Suits' Original Harvey Specter Was Different From Gabriel Macht's Version In One Way
Although "Suits" went off the air in 2019, the legal drama experienced an incredible resurgence last summer when it hit Netflix. There are plenty of reasons to speculate why "Suits" blew up when it did. Its fast pacing and simple construction are ideal antidotes for summer doldrums, and some fans were likely interested in seeing a pre-royal Meghan Markle. It's also easy to assume that Harvey Specter had something to do with it.
Played by Gabriel Macht, Harvey is the go-to fixer on "Suits," even before his name went up on the wall. Harvey is smooth-talking, endlessly charismatic, and a preeminent legal mind. According to "Suits" creator Aaron Korsh, he was almost very different. In an appearance on the "Hollywood & Levine" podcast, Korsh revealed that the network initially wanted Harvey to be much older.
"Originally the network envisioned the Harvey-Mike thing, I think, as like a father-son [dynamic]," Korsch said around the 15:10 mark. "Then I envisioned it as brothers. Right. So we had a disconnect, and they were wanting older guys to be Harvey." Indeed, the relationship between Harvey and Mike (Patrick J. Adams) is central to the series, even if their bromance skirts too close to fraud. For Korsh, making Harvey younger also meant the character could be more believably fallible.
Harvey was almost much older
On the "Hollywood & Levine" podcast, Aaron Korsh admitted that he was no fan of the father and son dynamic that the network was pushing. Moreover, he wasn't interested in writing a 50-something lothario. As Korsh said, "If this guy is 50 years old and still hitting on women... That's not great, right?"
Making Harvey be in his 30s, he said, allowed the character to have some room for growth, whereas a father figure might be more set in his ways. "[If] you're in your mid-late 30s, you're a little stunted. You have growing to do," Korsh went on. "But you're not, like, 50 years old living that single, you know, womanizing life."
Flipping the script on Harvey wasn't the only early change to "Suits." Korsh also explained that when he first envisioned the series, it was intended to be a 30-minute comedy in the style of "Entourage." Instead of lawyers, the characters were initially investment bankers on Wall Street. Their jobs changed at the behest of a USA Network executive, who insisted that the show be told as a case-of-the-week drama. "I thought the only way to do that was to make them lawyers," Korsh said.
Kosh is once again embracing the lawyer formula for his next series, a "Suits" spin-off set in Los Angeles. The show is set to follow a 30-something entertainment lawyer named Erica. Korsh has stayed relatively mum on the topic, but as far as we know, he's still dodging a father-son dynamic.