‘Magnum P.I.’: Zachary Knighton Talks Directing Friends & What He Asked Perdita Weeks to Do

Zachary Knighton took on a new role for the December 6 episode of Magnum P.I.: director.

The actor’s directorial debut featured the right mix of action, comedy, and drama, as well as one of his friends in a guest spot for one of the cases, Taylor Handley. “It was an all-arounder, so I’m really thankful for them to give me that episode in particular,” Knighton tells TV Insider.

In “Consciousness of Guilt,” after a high-stakes homicide case falls apart at trial, Katsumoto (Tim Kang) asks Magnum (Jay Hernandez) to help him stop a killer from walking free. Plus, Higgins (Perdita Weeks) helps Jin Jeong (Bobby Lee) with a mystery of his own.

Below, Knighton talks about directing his first episode, offers a tease about how the series will end, and more.

What made this the right episode to be the first one you directed?

Zachary Knighton: They gave me an episode that had a lot of comedy in it, which I really appreciated. I come from a comedy background, really, so I think that they knew that if there’s anybody in the cast to give an episode with Bobby Lee as the star, I was the guy for the job. [Laughs]

Speaking of, on the one hand, the episode starts with a serious case of Katsumoto’s, but then you go into Jin Jeong dancing across the street, and that leads into another case.

There’s a case about two brothers, and one dies and there’s a significant inheritance, and I was super excited when I read it. I thought of a friend of mine, Taylor Handley, who’s a great actor; he’s on this Taylor Sheridan show right now [Mayor of Kingstown], but he’s a fantastic actor I’ve known for years, and I thought, “This is the guy for this.”

I just love being able to tell the story I got to. They gave me a script with a ton of comedy a ton of drama, and a ton of action, so I felt like it was kind of this graduate school of directing. I got to approach everything with a different mindset but try to make it cohesive from beginning to end, and I hope I did a good job of that.

You did a great job. And speaking of comedy, drama, and action, you get all of that with Bobby’s part of the episode. And then Higgins gets involved…

And Perdy really getting in the helicopter. I asked Perdy if she’d do it for me, and she said yes, which was awesome. I just wanted to shoot some things you hadn’t seen on an episode of Magnum before. We actually had a guy, Ruben Carrillo, our amazing cameraman, literally standing on the skids of the helicopter, hanging out of the helicopter to shoot some over-the-shoulder Perdy stuff. And he was super brave and amazing, and I can’t thank him enough, and our whole crew obviously.

But yeah, it was just so much fun. I got to do this big action sequence with Bobby. I’ve known Bobby since the early 2000s; I had a show on Fox back then when he was on Mad TV, so we’ve been friends since then. We were doing publicity tours and things like that. And when you are directing an episode and your friend is in a fight in the episode and you can say to the hair and makeup people, “Can you make me some patches of hair that this woman can pull out of Bobby’s head? I’d really love if I could have somebody pulling Bobby’s hair out of his head. Can we do that?” And the magic of movie making, they say, yes. It’s great.

And you had him in the trunk of a car, too.

Yeah, he wasn’t too happy about that one. [Laughs]

Taylor comes across as guilty throughout this episode, especially in the scene with Magnum. What did you want to show with that character?

Taylor’s one of those guys you don’t really have to tell him what to do. He gets it. If anything, you have to tell him to dial it down because he’s so intense. He’s such a great actor. We’ve always wanted to work together and play brothers or do something, and back in the day, we used to go head to head against each other for all kinds of parts. And I respect him and love him so much. It is a fine line. You want the audience to know —a lot of episodes in Magnum are a whodunit where you’re trying to solve kind of a mystery. And this one’s a “howcatchhim.” He’s the guy that did it; how do you catch him? So that was really fun, to flirt with his sort of darkness and let him kind of go. And I did this whole thing where I didn’t have him, and Jay meet yet until that scene that they have in the cigar shop. So I just got to play with it. It’s Magnum P.I. You can’t take it too seriously. You’re not directing The Godfather here. It’s like, we’re just going to have some fun with this. Let’s play. Let’s have fun. And I hope it comes across on the screen.

It does. And you had fun as Rick with the cigars, too.

I did. I believe I’m only in two scenes of the episode that I directed, which is great. I’m glad. I think the last one Jay did, he was in the whole episode, so his head was spinning, I’m sure. But yeah, it was fun. I don’t really know much about cigars, but I played doctors before. I don’t really know much about surgery. You tell me what to say, and I’ll say it, and I’ll try to make it somewhat engaging; how about that?

Did you get any advice from Jay about directing?

I think the advice I got was, just do whatever you want. It’s going to be great.

Rick and Suzy (Elizabeth Knighton) feel settled in their relationship, and we get a nice tidbit about them sitting together and talking about what happened while they’re apart in this episode. Is that how their relationship will feel for the rest of the series?

Yeah, I think that you’re going to see more closure with the two of them. I’m sure everyone sort of had an inkling that the show was going to end. So, the writers were trying to wrap things up as best they could. And I think it’s really nice, especially since Suzy is played by my real life wife — and it’s good because I don’t think my wife would be too happy if we broke up and then all of a sudden, Rick is just dating all these babes that are coming through. So, thank you to the Magnum P.I. writers and Magnum gods for helping me keep my marriage intact. Thank you, everybody.

That information about Rick and Suzy’s evenings does prompt Magnum and Higgins to realize how much time they spend together. What can you preview about what we see from those two as a result of this episode?

That they don’t spend too much time together, I think that you’ll find that you, you know what? They do enjoy spending time together, and they’re going to spend a lot more time together right up until the very end.

What have you learned about yourself as a director from this episode?

The thing I learned most really is I can do it. You have that fear in the beginning, like, “Oh my God, everybody’s standing here looking at me, waiting for me to tell them what to do.” I would say I was basically cooking for the home team, so everybody was really supportive, and I learned so much about every department because I had to work so closely with every department, every day, all day long — you’re answering emails, making decisions about wardrobe, about makeup, about how much blood do you need, how much this do you need? Are we going to storyboard this? So I think the thing that I learned the most, and I don’t want to come off weird saying this, but I can do it. I can do it, and I’m actually kind of good at it. I really enjoyed it. I haven’t been sparked like this in years. I had so much fun, and I hope to continue to do it in the future.

Do you want to direct another mix of comedy, drama, and action? Do you want it to focus on one genre?

I love doing it all. I would say the opportunity in my world is probably going to come from comedy. I have something lining up right now. I hope to be able to confirm it soon, but I’m going to focus on directing comedy, and heck, I’m in Hawai’i for six more months. So if NCIS: Hawai’i calls to direct one, I wouldn’t have a problem with that either, but I’m just going to see what happens and see how this thing unfolds.

Magnum P.I., Wednesdays, 9/8c, NBC