Throughout Season 4 of “Reacher,” Elspeth Sampson’s actress, Kathleen Robertson, might seem familiar to you due to her past roles on “Beverly Hills, 90210” or “The Expanse.” But you might also recognize the actress from her major role on the Starz drama “Boss.”
“Boss” was a 2011 political drama series in which Robertson played Kitty O’Neill, the personal aide to the corrupt mayor of Chicago. The mayor, meanwhile, was played by “Cheers” and “Frasier” alum Kelsey Grammer. Talking to the Hollywood Reporter in 2012, Robertson recalled a scene she shared with Grammer that was so intense it made her cry: “There’s a scene where [Mayor] Kane eviscerates Kitty and says, ‘Do you think you have worth? Because if you think you have worth, you don’t. You’re nothing.’ … It was a scene that was hard for me because Kelsey was so intense, I couldn’t stop crying.”
Robertson told Bullz-Eye that Kitty was “a political animal, and that’s the only way she feels alive.” Between Kitty in “Boss” and Elspeth in “Reacher,” it seems that Robertson has carved out a niche for herself in savvy political strategist roles. Sampson, however, is clearly the more competent of these characters. Kitty spends much of her show wrapped up in a sex scandal, whereas Sampson appears to have no time or desire for any such distraction.
Boss was critically acclaimed but canceled after two seasons
Kathleen Robertson explained to Bullz-Eye that she viewed Kitty’s arc in “Boss” as a story of someone embracing who they truly are, warts and all: “By the end of [Season 2], she kind of comes around to the realization of, like, ‘I’m probably not going to change. And that’s okay.’ And … I kind of love that about her.”
Although Kitty ended Season 1 of “Boss” feeling “decimated,” Robertson remarked that the Season 2 finale was a gamechanger for the character: “[The writers] spent all year telling me, ‘Wait for [Episode] 10.’ And when they sent me 10 and I read it and came to the set, our showrunner looked at me and was like, ‘Yeah…?’ And I gave her the thumbs-up and said, ‘Yeah.'”
The finale ended on a cliffhanger note, but the show never followed up on it. Starz canceled “Boss” in November 2012, leaving Kitty’s arc somewhat incomplete. Robertson recalled in 2015 to Smashing Interviews how disappointed and shocked she was by the news, especially given how critically acclaimed the series had been. “Kelsey won the Golden Globe, and the show was nominated for a Globe, so we were expecting for it to go on for a while,” she said.