Trivia / Leverage

• California Doubling: Portland doubled as Boston from Season 2 until Season 4. Subverted come the final season, where Portland is portrayed as itself.
  • Averted in "The Long Way Down Job," which was actually filmed at base-camp level of a real mountain.
• Cast the Expert: Apollo Robbins is the show's consultant on theft and sleight-of-hand tricks, and plays Parker's opposite number on Starke's team in "The Two Live Crew Job."
• The Danza: Apollo Robbins's character in "The Two Live Crew Job" is also named Apollo.
• Diagnosis of God: Parker is autistic, but this was only confirmed by the writers and presented as an unspecified mental disorder in the show itself.
• Dueling Shows: With White Collar. Skilled and rather flamboyant thief/thieves are recruited by the good guys to create some Asshole Victims.
  • It's not without some elements of Burn Notice too.
  • Not to mention Hustle, which aired in the same time period this show did.
• Fan Community Nicknames: The Grifters.
• Hide Your Pregnancy: Done on Gina Bellman in "The 2 Live Crew Job" by holding a bomb to her belly. And later stuffing her in a coffin. Take that, How I Met Your Mother!
  • At the end of the episode, she goes on a journey to "find herself"; the next episode, she's only present in phone calls from the main team, usually shot from the chest up behind a bar or in the back seat of a cab. Of course she came back for "The Maltese Falcon Job" and was running around on a freighter while seven-and-a-half months pregnant (mostly by wearing a very long, thick coat and being shot from the stomach up).
• I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine: A number of guest roles were filled by actors who'd worked with Timothy Hutton on A Nero Wolfe Mystery including Saul Rubinek and Kari Matchett.
• Line to God: John Rogers has a blog.
• Missing Episode: TNT pulled "The Mile High Job," which was set on a plane and devoted much of its comedy to making fun of water landings after the Miracle on the Hudson. The episode was later aired in its original form after the media frenzy had died down.
• On-Set Injury: Christian Kane shows up in "The Inside Job" with a bandage over his nose, due to an on-set injury. The writers decided that it fit his character of Eliot Spencer as "The Hitter", and that they'd already agreed that the audience only saw one third of the Leverage team's adventures, so they wouldn't need to film a scene to explain the injury.
• Postscript Season: Season 4 had been originally slated as the last season, hence the multiple instances of The Bus Came Back and the title of the last episode being "The Last Dam Job". And then TNT decided to renew it one more time for season five. Admirably, the writers managed to make it feel less like one than other examples of this trope.
• Real-Life Relative: Aldis (Hardison) Hodge's brother Edwin guest-starred as the client in "The Jailhouse Job". His character isn't related to Hardison, but the scam relies on Hardison being able to act as a Body Double for him.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: An interesting case during filming of "The Long Way Down Job," according to Word of God. Part of Nate's plot in the episode involves the dangers of a hardcore alcoholic, who is prone to withdrawal symptoms, spending time on a mountain. Writer and executive producer (and real-life hardcore alcoholic) John Rogers added this to the episode for Nate, and didn't realize until later, when they were actually shooting the episode on a real mountain, that those same dangers also applied to him. He reports on the episode's audio commentary that they decided to make Nate's symptoms much more significant based on what he experienced during filming.
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor: Timothy Hutton wasn't invited to take part in Leverage: Redemption due to sexual assault accusations.
• Star-Making Role: Aldis Hodge received an enormous boost with this series and became so busy with major Hollywood productions that he couldn't return as a regular for Leverage: Redemption.
• Throw It In!:
  • Nate's laughter upon realizing the warehouse is a trap in "The Nigerian Job." This scene was actually the first time the show's stars had met, and Timothy Hutton asked the director if he could do something "a little crazy" to see how they all responded.
    • Hardison sliding across the room in his desk chair after Nate and Sophie's steamy earpiece scene was thrown in by Aldis Hodge during shooting, who was immediately worried that he'd ruined the take.
  • The scene of Parker taking medication in rehab in "The Twelve-Step Job" was meant to end with the doctor offering the pill, with Parker's odd behavior in later scenes revealing that she had taken it. Beth Riesgraf instead improvised furiously chewing up the pill and making an odd face, which was deemed so delightfully funny that it had to be included.
  • The airline pilot in "The First David Job" even gets one. According to the DVD commentary, his line "FAA, he's a hardass—screw the bag!" was improvised, and the writers loved it so much that they kept it.
  • Eliot's sliding kick while he and Parker are running around the building in "The Inside Job" has a similar story, according to the DVD commentary. It was not in the episode's script; Christian Kane came up with it after discovering how easily he could slide around on the hallway floor.
    "He is a madman."
  • John Rogers explained on his blog that the stunt seen in "The Rundown Job" where Parker climbs onto Hardison and hangs upside down to defuse the claymore was entirely done by Beth Riesgraf, Christian Kane and Aldis Hodge. According to Rogers, he, the director and the stunt coordinator had been discussing how to handle it and the actors just went ahead and did it on their own while they were talking.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Had Psych not explicitly named Leverage as a show within its own universe, Eliot would have occasionally mentioned having an uncle and cousin in Santa Barbara.
  • Hardison was intended to be utterly hopeless at running cons, necessitating his usually staying behind the scenes. Then Aldis Hodge's natural charisma made this impossible to believe, so he got to play the occasional character.
  • Had Leverage received a sixth season, the season would have introduced Nate's sister, who was also in the original draft of "The Double-Blind Job."
