Sendhil Ramamurthy on Covert Affairs, Heroes Movie, & Enrique Iglesias

Sendhil Ramamurthy wasn’t the reason I first tuned into Heroes, but he was the reason I stuck with it until mid-season two before giving up hope. If ever I had to pin down my “type”, I think everyone who knows me would agree that tall, dark (both in coloring and broodiness), and accented is it. My glee at his addition to Covert Affairs has already been documented, so when the opportunity to join in a conference call presented itself, I couldn’t RSVP quickly enough. It’s possible that there was also a little bit of gloating that I was available to do it when Bethanne was not, but that’s neither here nor there.

Sendhil Ramamurthy as Jai Wilcox in Covert Affairs / USA Network

Out of character, Sendhil is charming, gives thoughtful answers, and is non-accented, which he makes up for with a slightly mischievous sense of humor. Witness his response after being introduced to all of us on the call.

“Thank you. God, that was all very official and everything. I feel very unworthy right now and nervous, all of a sudden.”

See? Charming. Let’s start with some of the more generic questions, and of course the Heroes movie, before moving on to the nitty gritty details about Jai Wilcox and Covert Affairs.

How is he most like his character?

I think he looks like me; that’s pretty similar.

Will there be a Heroes movie (and can Christopher Gorham be in it)?

You know what, if there’s a Heroes movie, I’m guaranteeing that we’ll get Gorham in it.  Right here, you heard it here first.  I don’t know if there’s going to be a Heroes movie.  I’d love for there to be one.  I think that it would be great for the fans to have the story wrapped up properly because that finale was a season finale; that was not a series finale and I feel like we owe it to the fans who were incredibly loyal and supportive of us through all the ups and downs of Heroes, it would be nice to do it for them to have some sort of closure.

Is Sendhil on Twitter?

The Internet scares me. I’m not very Internet savvy, to be honest. I’m not very computer savvy. I’m not a big Web surfer. It’s just not something I do. I can’t see why anybody would be interested in what I’m doing during my day. Like I’m having a coffee at the coffee shop; like, who cares?

Most embarrassing song on his iPod?

That’s a great question because I have a shared iPod with my wife. I actually had it on shuffle just now in the gym and I’m trying to think what came on. Oh, what’s that guy, it was an Enrique Iglesias song, which I would usually probably never listen to, but it popped on. And I am not ashamed to admit that I listened to it all the way through. I did not fast forward it.

How did you get involved with Covert Affairs?

It was kind of a roundabout thing, actually.  While I was still shooting here, they were shooting this pilot and I put a friend of mine on tape for the role of Auggie, for Chris Gorham’s part.  While I was doing that, I ended up reading the script and I really liked it, but I was already on a show and that was that.  I kind of read it and filed it away.

Then, I guess when the show’s creators and USA decided to make a little change from the pilot and bring in the Jai Wilcox character they kind of approached me about it and I went in and I talked to the creators and I did a chemistry read with Piper Perabo and I got the job the next day.  It was a script that I really liked.  It was a very different character for me to play from what I had been doing before.

It was also one of those things where I was under contract to NBC and it was a way to do more work without having to try and get out of a contract and all of that and all the legalities involved with that and it was a chance to work with Doug Liman, so it was all kind of win-win.

Gregory Itzin guest stars as Henry Wilcox / USA Network

How would you describe your character, Jai Wilcox?

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 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.

While researching the CIA, was there anything that surprised you about the agency?

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.

How does Jai’s access to the director (played by Peter Gallagher) impact his working relationship with Joan, the director’s wife (played by Kari Matchett)?

That makes for a pretty interesting dynamic between Jai and Joan, Kari’s character, Joan. It’s pretty antagonistic. She’s not very fond of Jai and their interaction kind of shows that. But what I love that the writers have done with the character is they put in moments where Jai, he does his job well. Jai is really good at what he does. That’s not to say that he makes mistakes. Everybody will make mistakes throughout any kind of mission, but he’s so good at his job that Joan at certain points in certain episodes can’t help but say, “All right, well done. You did it right.”

Actually, one of the instances happens in Tuesday night’s episode, which I wasn’t expecting because you kind of think in TV they’ll set up this one dynamic and just kind of go in that direction full tilt and that will be that. But it’s really nuanced, all the relationships between the characters are really nuanced and I’ve been really impressed with how they balance everything, from my relationship with Joan to Jai’s relationship with Annie to Auggie’s relationship with Annie; it’s a delicate balance and I think the writers are really doing it well.

Tensions rise on Covert Affairs / USA Network

It seems like there’s some friction between Jai and Auggie when it comes to Annie.

I think, without wanting to give too much away, I think that Jai, as the season goes on, kind of becomes a little bit jealous of the friendship between Auggie and Annie. They are best friends. They really are. There’s a trust between them that Annie’s character doesn’t have with any other character.

