‘How To Get Away With Murder’: Aja Naomi King Talks Twists, Hopes For Season 2

Aja Naomi King from ‘How To Get Away With Murder’ (ABC)

“How to Get Away with Murder” premiered with a bang, and went out delivering even more shocks and surprises in last week’s Season 1 finale.

The final episode of the show’s freshman season provided even more twists than usual, including a new version of the murder of Lila Stanguard (Frank did it, it seems), a brand new murder (Rebecca is dead!), and a few uncovered secrets (Laurel had Michaela’s engagement ring the whole time!).

There were freak outs by Annalise Keating’s (Viola Davis) students (when Rebecca threatened to turn on them), drama for poor Nate (who was beaten up in jail under Annalise’s command), and also moments of triumph (like when Michaela stood up for who she is to her no-longer-mother-in-law).

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Aja Naomi King, who plays Michaela, spoke to Access Hollywood about the big twists, what her hopes are for Season 2, and keeping those big plot secrets all season long.

AccessHollywood.com: What was the hardest secret to keep this season – the one that caused you the most agony to not be able to tell anybody?
Aja Naomi King: Honestly, the hardest one has been the fact that Rebecca’s character dies at the end of the finale. That was the hardest thing to not say anything about because every interview I’ve had up until now has been asking, ‘So will we see more murder?’ and in my brain I’m thinking, ‘Yes!’ (laughs). I was like, ‘Don’t say anything and you don’t want your face to give anything away,’ so you’re just like, ‘I don’t know. We shall see.’ But yeah, that was so hard to keep to myself.

Access: What was your favorite fan response [from when the finale aired]? Did you have a couple that kind of stuck with you when you were Tweeting?
Aja: Well, a lot of people were really in love with my scene with Lynn Whitfield [Mary Walker on the show] when I said, ‘I love me, so I’m done.’ And so I was getting a lot of Twitter feedback on that whole conversation and people just posting, ‘I love me.’ And I remember during the read-through loving that line and loving how it felt to say that. … So that was really great that people enjoyed it as much as I did.

Access: Were you proud of Michaela for finally acting like that and being that person and embracing who she really is, in that moment.
Aja: Oh, so proud. It was such a revelation for her to like just let go of that facade, like just getting to drop that altogether, it was so nice. And we didn’t want to be overly dramatic with it. We wanted it to be simple and subtle and just kind of releasing herself from that bond, from that family, from that pressure, from feeling like, ‘I need to be this other thing,’ and with so much going on with the murder and still being in school and trying to protect herself, finally being able to shed that side and to just really step into her own was a really beautiful moment for my character and I’m just so happy that that happened and I can’t wait to see how that will now bleed into the rest of her life.

Access: Before the last episode, did you think the, ‘Who killed Lila?’ murder mystery had been solved? For you, were you comfortable believing that Sam did it?
Aja: I had always kind of suspected that we were gonna be in the wrong about Sam and I was waiting for the other shoe to drop on that because I totally thought it was going to turn into this situation where the weight of this murder – the nugget of it that would finally kind of destroy Wes — would be Sam being innocent. And now, with this final episode, I’m so curious. I love the way they cut everything together, but I still believe everything is not as it seems in Shondaland, so I don’t who Sam was talking to on the phone. I know it looks like he’s talking to Frank because it’s the next thing we see – Frank killing Lila, but you just never know, so part of me is still like, ‘Is he guilty? Is he innocent? I don’t know.’

Access: Because you saw the blond hair on the water tank that a lot of people are talking about?
Aja: (Laughs) I did see that. I didn’t know that that would be something that people would immediately grasp on to, but I love it.

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Access: Michaela’s lost engagement ring was your idea originally. What did you think of the twist that Laurel had been hiding it?
Aja: Oh my God, that really got me. That really got me ’cause then Karla [Souza, who plays Laurel] and I were thinking back to all the times I had mentioned the ring, all the conversations about it when there was the reveal that there was a ring found in the woods — like the idea that her character knew while I was having my hyperventilating breakdown in Wes’ apartment. So that was really intense and that’s actually been the most fun part – all these revelations, now looking back through the episodes thinking, ‘So if this character had done this, all this time this was happening and they knew and what does that say about that character?’ So that’s just gonna be another strain on my relationship with Laurel of course, because who does that! Who takes your engagement ring when you’re freaking out about it?

Access: She’s cold as ice!
Aja: She is. There was even that whole scene in the kitchen before I go to meet with my potential mother in law where I say to her, ‘She wants the ring back and not this fake.’ That would have been a great moment for her character to say, ‘Oh hey, if you’re gonna give it back to her, here it is.’

Access: Going forward, are you expecting Michaela to be very different in the second season? Is that what you’re kind of hoping for?
Aja: I am. I am expecting to see this whole other side of her without her feeling the need to keep up the same kind of pretense that she’s been holding on to so tightly. Appearances have been so important to her and now that she’ll be able to release that, I mean, of course she still needs to protect herself and at any moment it’s always gonna feel like new information could come out linking them to Sam’s murder, especially now with [the] DA talking with Matt’s [McGorry] character, Asher, like the danger is still there and Rebecca disappearing still being there, I’m very excited to see her releasing all of the pretense and see where they take her character.

Access: You guys had a lot of intense stuff to deal with on this show. When you do have those moments at craft services [in between shoots], is there any fun banter that goes on to decompress?
Aja: There’s a lot of singing that happens. Someone will start humming something very randomly and it will just take over and we will all join in and there might even be some dancing. It’s really nice, like we’re all so relaxed and comfortable around each other. We are good at just being able to like let go and have fun. Around ‘crafty’ there is definitely a lot of eating. If there’s like a donut with pink frosting and sprinkles around, it basically has my name on it. That’s my go-to to feel better.

Access: What were the songs you guys sang?
Aja: Oh my gosh. This year it’s been a lot from ‘Les Mis’ actually (laughs). Very odd. Very odd, like ‘On My Own.’

— Jolie Lash