  • Had the set not been torn down by the time they started filming past season 1, there would have been a flashback of Eliot on a team and going through the Stargate at some point, but both Stargate series had been cancelled by that point and the opportunity was lost.
  • The writers had an idea for a "Rear Window" Homage episode, where the mark is the "Witness" and everything he sees is just the crew conning him. Sadly, it was deemed too technically difficult to execute, although they did to a different "Rear Window" Homage with The Broken Wing Job
  • The Two Live Crew Job features several, according to the commentary.
    • Chaos was originally meant to be a Spicy Latina and more of a Distaff Counterpart to Hardison before the writers remembered that they'd been trying to find a role for Wil Wheaton to play and that an arrogant hacker would suit him well.
    • There were two drafts of the script where Starke and his crew actually beat Nate (and there was no double-cross). In one of them, Starke and his crew are seen impersonally breaking up and going their separate ways while the Leverage crew's bond together is just strengthened by the event. The other had a Sequel Hook which promised the two crews would meet again, with the writers planning to have the Leverage team beat Starke during a second fight in a few episodes.
    • The team stealing back Starke's painting at the end and letting him leave with a forgery was intended as something to make him come back for revenge in Season 3. In the end though, aside from one mention on the season 4 pilot, Starke was never heard from again in the show.
    • Sophie's boyfriend from the start of season 2 who breaks up with her over trust issues was originally meant to be Starke (in a Chekhov's Gunman role) but the show runners were unsure that they would be able to get a guest actor to appear in two nonconsecutive episodes that way, and decided to make them separate characters.
  • In The Reunion Job Taggart and McSweeten were planned to be the FBI agents who arrest the mark at the end, but the actors schedules wouldn't work.
  • One unproduced season 2 episode pitch had Hardison undercover at the mark's corporation and finding out that all of his new coworkers were corporate spies.
  • In ‘’ The Hot potato Job’’, Latimer was originally meant to be lurking in the background of the final shot, on the TV cameras (as a way of signifying his role in taking over the company, something that’s relevant in the finale), but in the end the higher-ups weren’t willing to pay as much money as he would have gotten for the cameo.
  • The writers hoped to someday bring back Josie from The Boost Job as a client, but never did, partially due to having a hard time coming up with a good idea based on the more peaceful situation they'd left her in.
  • The original plan to introduce Archie Leach involved him getting into trouble over a counterfeiting scam and needing help, but the corporate break-in from The Inside Job was used instead.
  • The ending of The Office Job where Hardison admits to eating Eliot's sandwich on the Confession Cam was supposed to be a Post-Credits Scene but the network had a policy against Post-credits scenes and refused (with the episodes creative team fighting hard to keep it but ultimately losing according to the episodes commentary).
  • The script for The Girl's Night Out Job had a security guard wandering onto the scene after they'd stolen a fire axe and knocked some stuff around in a fight, getting the wrong idea, thinking there was an axe-maniac on the loose and screaming like a little kid. It was cut because they didn't like how like the extra's facial expressions when they tried filming it.
  • In The Boy's Night Out Job when Nate calls Hardison and Eliot during an AA meeting and gives them a coded message while pretending to be apologizing to his ex-wife, originally that was supposed to happen while he was disguised as a priest, in the middle of a sermon.
  • The writers and directors had some hopes about having both the client and the villain from The Lonely Hearts Job reappear in season 5 due to liking their performers, but it didn't happen.
  • The Last Dam Job was originally going to have Eliot paired with Chaos and Hardison paired with Quinn to emphasize the established team members and honorary partners working together before it was decided that Chaos and Quinn were funnier together.
  • The epiphany that finally lets Parker appreciate art from The French Conection Job was originally supposed to be The Experimental Job, where she was originally meant to go undercover at the college with Hardison and sit through an art history class that enlightened her about the things she'd always taken for granted (a subplot which was apparently cut for time).
  • In "The Gimme a K Street Job" Nate was originally supposed to be the one flummoxed by dealing with a congressman who couldn't be influenced to turn against the mark while Eliot had an easy job with his one and teased Nate for his failures. This was changed because while the writers and director thought the idea was funny, they felt there would be more emotion behind Eliot getting stuck and experiencing a moral quandary, and then learning from how Nate resolved it.
  • The faked environmental disaster from The Low Low Price Job evolved from a scenario where they convinced Caroline the store manager that the mall was built on an Indian Burial Ground and faked a haunting while she was alone in the store at night. This was scrapped for being too similar to "The First Contact Job" earlier in the season. The episode also originally had a subplot where Caroline was learning Mandarin out of hopes of being transferred to China, and this was incorporated into the con.
• Word of God: The commentary reveals that Parker didn't kill her foster parents in the flashback from the pilot, but simply blew up the house while they were both at work.
  • This mildly contradicts a deleted scene, where the father runs out on fire, but clearly survives.
• Written-In Infirmity: Christian Kane's insistence on doing as many of his own stunts as possible (and his apparent lack of fear of bodily injury in general) mean that several episodes show Eliot sporting his actor's real injuries. Sometimes it's given an on-screen explanation — the briefing scene at the beginning of "The Stork Job" throws in a line about "How was I supposed to know it was a lesbian bar?" to explain his bruised and scraped cheek, and "The Two Live Crew Job" has him get his face bashed into some metal piping to explain a cut on his forehead that occurred while filming a previous episode. Other episodes, such as "The Inside Job," leave it to the audience's imagination why the team's fighter has a band-aid on the bridge of his nose.

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