aware of that. It all came too soon, we honestly felt we were going to have a full sixth season and a full seventh season and then be done. So we’re about 20 episodes short. We were thankful that they gave us the six and we’re thrilled for people to see them because we worked hard in all the episodes. These were carefully designed to build a quick climax in the final episode.
Jeff Eastin, the creator of the show, said that the most surprise part of the show was your character.
What I liked most about this character was that it was closest to myself, which I never really had a chance to play. I was very free in terms of adding stuff and coming up with ideas that had to change me. I really got the opportunity to entertain myself on this role. That’s all possible because of Jeff. I think it was a surprise because this was going to be a very ancillary character who just kind of helped where Neal would consult with him.
So are you happy with how it endedIJ
I think it’s really a hard thing to end a show that satisfies everyone. I think our show will be pretty successful in delivering a good climax because we were in a hurry and we didn’t have a ridiculously long amount of time to prepare for it. So because of that, you know, much like I tell my son when he’s playing tennis, the longer he waits to take that shot, the worst the shot is going to be. That’s how I feel about ending shows. It came to us quickly and we were not prepared for the show to end so we just went to work and quickly summed it up.
(The show airs on Star World Premiere HD)