QUANTUM LEAP: Nanrisa Lee Previews Jenn’s Time as Ben’s Hologram

When Ben (Raymond Lee) finds himself in the body of a public defender on the Monday, March 13 episode of QUANTUM LEAP, he needs a different kind of help to get through the mission: Jenn (Nanrisa Lee).

“This show is such a fun show to make, but…one of the things that we miss out on, for the team in present day, is that we don’t get to shoot with Ray,” Nanrisa Lee acknowledges to Give Me My Remote in the video below. “We don’t really have scenes with Ben. We hang out, and he’s great, but we don’t actually get to work with him very much. So I’m just really thrilled about the idea of getting a whole episode to play around with him. His comedic timing is so great. And he’s just so fun to work with.”

With very little on-screen history to work with, “I brought in a lot of my personal experience with Ray, which is that Ray is a lovely guy,” Lee says. “He’s like the most likable guy. And while Ray and I didn’t know each other before this show…we have a little bit of a sibling-y, cousin-y relationship. I think part of that is just like his personality style and mine and how we relate together and how we goober out together. But I think some of it is just because we’re both Korean.”

“Not to make it fully about race, but I think that when you share a certain heritage, even if you don’t know that person, you know that there are certain things that Ray and I have shared together in our lifetimes, living our lives in this country,” she continues. “And so I think there’s a little bit of a thread of understanding underneath our relationship. And, at least for me, I brought that in [to add to] Jenn’s relationship to Ben.”

The episode also allows Jenn to see Ben in a new way, literally. “Seeing him in this circumstance—it’s one thing to be watching them on the screen and monitoring him and kind of looking after him, but it’s another thing to see him almost in the flesh, as if I could almost touch him,” Lee notes. “And it’s been so long [that he’s been leaping] and there’s a lot of feelings there. But then [those emotions are] coupled with the pressure of the circumstance that you’re in, which is always racing against the clock.”

Outside of a little bit of trouble with working the handlink—Lee notes Caitlin Bassett gave her “a little crash course” on working with it, but “it was harder than I thought” to act with it—Jenn herself is a little wary about taking the big step to be Ben’s hologram.

“Jenn is the very reluctant, like, tribute to go in as the hologram,” Lee notes. But due to Jenn’s legal background, “it’s just gonna save a lot of time to be able to be there real-time and help him out in those moments.”

Also making things complicated? Jenn never really wanted to leap. “Addison was the one that was supposed to leap, and then Ben went [instead],” Lee points out. “I’ll speak for Jenn: [she] didn’t have any desire to actually be the leaper to go in or experience that world. I think that there’s an aspect of Jenn, in juxtaposition to the rest of the team, where, because…she has a criminal background—and because she more or less continues to steal information, it’s just sanctioned by the government—there’s a part of her that maybe didn’t think that she was a good guy in the same way that Addison is the hero. Ben is a good guy, you know? Magic [is our] leader. Ian has so much compassion. And so I think maybe there was some hesitation there, going in, and maybe that held her back.”

Check out the video for more from Lee…

QUANTUM LEAP, Mondays, 10/9c, NBC

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