If you caught my recap of USA's "Covert Affairs" on Tuesday, then you noticed a few quotes in there from series star Sendhil Ramamurthy about his role as Jai Wilcox. Now, the rest of the discussion is available, in which the "Heroes" alum tells me about his deep relationship with his father Henry, dealing with Arthur Campbell, and how he trained to play a CIA officer.
(Note that in the chat below, Sendhil is referring to the episode that aired Tuesday night.)
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Matt: How would you describe your character -- and, most specifically, his relationship with Arthur? There’s some kind of hidden motive going on there.
Sendhil: Well, my character, Jai Wilcox is a second generation CIA man. His father, Henry Wilcox, was the Head of Clandestine Services, so he’s CIA royalty, basically. And, as we’ll find out in Tuesday’s episode, I don’t want to give too much away, there’s some baggage that comes with being Henry Wilcox—my character’s father’s name is Henry Wilcox—there’s some baggage that comes with being his son and it kind of permeates through the CIA. So, you see how Jai kind of has to deal with that.
He kind of has two father figures in his life. He’s got his real father, Henry Wilcox, and then he’s got Arthur Campbell, played by Peter Gallagher, who is somebody who, obviously, he looks up to and respects and he wants to impress the both of them and impress everybody else in his own right. I think it’s very important for Jai to feel that he is there at the CIA doing a good job on his own merit, not just because he’s Henry Wilcox’s son or because Arthur Campbell trusts him with specific clandestine operations that not a lot of people know about. So, the relationship with Arthur is definitely, you know, he’s my boss and I look to impress him at every turn that I can.
You’ve been doing a lot of research about the CIA and about some of the inner workings for the show. Was there anything that you found out that surprised you?
There was a lot that we found out through doing all the research, from the fact that the CIA encourages dating within the agency, which I thought would not be the case to kind of the way that things operate there. I didn’t know even the basic things, like you can’t have your cell phone with you inside the CIA. I didn’t know that the CIA didn’t carry weapons on U.S. soil. So it’s interesting, we actually just shot a scene where I’m chasing somebody and they’re shooting at me and I have no gun, but I keep chasing them, like I keep going after them, even though I have no weapon.
So, for me, I found it really kind of courageous and heroic that these CIA operatives are going about doing their thing without a weapon. It could also be looked at as, God, how dumb. But I think it’s pretty heroic. It’s kind of like, well, I guess it’s like with anything like this, like firefighters if you want to look at it like that. While everybody is running out of the fire, they’re the ones running towards it and I think it kind of speaks volumes for the CIA and the people kind of protecting our country.
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"Covert Affairs" continues to air Tuesday nights on USA. To follow them on Twitter, click here.
More "Covert Affairs" news, recaps, and interviews
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