Although Suits had a successful run on the USA Network from 2011 to 2019, the fact of the matter is a lot of people didn’t learn about the show until it became available to watch in 2023 with a Netflix subscription. The legal drama ended up becoming a massive streaming success, leading many of its actors being asked about their thoughts on Suits’ surge in popularity. Now we can add Eric Roberts to that list, who also talked in an interview about why the series was so difficult to work on.
The actor whose extensive resume includes Runaway Train, The Dark Knight, Heroes and The Righteous Gemstones, to name just a few, appeared in nine episodes of Suits as Charles Forstman, a multi-billionaire investor who chiefly served as a Season 4 antagonist to Gabriel Macht’s Harvey Specter, Patrick J. Adams’ Mike Ross and the law firm’s other main characters. While chatting with ComingSoon, Roberts noted how he’s never been involved in a project that’s had “that kind of delayed reaction” in becoming a hit of that scale, to the point that “12-year-old girls were saying hi” to him because they loved him in Suits. He then said:
That show is so much fun. I gotta tell you, that group was so on it, but it was the hardest job I ever had. Because we speak in monologues all the time, speeches, and they hand you rewrites every five minutes. It’s a very hard show to keep up with. But it’s a fantastic group, every one of ’em, especially [actor Gabe Macht]. I love him.
Suits was definitely dialogue-heavy, though that’s to be expected in a show about lawyers, their clients and the white collar people, like Charles Forstman, who make their lives complicated. But even by those standards, Eric Roberts admitted that his time on Suits was difficult because of the lengthy monologues and how often lines were being changed. Still, it’s clear he enjoyed his time on Suits from 2014 to 2019, and has been especially impressed with how it’s taken off in just the last year.
While Suits was unquestionably one of USA’s staple pieces of programming back in the day, its popularity back then pales in comparison to what it’s achieved on streaming. It crushed on Netflix’s Top 10 list for a long time, and Sarah Rafferty revealed that she and her fellow series regulars were left “gobsmacked” in their group chat upon learning the show had streamed for billions of minutes on the platform. Suits’ resurgence even led to NBC greenlighting a spinoff called Suits: L.A.. It hasn’t been announced yet if this new show will debut on the 2024 TV schedule or sometime in 2025, but the first look at Ted Black, the main protagonist played by Stephen Amell, dropped earlier this week.
Remember that in addition to being available on Netflix, Suits can also be streamed with a Peacock subscription. There are also plenty of shows like Suits that are worth watching if you’re in the mood for something different.
