We at Raked recently had the chance to listen in on a conference call with In Plain Sight stars Mary McCormack and Fred Weller. Mary and Fred talked about the new showrunners for season 4, gave some insight into their characters, and generally had a great time bantering back and forth. What’s more, Mary spills about her pregnancy!

We’ve reproduced some of their best responses below.

Episode one of Season 4 airs on Sunday, May 1 at 10:00 pm. In the meantime, don’t forget to enter our giveaway!

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On what Mary enjoys most about playing her character:

Mary McCormack: What do I enjoy most? I think – I don’t know, I just love the character. I mean, David Maples, who created the show, just wrote a really great part. I mean Fred’s part is great too, and so is Paul Ben-Victor’s. I mean he just really wrote some three-dimensional characters. I mean I love them.

I love that Mary Shannon’s really good at her job and not so good at her personal life. I like that she’s cynical and sarcastic. It’s fun – it’s just fun to play someone so grouchy. It’s sort of refreshing. I can be a little bit grouchy myself so it’s a comfortable fit.

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On how Mary’s real-life pregnancy will be worked into the story

Mary McCormack: Well, we’re writing it in. I mean we’re writing it in and I’m playing pregnant. I mean I had a – I did what I had to do to get pregnant first. And then – and now we’re dealing with it.

I mean Mary Shannon’s not a, you know, you don’t think of her as necessarily maternal so it’s making for some interesting story stuff and character stuff, which I think is really fun to play. And also I think it’s – I mean to me I think it’s really interesting to see someone play pregnant who is pregnant. And because it’s, you know, it’s not altogether as pretty as when someone, you know, all chiseled up does it.

So it’s, I think refreshing, at least as a woman I find it refreshing to sort of see someone who’s dealing with – you know, someone who’s passionate about their career and then having to try to make – come to terms with, you know this new area in her life, which women I think deal with – you know, all women deal with, so.

[Read more after the jump!]

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On the dynamic between Fred and Mary

 Fred Weller:  Well,Marshall’s feelings are now inevitably more submerged — his feelings for Mary. They’re more submerged, like underground lava or tunneling Viet Kong. They are more dangerous.

Mary McCormack: Oh my God, I want to throw up.

Fred Weller:  They’re more dangerous there. I mean, I didn’t have anything prepared, but that’s what I would say.

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On Mary Shannon’s emotions throughout the season

Mary McCormack: Well I think she’s sort of confused. I mean I think she keeps expecting – like in the first episode you see her expecting her sister to fall right into old patterns and it turns out she really hasn’t.

So you know, that sort of starts the – it sort of kicks off the theme of, you know what – she just doesn’t – it’s one of those things, I think you know, if your whole life is spent taking care of other people, and then those other people randomly either get sober or learn how to take care of themselves, you know you sort of – I think her identity’s in question.

I mean a big part of her is sort of walking around feeling sort of smug and proud of herself for being the only adult in the room and now she’s not the only adult in the room. So I think it’s – I don’t know, I think it’s interesting. I mean for her it’s a bit of a – you know, a – it’s a big shift.

And now on top of it she’s becoming the one thing she never wanted to be, which is a mother. So we’ll see. I don’t know what they have in store. I don’t know how it’s going to – I don’t know if she – I don’t know. I mean I’m sort of only halfway through the season. And these poor writers, I only told them I was pregnant a few episodes in, so they’re scrambling. But it should be exciting.

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On returning characters and appearances by West Wing alum

Mary McCormack: That is a really good question and we have new show runners this year, so it’s a bit confusing. And I don’t hear – I haven’t heard any mention of the brother coming back this season. Although everyone was a big fan of that actor’s work, he was – I mean, I thought he was sensational.

So – and we do mention him this season. I don’t know if he’s plan – I don’t know if there’s a plan to have him back later in the season. I’m not 100%. But hopefully we’ll have him back eventually if not this season, next season, because he was sensational.

Allison Janney I know is busy unfortunately on another TV show right now. But you know, I will always – she’s one of my best girlfriends in the world, so I will call her once a week to harass her. See what we can do, and then…

Fred Weller:  We do have some other West Wing alum.

Mary McCormack: Yes.

Fred Weller: Well, at least one.

Mary McCormack: This year we have Bradley Whitford shows up this year. And we might have Richard Schiff back, I don’t know because we still have…

Fred Weller:  That would be great.

Mary McCormack: …a lot of season to write. But you know Richard Schiff was in an earlier one in season – I think he was Season – golly I don’t know, 1 or 2, or 2 or 3. Anyway, but Bradley Whitford does Episode 2 this season. So it was wonderful to get him down.

