2010 Interview – MySanAntonio.com

Original Link: http://www.mysanantonio.com/entertainment/movies/article/S-A-actor-bonds-with-his-Covert-character-783545.php
Author: Jeanne Jakle

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Former “Heroes” star Sendhil Ramamurthy has wanted to be James Bond ever since he was a kid growing up in San Antonio.

“I’d jump at the chance to play him,” the Keystone School grad told me in a one-on-one interview at a breakfast sponsored by USA Network.

Sitting across from Ramamurthy, I could see it: those handsome chiseled features and that ultra-refined way of speaking. Moreover, he’s charming as all get-out.

His favorite James Bond? Sean Connery, but Ramamurthy realizes he’s “more in the Pierce Brosnan vein.”

Though he’s yet to get that call from the Broccolis (longtime producers of the 007 movies), he does play a Bondlike character in the espionage drama “Covert Affairs.”

It airs at 9 p.m. Tuesdays on USA and co-stars Piper Perabo (“Coyote Ugly”) as a fellow operative. His character, Jai Wilcox, “comes from CIA royalty,” he said. Jai’s dad, played by Gregory Itzin (“24”), was the former head of the CIA, “kind of a disagreeable dude,” Ramamurthy said, who’s introduced in the fifth installment, which airs Tuesday.

The best thing about that episode, at least from my perspective, is it’s so Ramamurthy-heavy.

“I do all kinds of action stuff,” he said, something he didn’t get to do much of as scientist Mohinder Suresh on “Heroes.”

“In ‘Heroes,’ I was more on the receiving end — always getting punched and bloodied up,” he said.

His “Covert” character is less cerebral, “more calculating,” with a secret — involving Perabo’s character — “that affects his job, his personal life, everything,” he said.

Shooting Tuesday’s episode was “the most fun I ever had,” he said, explaining that the show even “brought in guys from Cirque du Soleil to train us.”

Scenes involve “running across the docks in New York (really Vancouver, where the series is filmed) … across shipping containers and bouncing off walls. Anything the insurance company would let me do, I’d do.”

He said he loves working with Perabo, hinting his flirtatious relationship with Annie Walker may turn into something more as the series develops. Another plus: a wardrobe that would make Bond proud.

“We get to wear clothes no CIA operative could ever afford,” he said. For him, that means lots of tailored Zegna suits and designer shoes.

He then spilled a few action tricks.

“I do a lot of running and jumping around shipping containers in Prada shoes,” he said, so “they pad them up and put an insole in each of them” to prevent knee injuries.

“They also put moleskin on the bottoms, so you can take those corners and not go careening into a wall.”

Ramamurthy leaves every shred of glamour behind, however, when he returns home to his wife and two kids, ages 4 and 2. There, “I’m mostly haggard,” he said. “Being a dad of young kids makes you haggard.”

This was hard to believe as I stared at the impeccably groomed man. sitting across from me. Yes, sir, getting up close with the actor who aspires to be Bond was a highlight of this year’s trip to Hollywood.

Don’t be surprised to see Ramamurthy in the Alamo City soon. He said he’ll be gathering his family and coming home for visits with his parents in September or October and again for Thanksgiving.