Covert Affairs has become one of my favorite shows on USA, so I jumped at the opportunity to take part in a conference call with the show’s stars, Piper Perabo and Christopher Gorham. The two dished about what to expect in the second season and were even a bit stumped at my question regarding their characters’ strengths and weaknesses. Check it out below:

Photo Credit: Frank Ockenfels/USA Network

How are your characters evolving from what it was in the first season?
Christopher Gorham: I think the writers have done an amazing job in Season 2 because they’ve really taken all of the best parts of the first season and built on them. And that goes for the two things that you’re talking about. We really pick up right where we left off at the end of Season 1 not just with the plot but also with the character development.

So you will continue to see growth like you did last year. Part of what makes our show so great is that part of growing is making mistakes and they don’t always do everything right. And sometimes the mistakes that they make can be the most fun.

Piper Perabo: Yeah. Annie has a little bit more experience than she did last year. I mean she certainly still relies within the hierarchy of the office. She’s still kind of low man on the totem pole. But… this season they let Annie do more complicated and difficult missions because she has a little bit more experience.

I think in the evolution of Annie will keep her sort of – I mean I hope that will keep her sort of at rookie status because it’s interesting to act and see her kind of trying to solve problems on the fly and not being this, you know, (uber) slick perfect spy. I think it’s fun to watch her solve it.

The blurb for the premiere says that Annie is assigned as the new handler for a professional tennis player and long time CIA agent. What kind of challenges will that present for her?
Piper Perabo: This goes along with what we’re saying before that Annie’s getting given larger, more difficult assignments. When you’re sort of dropped into the deep end, I think you learn a lot faster. So Annie kind of gains skills in the field and has more potential.

But I think also it becomes much more dangerous because you’re running with a certain level of asset and spy that are very savvy in this world and who they trust and how they deceive people and how they know how to get around and disappear into thin air if they want to. So the stakes are much higher for Annie because she’s working with a much higher level of asset and agent.

So what strengths will play against your characters and what weaknesses will play for your characters this season?
Piper Perabo: Well, that’s a good question.

Christopher Gorham: Yeah.

Piper Perabo: I think Annie’s inexperience still continues to be both a weakness and a strength for her. She has a kind of trust in her gut instincts on how to solve things but not only can it kind of lead her off in a strange direction but actually lead her more quickly to the answer. But it can also put her in a lot of danger because she kind of leaps before she looks. So in some ways what aids Annie is also what can put her in danger.

Christopher Gorham: Yeah. I think for Auggie, one example of this is one of the earlier episodes because Auggie’s got the CIA dialed in and he’s very good at what he does.

And because of that he gets an opportunity for kind of a major promotion and really has to do some soul searching and decide what he wants his life to be like at the CIA and what he really wants to do. He gets this great opportunity because he’s performed so well but then really has to ask himself if at the end of the day that’s what he wants and what’s going to make him happy. So it brings up kind of a crisis of a conscious and a big potential turning point for him.

What’s the most challenging aspect of playing Annie Walker and on the flip side what’s the most challenging aspect of playing opposite Chris as a sighted person playing a blind character?
Piper Perabo: The thing with playing opposite Chris is really interesting because he was very serious and detailed about his research within the blind community and working with the Canadian Institute for the Blind about exactly how everything would be done and doing it properly.

So then I also had to learn. And we constantly in blockings we have a certain sort of rehearsal that we have to do because we really need to physically know each beat of the scene especially if Auggie and Annie are not in the DPD in our office. We did a scene this season where we walk into a bar together and – do you remember this Chris? We were like…

Christopher Gorham: Yeah.

Piper Perabo: We poured beers and even our cinematographer was like, “Wow, you guys have this down.” I mean we rehearse it pretty serious so that it’s correct.

The most difficult part of playing Annie Walker is I think the balancing of all the different aspects of the show. The show has a comedic element. We do a lot of languages. There’s quite a serious action component to the show. So you have to make sure that each thing gets its own time to rehearse and prepare so that we keep it strong across the board.

Do you think that Annie and Ben could ever be happy together?
Piper Perabo: Well, I don’t know. I know Ben is not that trustworthy of a guy. In Season 1 he puts Annie in a lot of dangerous situations and kind of doesn’t go help her out. I mean sometimes I get sort of mad that Ben doesn’t help Annie out a little more. (Could) he, you know, I don’t know. I don’t know about that.

But it’s like that with any kind of bad boy romance. You know what I mean? You kind of can’t tear yourself away but you know he’s really not that good for you. So it’s tricky with Ben. I don’t know the answer.

So do you think she’ll do a complete turnaround and maybe she and Auggie can get together?
Piper Perabo: Well that’s what I’m going to say. At least she’s got Auggie in the office and he’s so easy on the eyes and Jai Wilcox too. I mean they’re certainly, quite distracting men around if Ben Mercer doesn’t make it.

Piper, can you talk about your stunts this season?
Piper Perabo: Oh my gosh. One of the funnest parts of doing the shows is the stunt. And I mean all the action sequences are worked out to such a degree and the writers are so going for the fences with the action.

