When you’re dealing with a criminal mastermind that rivals the levels of Carmen Sandiego, you have to be smart. And for “The Endgame” star Ryan Michelle Bathé, the intelligence required of her character Val Turner is the best part of playing her.
The NBC series centers on FBI agent Turner as she attempts to sort out and thwart Elena Federova’s (Morena Baccarin) mastermind criminal plan. The thing about Elena is, she plays the long game. Her plans are intricate, and the clues she gives Val are subtle. But so far, Val is the only agent who’s been able to truly keep up.
Turner is a heroine who’s more than just a brave woman resolved to figure it out as she goes. She has to be tactical. And for the actress playing her, that’s the draw of the character.
“I think the best part, for me, of the show is the how smart Val has to be,” Bathé told TheWrap. “And the trick of it for me — or the fun of it, because this is the challenge — is how do I arrive at those things without it seeming that I’m just clairvoyant, right? Because it happens so fast. Everything happens so fast in the show, and Val has to put [it] together, and I, Ryan, my brain has to work like that, and work that fast, and put these things together.”
Bathé added that playing Val has given her some intense insight into the minds of people actually working in the FBI and other intelligence agencies. You can watch TheWrap’s full interview with Ryan Michelle Bathé in the video above.
“The more I play her, the more I realized that it’s a skill set,” she added. “And it’s how people in the CIA, and how their neurons have been fired to work. There are people who really do work at that speed, and that level, and that way, solving these puzzles and these riddles in real time, in real life. And that’s actually been, I think of all of the things, that’s been the best part.”
That said, Bathé has also enjoyed playing the tension between Val Turner and her colleague Jonathan Doak (Noah Bean). Because, in this case, the two get to be openly resentful of each other, without putting up any fronts.
“Most people have a polite veneer,” Bathé explained. “So to play a character and make it real where their polite veneers fall away — there’s also a level of intimacy in hatred, right? Because to really show you that I don’t like you there is a level of intimacy there.”
Of course, going toe-to-toe with Morena Baccarin as her co-star has been “incredible” for Bathé too. The actress noted that she’s just as big a fan of Baccarin as most people are.
“The Endgame” airs on Monday nights at 10/9c on NBC.