During the A Million Little Things premiere, Jon Dixon takes his own life. His assistant, Ashley, is clearly not telling Jon’s friends and family everything she knows, and she even hides a folder with Jon’s wife’s name on it. HollywoodLife got the EXCLUSIVE scoop from Ron Livingston and Christina Ochoa, who play Jon and Ashley, and the importance of that folder and more scoop on what’s ahead.
“The folder is still in play, let’s say that. The folder is in fact pretty prominent,” Christina told HollywoodLife at the show’s premiere party. Ron added: “The most important thing about the folder is that we don’t know what’s in it. You know what I mean? We don’t know what’s in that folder, and we all want to know. So I think some of us have our ideas, and some of us may be given more information about it than others, but it’ll unfold I think in a really cool way.”
There are still a lot of questions surrounding Jon’s death. Will the reasons leading up to it be a driving force in the first season? Ron explained: “To me, it’s not really so much about understanding why he took his life. I don’t personally believe that there’s an answer that makes sense, you know what I mean? I think it kind of does not compute. So to me, the more interesting question about it is, given the fact that he was in this state, and seemed to be aware he was in this state: How could he have this circle of intimate, close friends and not have reached out to somebody? That’s going to drive the show. And it’s really because the show is about connection and just how much we sort of rely on each other, and what we carry for each other…And at the end of the day, you know in my mind, it doesn’t actually really matter why. Because he’s gone either way. If it’s because of this or that, or this or this, it’s still the same loss. It’s still the same hole in everyone else’s life and it’s something they all have to deal with. To me that’s the interesting part, is their response to it.”
Jon clearly trusted Ashley, as we see in the premiere. Their relationship will be explored going forward, but even the cast doesn’t know exactly what’s up. “You know, it’s [creator] DJ [Nash], he likes to dole out the information on a need-to-know basis,” Ron revealed. “Which kind of deepens the mystery for us a little bit and I think it gives it a layered — you know, it layers the storytelling because different characters may have different ideas of what the truth is at the same time. So I think there’s going to be some surprises along the way for us, as well. But yeah, it’s not going to be a show where we just have red herrings and nothing ever adds up. I think DJ, he knows where it’s going. I think in his head he knows where it’s going in Season 7 or 8, you know. So it’s just a matter of do we get there or not?” Ron did say that you “get a richer understanding of what it’s all about” as the season goes on. A Million Little Things airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. on ABC.