Doug Liman is our Executive Producer. And so a lot of times he comes up and talks about the structure of the action sequences with the directors. And we did one shot – this is so early on in the season this year. But we did a shot where Annie, an asset that she’s with is in Argentina, has to get on a helicopter but the helicopter doesn’t land. You have to actually like run and jump into a helicopter.

And the director, as I was just saying, as we’re about to go, he’s like, “No matter what happens, do not try and jump into that helicopter.” They know me and I will try for it. As soon as I see that door open and the camera inside, it’s hard. I mean it’s really fun stunts this show.

So Chris, can you tell us what you did this time around playing Auggie, going out blindfolded with the cane specifically?
Christopher Gorham: My friend and coach over at the CNIB, the Canadian National Institute for the Blind is a woman named Lesley MacDonald. I had her come out to the set and work with me and Piper at the very beginning of the season and just as a refresher. We started at the beginning and went over everything that we did last season just to make sure that we remembered all the little details because we use them so often in the show.

We don’t have someone there to check with on set. So we need to make sure that we’ve got it in our brains. And then in addition to that this year, I went out with Lesley and did blindfolded mobility training out on the streets of Toronto, navigating around the city and crossing busy streets and intersections by myself. It was just an incredible learning experience.

You get just the faintest bit of understanding of what it must be like to start that process having lost your sight. You get a new respect for how quickly you can get disoriented. I remember part of it – I’d crossed an intersection already and was standing on the corner and had turned around and was getting ready to cross again.

As I was about to step out into the street, I heard some kids crossing the street but they weren’t – it didn’t sound like they were coming from the right direction. It sounded like they were coming diagonally across the intersection. And it was only then that I realized that I must not be facing the crosswalk. I must be facing the wrong direction and was about to step out into the middle of (black) traffic.

I honestly couldn’t figure out how it had happened because I thought for sure that I was lined up and ready to go. So it was just a great learning experience. And terrifying not just for me but also for the drivers who were sitting at the intersection as I walked into their cars with my cane, you know.

Last season, one of the highlights was seeing Auggie in the field. Will we be seeing him in the field again this year?
Christopher Gorham: Yeah we will and more than once. So one of the earlier episodes Auggie gets out in the field with Annie to help her out on one of her missions, which was a lot of fun. And then a little later in the season we’ll have kind of an Auggie centric episode where Auggie’s out on vacation and we’re in Istanbul and we get a flashback and see him in Iraq before he lost his sight and finally get the answer to the question of how he really lost his sight.

So there’s a lot of really exciting field stuff for Auggie this year. And true to how we did it last year too. It’s all reasonable and makes sense. It all comes out of what he is capable and incapable of doing. And so it’s a lot of fun.

Are you telling us that Auggie is a globetrotter?
Christopher Gorham: Oh absolutely. As we all know, Auggie gets around.

Piper Perabo laughs.

Does Auggie have any really great new gadgets this season?
Christopher Gorham: Yeah. We do have some new stuff. None of it’s been incorporated into the story per se but we do have some new things, some of which are new to us and some of which are not new to the world – the audiences.

For instance, Auggie uses an iPhone this year, which a lot of people don’t know is completely accessible to the blind. Right out of the box. So I wanted to make sure that we used that and we do.

Another thing that he has this year that we didn’t have last (year), that I was asking for all last year is a portable Braille device. It’s a portable Braille keyboard and reader that he can take around the CIA so when he’s away from his desk he can still not only input in Braille but read the Braille keyboard.

Can you talk about Auggie’s relationships this season?
Christopher Gorham: One of our guest stars, Rebecca Mader plays a woman that Auggie become romantically entangled with during that episode. And then there is at least one more relationship coming down the pike. We haven’t quite gotten there yet but I’m hearing rumors about it.

Can you talk about some of the guest stars this season?
Christopher Gorham: Oded Fehr is coming back for more than one episode actually. And we just had Jamie Alexander from Thor who’s done a couple episodes. Rebecca Mader (Lost) just started shooting an episode for us.

Piper Perabo: Peter Stormare came in. (So amazing. Amazing.) We’ve gotten really good guest starts this year. Mark Moses from Mad Men. It makes it really fun.

Since the show is actually shooting internationally, where have you shot so far?
Christopher Gorham: We’ve sent people to Puerto Rico. We’ve been to Paris. I’m going to Istanbul soon. And I think we have at least one more international location this year that’s on the books. So we’re really getting out there. We kind of tested the waters with it last year sending a second unit crew to different spots around the world. And then at the very end of the season they sent Eion Bailey to Sri Lanka.

And so since we had success with it last year, this year they’ve allowed us to kind of expand things a little bit. And it’s been great. I mean the second episode of Season 2 is the Paris episode. It was Doug Liman shooting Piper in Paris and at the Louvre. The footage is incredible.

It really adds to the show and just broadens the scope and makes the show bigger. So it’s been great. We’re shooting like two full production days in Istanbul for the Auggie episode. So it’s just going to make it incredible.

Covert Affairs Season 2 premiers Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 10/9c on USA.