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Piper Perabo: Don’t double cross someone you’ve trained to be an assassin

As Annie Walker, an upstart C.I.A. agent, Piper Perabo fights off assassins, evil henchman and insidious government agents. But this show’s biggest challenge lies in fending off the inevitable “Alias” associations. For the record, Piper had never seen the show (she’s now watched half the pilot) but believes “Covert Affairs” will paint a much more realistic portrayal of life as a spy.

Don’t let that lead you to think the show is all about paperwork — the first episode alone features skydiving, car chases, two major gunfights and Piper going undercover as a call girl. All in a day’s work on the Summer’s most promising new series.

I chatted with Piper about what fans can expect in the coming weeks, what life is like on the set and how exactly Betty White might factor into “Covert Affairs” long-term plan!

PopWrap: What initially attracted you to “Covert Affairs?”

Piper Perabo: I am always looking for characters that I see as heroes and there’s not a lot of females written that way. So when this script came up, I thought Annie was exactly the kind of hero I was looking for. And I’m a bit fan of [executive producer] Doug Liman’s so I knew the action would be of a certain caliber. The combination of those two things sold me.

PW: Physically it seems like a pretty demanding role.

Piper: Absolutely, but it’s also so much fun – we started training quite early so I could do a lot of the stuntwork and be in shape for the fight sequences. Doing martial arts and krav maga so I could kill assassins is kind of a dream come true.

PW: So everything but the skydiving is you in the pilot?

Piper: Mostly. And I wanted to jump out of the plane, but for insurance reasons you can’t. Also, USA has this mantra – Blue Skies! – we filmed in Toronto in the spring it’s not quite blue enough. So we found a girl in blue sky country and sent her my ponytail.

PW: Annie gets a lot of compliments on her skilled driving — what kind of driver are you?

Piper: I am a good driver, although I’ve never had road chases [laughs]. I live in NYC and that requires you to be a certain kind of driver – mostly avoiding cabs and staying out of the bike lane. Pursuing killers is a different kind of driving, so I’ve had to get into that. Let’s just say, my e-brake turn wasn’t perfected from driving down Broadway.

PW: Would you consider yourself an adrenaline junkie?

Piper: It’s easier when you’re driving someone else Ferrari around, but yea, I consider myself an adrenaline junkie.

PW: The premise sets up a scenario where Annie’s former lover Ben (played by Eion Bailey) was secretly a spy also — does that run through the whole show?

Piper: Yes, it’s a thread that ties all the episodes together. We also find out that Annie’s been promoted for this reason and she doesn’t know. We don’t reveal until the end of the pilot that they’re actually using Annie to smoke out Eion’s character. It gets pretty exciting.

PW: Can’t imagine she takes that news too well.

Piper: I’d just advise the person who has to tell her watches out. Basically don’t train someone to be an assassin when you’re lying to them from the beginning. Do that to people who aren’t trained killers.

PW: Were you able to do any real life research?

Piper: Doug set it up so I could go down to Langley and meet agents my age who work in the field. One of the women asked what my pretend cover was – I said, “acquisitions buyer for the Smithsonian.” She was like, “that’s a really good cover.” She totally approved, so I feel legit.

PW: What about this statistic Chris Gorham’s character drops in the pilot — that 50 percent of CIA field agents have been active for less than five years?

Piper: I’m not sure if that’s accurate or not, but I know that there was a hiring freeze broken after 9/11, so now the CIA is very young and diverse in an attempt to reach into areas they weren’t in before. Plus, you can’t be some 1950’s relic and blending in all over the world. In fact, I saw one much older woman at Langley – probably in her 90’s — who was a secret agent. She was a Russian expert because she’d lived so long and become fluent in all the different dialects from every Russian region. This is a grandma in the CIA!

PW: Sounds like the perfect spin-off for Betty White!

Piper: [laughs] I think we could have a whole new viewership with 90-year-old agents. They could at least translate the Russian for me.

PW: So I asked your co-star Christopher Gorham to give me an inside question for you and he wants me to ask if the felt tipped pen in the drawer on set still writes. What does that mean?

Piper: [laughs] Oh my god, that is him revealing how dorky we are! I can’t believe that’s what he said. OK, so we have all these really fancy desks so the set looks hip and young and cool. And in them are these fancy felt tipped pens that supposedly last days and days without the cap on. So on the long filming days we continually go running back to check if the pens still work.

PW: And?

Piper: And two weeks later, it still writes. Wow, I can’t believe I have now outed myself, Chris an Sendhil Ramamurthy as huge nerds.

PW: Sounds like you all get along really well though.

Piper: That’s what’s fun – there are slow days at any job so hopefully you have friends at work that think the same ridiculous things are funny that you do. Sendhil was working till three in the morning one night and he texted me “I just checked the pen and it’s still working.” It’s so silly but it’s great to work with people that you genuinely enjoy spending time with.

“Covert Affairs” premieres tonight at 10pm on USA

Photo: USA