She can be completely who she is with Auggie. She can’t do that with Danielle, her sister; she can’t do it with me because, well, there are various reasons that will come out, but it’s a relationship not entirely based on truth and so that kind of makes that impossible. Having said that, I think there’s an attraction. There’s definitely an attraction between Jai and Annie and Annie and Jai and I’m having fun seeing how it’s all playing out.

So is Jai’s interest in Annie more than professional?

It’s very complicated. I think one of the best things about this show is that all the relationships are really complicated. It’s kind of the best thing that was written in the pilot is the note that the Ben Mercer character leaves for Annie’s character. It says, “The truth is complicated.” And that doesn’t just apply to Annie and Ben. That certainly applies to Annie and Jai as well.

Like I said, everything is not what it seems when you meet Jai and Annie and the audience knows that Arthur has told him to get close to Annie in any way possible. And you kind of see a few different tacks that Jai takes to kind of accomplish his mission and then he can try and go the romantic way, he can try and go the professional way; there are a few different avenues and Jai is pretty crafty and he kind of tries whatever works in certain situations.

And I think that’s all well and good, but in the end Jai and Annie, they’re not robots. There are emotions, there are feelings and when you get close to somebody it can complicate something that you want to just be a mission. So, we’ll see. I have to be honest, I’m curious to see where it goes because I don’t know yet.

Jai joins Annie in the field on Covert Affairs / USA Network

Why was Jai chosen to get close to Annie? Is there something in his past, perhaps connected to Ben Mercer (Annie’s mysterious ex), that makes him the best candidate?

Aren’t you clever. I’m not going to answer that question in any way that you’re going to find satisfying. I’m going to just say that upfront right now, but yes. That’s my answer. There’s a lot, like I said, there’s a lot there, which is why I’m so excited to play the character. My parents, actually, were talking to me the other day and they were like, “What the hell is your guy doing? I don’t understand. What’s happening? He’s like kind of there, but not there?”

And I was just like, “Just relax. It’ll come out.” And, again, that’s probably one of the frustrating things for viewers of series television is you want all the answers right away, but then you don’t. You want something more and from a writer’s point of view, they don’t want to burn through too much story. They’ve got to crank out 13 episodes.

So, the one thing I would say is it’s a very slow burn for the Jai Wilcox character and as far as, you can probably tell how much I’m trying not to answer your question, there are definitely things in Jai’s background and what he was doing prior to arriving at Langley that make him a really, well, the only choice to be dealing with Annie and the Ben Mercer situation.

We’ll meet Jai’s father (played by Gregory Itzin) soon; will we be seeing more of Jai’s backstory?

Yes. I was cast after they had shot the pilot and the show had been picked up for 13 episodes and I was cast after they had kind of broken the first four stories. They had already written the first four episodes or done very specific broad strokes of the first four episodes. So when I met with them they said, listen, we’re going to slot you in where we can in the first four episodes because we’ve put out the structure already, we already know what we’re going to do in those episodes.

For instance, in last week’s episode I wasn’t even in it because that was actually the first episode that we shot after the pilot, even though it aired fourth we shot it first, so there was just no way for me to be in it. And so, I kind of like am peppered through the first four episodes and then on Tuesday’s episode it’s kind of like the real introduction to my character where you find out what Jai is all about, where he comes from, what makes him tick and, more importantly, what he’s doing there and what his kind of general arc and mission will be throughout the season.

You get a little hint as to where he was and what it was that he was doing and a cool scene that we shot, it was me and Piper and Eriq La Salle, actually, which was a lot of fun. He guest stars in Tuesday’s episode and he’s terrific in it. And he’s such a nice guy.

I mean, I was a little in awe. I was acting with Dr. Benton, like what do you do? But he was really great. And you do, you do find out kind of where he’s from and as the season goes on you actually find out a little bit more about where he was and what it was that he was doing where he was, which is kind of important to the overall end game of the season.

Jai gets out from behind the desk / USA Network

What has been the biggest challenge in playing Jai?

Jai is a charmer, or he thinks he’s a charmer anyway, and everybody around him reacts that way so I guess he is and you don’t what that to just be it, so there has to be something bubbling underneath it and the challenge was to not let kind of the end game, which, obviously, I know where it is, but you don’t want the audience to know if the fifth episode of the series what’s going to happen, so it was a really tricky balance for me and, again, I hope I got it because we haven’t seen a lot of it, we haven’t seen a lot of the episodes, so it’s going to be interesting. So, for me, that’s been the most challenging thing.

The other challenging thing has been it’s a very physical role for me. In Tuesday’s episode I was doing parkour. Who gets to do parkour on TV? They brought in a guy from Cirque du Soleil to work with me to kind of work the moves out and stuff. And I saw the chase scene actually that’s going to air on Tuesday and it’s really cool. I was really excited when I saw it. It’s a very fun thing and it’s what you would expect from Doug Liman, from a show executive produced by Doug Liman. It’s certainly worthy of kind of his previous spy stuff.

Covert Affairs airs Tuesdays at 10/9c on USA.