By Nancy Mills, Special for USA TODAY
LOS ANGELES � "I'm a leap-before-you-look girl," says Piper Perabo, who plays a CIA spy on USA Network's Covert Affairs. "That's me chasing the bad guys. That's me running down the Potomac. One of the fun things about making this show is that they let me go for it.
By Steve Wilkie, USA Network
Piper Perabo stars as young CIA agent Annie Walker in USA Network's Covert Affairs, which returns for its second season tonight.
By Steve Wilkie, USA Network
Piper Perabo stars as young CIA agent Annie Walker in USA Network's Covert Affairs, which returns for its second season tonight.
"I know that when I'm watching an action sequence and they cut away and they show the hero from behind for the rest of the fight scene, I think, 'Oh, the actor just left and now we're watching a stunt person.' It takes me out of it. I'm willing to suffer the bumps and bruises to make the show really great."
When Covert Affairs returns for its second season tonight, Perabo will be front and center again. She plays Annie Walker, a recent recruit who speaks nine languages and seems fearless.
At the end of the first season, Annie was escaping from Sri Lanka with former boyfriend Ben Mercer (Eion Bailey). "He was shot in the final frame," Perabo says. "The premiere episode answers the question of what happens to him."
What else can she reveal about the upcoming season? Viewers can expect more action and more travel.
They'll also see more of Kari Matchett (her boss), Anne Dudek (her sister), Christopher Gorham (her blind handler) and Sendhil Ramamurthy (a fellow agent).
"We're adding a couple of new people to the mix, but I can't really say more. It's all very secretive in the spy world," Perabo says.
Can Perabo, 34, keep a secret?
"I try really hard," she says. "Sometimes if they're too juicy, it's hard for me not to tell a few select friends. What's the fun of a secret if you have to keep it to yourself?"
Perabo says she doesn't think she'd make a good spy.
"It's tough enough pretending to be a spy. They must be exhausted, trying to keep those secrets for years and years. Friends are important no matter what. But if you have a really stressful job and a lot on your plate, just being able to talk to your friends about what's going on is one of the great pleasures of life. If you can't, it adds to the stress."
In 2007, Perabo's concern about doing good work prompted her to take a big chunk of time off. "I had just finished Beverly Hills Chihuahua," she says. "Kids really liked that movie, but I felt I could do better. I just wasn't satisfied."
So when the single star returned to her New York home, she began asking actors she admired how they achieved success. "The same teacher (noted acting instructor Maggie Flanigan) kept coming up. I talked to her about what I was trying to improve and ended up stopping for two years to study with her," Perabo says.
During that time, Perabo began auditioning for plays, and she eventually won a role in Neil LaBute's controversial Reasons to Be Pretty.
Stepping away from a flourishing career that included such films as Coyote Ugly, Cheaper by the Dozen and The Prestige was risky. But Perabo says, "It was worth it. It completely changed how I work. It changed everything."
Perabo's Broadway performance helped her win the lead in Covert Affairs.
"The big shock of doing television is that it goes so fast," Perabo says. "Holy cow! You need to have some kind of methodology about how to work and prepare a scene. It has to be instinctive."
Next up for Perabo is the time-travel thriller Looper starring Bruce Willis, Jeff Daniels, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Emily Blunt.
"I play this bordello/dance hall girl," she says. "I cancanned for so long, I thought, 'I want to go back to the action sequences. Cancan is too difficult.'"
Still, Perabo insists that she's not an adrenalin junkie. "I get it all out of my system at work," she says. "One of the stunt guys said to me when we were doing a scene where I jump out of a plane, 'Oh, there's a neat place to go bungee-jumping near here.' I was like, 'Are you crazy? I do that at work.'
"On my day off, I just want to go for a walk with a cup of coffee. I don't want to jump off anything."
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