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On what it’s like to have Bradley Whitford on set

Mary McCormack: It was great having him on the set. I mean he’s a complete clown. And you know, I’ll just tell this really quick anecdote about Brad.

You know, Bradley – I don’t know – a lot of people know this already, but Bradley and Josh Malina have a really long history of sort of pulling pranks on each other and teasing each other.

And when we were doing the West Wing, Brad Whitford wrote a script for the West Wing, and he made Josh Malina’s character, Will Bailey, say maybe five different times during the script, “I’m a terrible actor, I can’t act.”

And so in this episode that Brad Whitford came down to shoot, Josh called me and said, “Please, please talk to the writers and have them write a scene where Bradley says he can’t act and he’s a terrible actor, whatever.

So we did it, and unfortunately it’s not in the episode – we ended up not shooting the scene. We were late one night and we didn’t really need the scene. Like it was kind of shoe-horned in there.

And it was a great little monologue, but we had him say – I mean he was like, “I can’t act. I’m a terrible actor. I’m the worst actor on the planet, don’t make me lie.”

Like it was wonderful. And I was so proud of myself. And I would have scored big points with Molina forever. But in the end we didn’t shoot it and Bradley won the day, so he was thrilled.

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How the show is different with new showrunners 

Mary McCormack: You know it’s always – it’s interesting because obviously the characters stay the same, and that’s what they’re job is.

And all of them, I mean from John Macnamara and now Decter and Strauss — Ed Decter and John Strauss — are our new show runners. And luckily they’ve all sort of been fans of the show.

And so they didn’t’ come in sort of saying, “well we think this or we, you know, we want to make big changes.” They’ve all sort of been really respectful and sweet, and just kind of fans. And so wanting to continue the show down the path that, you know, that it was on.

Which is a relief; I mean for Fred and me it’s a relief because we love the show that David created and the tone, which is really special and you know, a little bit hard to write. And so we’ve been lucky. I mean I think Macnamara did an excellent job. And then John and Ed are doing a really good job too.

Every show runner comes in with some changes, I mean they hire new writers and they, you know, I think this year we have a new theme – opening theme music might change. And you know there’s always a few changes.

But tonally the show, hopefully is the same. And there’s a few new characters in the office. And you know, I mean Macnamara introduced some and – who won’t be there.

And I think we’re going to have – there’s some new people this year that the new show runners came in with some ideas about characters they wanted to introduce. But it’s all along the same lines, which is good.

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On the show’s new timeslot

Fred Weller: Well it’s sort of like…

Mary McCormack: Go ahead Fred. Go ahead.

Fred Weller:  Sort of an – go ahead? This is sort of a new/old time. It’s – I think we should refer to it as…

Mary McCormack: It’s our original time.

Fred Weller: It’s a retro time at this point.

Mary McCormack: Yes, we were on Sunday nights at10:00originally and it was a great slot for us. And then it went to Wednesday nights at 10:00, which was also, we did pretty well on a much busier night. So we were proud of how we did there.

But I think Sunday night works great. I mean we were always happy there so. It’s a little out of our – I mean programming is a little out of – at least my area of expertise. But I know we did great on Sunday nights at10:00. So I’m happy to be there.

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On what Fred has discovered about his character

Fred Weller:  Well gosh, I once gave a really long-winded answer to this and I’ve been trying to keep it short. I think that he’s a romantic. And I think that he looks at himself and Mary kind of like that famous (IsaiahBerlin) essay about Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, about the two – the humanities divided into the foxes and the hedgehogs. And I think he thinks of himself as a hedgehog and Mary as a fox.

Mary McCormack: Oh dear.

(Troy):  All right.

Fred Weller:  To elaborate that, hedgehogs define every – define all of existence by one controlling idea and the foxes see existence as a vast variety of (unintelligible).

Mary McCormack: Is this the short version?

Fred Weller:  And for Marshall to control the idea is love. And Mary has no controlling…

Mary McCormack: Oh lord.

Fred Weller: …has no one controlling idea. Well look, I mean I don’t know. I tried to keep it short by ending it with just the fox and the hedgehog thing. But then it…

Mary McCormack: Oh God.

Fred Weller:  …seemed like there needed more.

Mary McCormack: Oh lord.

Fred Weller:  Sorry.

Mary McCormack: Aren’t you glad you asked?

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Season 4 of In Plain Sight premieres on Sunday, May 1 at 10:00 pm on USA.