“Quantico” Star Talks Art Imitating Life in the Spy Game, and the Move to Monday Nights

ABC/Jonathan Wenk(NEW YORK) — Actor Blair Underwood, Priyanka Chopra and the rest of the cast returns to the twisty spy thriller Quantico on Monday night, in a move to a 10 p.m. time slot for the ABC drama.

“I’m really excited about the fact that we’re moving to Monday nights,” Underwood told ABC News, “excited about the lead-in we have with The Bachelor, which is a huge audience — you know, lead-ins help! Otherwise you’re kind of an island onto yourself, hoping people kind of tune in.”

In the show, the actor plays Lead CIA instructor Owen Hall, and Underwood explains the first show out of the gate starts to “pull back the layers” about the character. “You start to see some of his vulnerability. You know, whether its his daughter or — he’s no less of a great teacher, but you see the human behind the character.”

The actor agrees that working as a pretend spy has influenced his view of current political events, “Oh, very much so! I mean, come on: you turn on the news now, and it’s all about the CIA and the intelligence community. Absolutely, with a different perspective of…learning about this world…and the amount of regard and respect we must have for this intelligence community, is definitely bolstered by playing a character set in the intelligence community.

Earlier this week, Chopra suffered a concussion on the show’s New York set. After taking some doctor-required time off to rest, she recovered quickly enough to fly to Los Angeles and accept a People’s Choice Award Wednesday night for her portrayal of CIA agent Alex Parrish.

Quantico returns Monday, January 23, at 10 p.m. Eastern time on ABC.

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