‘High Potential’ Star Javicia Leslie Breaks Down Daphne Leading Her First Major Case

High Potential‘s latest episode was all about the LAPD’s women, specifically Daphne (Javicia Leslie), as she took on leading her first big case in the episode “If You Come for the Queen.”

Fair warning that there are spoilers for the High Potential Season 2 Episode 14 ahead! When LAPD Sergeant Dottie (returning guest Michael Hyatt) is attacked in a spa, Daphne is tapped to lead the investigation as the episode’s mystery unfolds due to her close relationship with the superior officer. Ultimately, Daphne and the crew uncover that Dottie was targeted by her former sorority sister, who made a death pact with an acquaintance, agreeing to murder someone in exchange for the acquaintance killing Dottie.

Apparently, Dottie had ratted on a hazing situation, and it led to her sorority sister losing out on finishing her degree and struggling for work prospects, leading her down a path of bad financial decisions she felt compelled to seek revenge over.

But after the job wasn’t finished, Dottie was left alive to help solve the attempted murder against her with her protege, Daphne. While she helped to solve the mystery, Daphne led her first interrogation and debated over the idea of taking her Sergeant’s exam, after Dottie encouraged her to. Keeping the other women in her life in mind, Daphne also took influence from Morgan (Kaitlin Olson) and Soto (Judy Reyes), the latter of whom believed in her to see this case through.

Disney / Jessica Perez

Along with overseeing the case, Daphne also mentored Morgan’s daughter Ava (Amirah J) regarding a coveted spot she’d been invited to accept at a local art program. Some students suggested that Ava hadn’t earned the spot on her own merits, going so far as to accuse she’d been given the opportunity because of being Black. This gave Daphne a moment to reflect on moments in her life and career where she wasn’t treated fairly for similar reasons, and although her initial advice is a bit jaded, she encourages Ava to take up space and fill the spot she was invited to take because she shouldn’t be deterred by naysayers.

The episode is a turning point for the audience’s understanding of Daphne, and to better understand, Javicia Leslie spoke with us to break down the biggest moments. Below, she discusses the female-focused episode, Daphne’s handling of the case, and whether or not Daphne might reconsider taking the Sergeant’s exam.

How were you introduced to Daphne’s story for this episode? Did you have any influence on the direction it took?

Javicia Leslie: I was talking to Todd [Harthan] and our writers at the top of the season about where we saw Daphne’s character being able to expand a bit, and there were a few ideas that had come up throughout the season. We ended up having this episode where Morgan goes to cadet training camp, and we introduced a character named Dottie, played by Michael Hyatt. There was always this world in which we wanted to bring Michael back because the character was just absolutely amazing.

Disney / Jessica Perez

And the best part about bringing on a character like that in our universe is that we get to bring them back as many times as we’d love to. So when we were trying to figure out how to give Daphne something to expand on, and we also wanted to bring Dottie back, our creator and the writers thought that would be a great time to be able to put those two together and create the storyline in which Dottie was Daphne’s mentor, when she was in the academy and when she also when she first started as a police officer.

When it came to us, I got to finally meet Michael, and her and I and our writer Nicole French sat for days and hours finding the history under it that maybe the words didn’t say, but we wanted to be able to play it anyway. That was our input, the work that we got to do together, which is a very rare thing on episodic television because everything is go, go, go.

Daphne helms her first interrogation. What did you enjoy about her approach there, and how will she implement it in future cases? 

Nicole, our writer for the episode, already had an idea of who Daphne was in this story, and then we mixed that with our directors, who then helped to guide parts that were maybe missing. And so what’s interesting is we actually shot that scene in many different ways. One where she knew exactly what she wanted when she came in, one where she wanted to play naive, one where he calls her out, and she is caught off guard. I didn’t know what story they were gonna end up telling. That gets done in the edit, but we played a lot of different ways, and seeing the episode now, I can say, oh, this is something that I can probably use in the future of her interrogating scenes. But also, I think that’s a little bit of what women have to do when you’re coming into a boy’s world. You have to sometimes play small so that they can feel comfortable. And then use that moment to manipulate the situation.

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We see how Morgan and Soto have impacted Daphne in this episode, between her evidence gathering and stance on the Sergeant’s exam. How does that impact her as a detective and trickle down into her chat with Ava?

When it came to Soto, that was a huge reason why Daphne hadn’t taken the exam. It really broke her to see Soto get overlooked like that, although it probably rang familiar, and then hearing Ava tell me her story, it’s very familiar for me. So what ended up happening in the episode was a lesson and a journey that Daphne had to go on to learn that you may not be able to change anything around you, people are going to be people, but what you can do is continue to believe in yourself and still keep going, no matter what.

Daphne manages to talk Dottie’s former sorority sister, Phyllis, down from hurting herself or others on the bus at the end of the episode. How did you feel about her handling of that situation, and how will it shift her perspective going forward?

I actually look at it from a different perspective, not that Phyllis would have done more or done worse, but that a police officer entering that bus at that time would not have been able to see her humanity. And I think that’s one of the parts of what makes Daphne’s character so important on this show is that I saw Phyllis because I saw myself, and I saw Dottie, and I saw Soto, and I saw Morgan, and I saw Ava.  I saw a Black woman whom I knew; if anyone else had been there, maybe she wouldn’t have come off that bus alive, and that happens every day.

Certain things look more aggressive if you’re not used to it… And so, to me, I think the part that was more important in that story was being able to give Phyllis a second chance at life, and hoping that she realizes you can overcome this. And so at the end, I think that [Daphne will] probably take the Sergeant’s exam, but we’ll see. I do think that she’s more confident and comfortable in herself.

High Potential, Season 2, Tuesdays, 9/8c, ABC

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