‘Quantum Leap’s Raymond Lee Says Season 2’s Relationships Will Be Tested

Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Season 2 of Quantum Leap.

The Big Picture

• Quantum Leap‘s Raymond Lee was initially in disbelief when he found out the show would film an episode in Cairo, Egypt.
• Lee was most excited to film scenes in front of the Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx and found the experience surreal.
• The actor had always dreamed of playing a spy in an adventure story similar to those he drew inspiration from, and this episode fulfilled that dream.

The NBC series Quantum Leap tackles time travel, various decades, different locations, all-new guest casts, and it does so on a weekly basis. With a three-year time jump in Season 2, further complications have arisen for Dr. Ben Song (Raymond Lee) and his ultimate goal of returning to a life without leaping. Originally, he just wanted to get back to the love of his life, fiancé Addison (Caitlin Bassett), but losing track of him through time led to her eventually moving on with someone new, and now Ben has found his own connection with Hannah Carson (Eliza Taylor), a woman he keeps crossing paths with in some of his leaps and for whom he’s developed feelings. And through it all, the fact that Ben keeps leaping means that he can’t really stop to process everything that’s happened or how to handle a budding new romance when he has no idea when throughout time, if ever, he might cross paths with Hannah again.

During this interview with Collider, Lee talked about the incredible experience of shooting an episode in Cairo, Egypt, wanting to take special care with the development of the Ben and Hannah relationship, getting to live out a dream of playing a spy, that Lee and Taylor make it a point to run lines together, how much of the season story arc he likes to be made aware of, how Ben really does have a lot to unpack when it comes to life and love, and how fans of the show should expect the unexpected moving forward.

Before the interview ended, I wanted to follow up with Lee about a video where he happened to mention that his childhood celebrity crush was Kelly Kapowski to see if they’ve tried to get Tiffani Thiessen as a guest on an episode. And while no one has officially spoken to her, if she’d be willing, the door is always open.

Raymond Lee Thought They Were Joking About Shooting a Season 2 Episode in Egypt

Collider: What was your reaction to learning that not only would you have an episode set in Egypt, but that you would actually go there to shoot it?

RAYMOND LEE: I thought they were joking. I mean, Cairo? I thought, “Okay, cool, I’m gonna be leaping into Cairo on a stage, right? It’s gonna be on a soundstage. We’re gonna put in the pyramids and VFX the Sphinx.” And no, they weren’t kidding. They looked me square in the eyes and said, “Yeah, we’re gonna shoot it in Cairo.” Martin [Gero] explained to me that with his previous show, Blindspot, they shot in all the continents. He said, “This is something that we like to do and this is something that we’ve coordinated in the past, so this is possible.” It was a surreal thing to hear and I was beside myself.

Once you got a chance to read the script, what scene were you most looking forward to shooting and what was it like to actually be there and do it?

LEE: All the running through the bazaar, or anything that indicated that I was gonna be in front of the Pyramids of Giza, or the location in front of the Sphinx, scenes are one thing, but then to also picture the setting is another and I hadn’t been to any of those places. Just seeing it would have been an experience, in and of itself, but to know that I was gonna be doing scenes in front of it was something that I couldn’t even picture in my mind. More than anything, I was just excited to be in the locations. I look back at the production photos now and it looks like I was superimposed to be in front of these pyramids. It was completely bonkers.

Plus, the scenes with Eliza [Taylor]’s character, Hannah, were all so well written. Dean [Georgaris], specifically, had a really careful watch over those scenes. All our writers were tracking that journey really closely, but Dean, specifically, was making sure that was really well taken care of and the story was developed organically. Much like The Time Traveler’s Wife, we didn’t want to play into anything that was done before and we also wanted it to seem like it was feasible. The idea of time travel is already a pretty broad idea, but to also meet someone through time makes it even that much more impossible. And so, Hannah’s character was introduced to me in the beginning as a pitch as the Impossible Girl, for so many reasons. Those scenes were just so juicy.

Had you ever personally had a fantasy or dream of playing a spy in this kind of adventure story? Did this fulfill that?

LEE: Yeah, of course. The Bond movies, Indiana Jones movies, and Da Vinci Code were what I watched as inspiration for the things that I wanna be doing and that I’m interested in doing. The arc of Ben and Hannah is basically all of that combined. We start with her journey in a UFO setting. And then, we move over to an Oppenheimer-type world. And now, we’re in Cairo. There are all just really fantastical situations, but to fall in love with somebody during those times is even another added layer of complexity.

It’s cool that in just three episodes with Hannah, she’s already gone from a waitress to a physics student to helping Ben survive as a spy. That kind of story arc in three episodes seems unheard of on a TV show.

LEE: Yeah, we pinch ourselves, all the time, that we get to do these scenes. Not all actors love running lines, but she and I, especially, love running these lines because there’s a part of us that also doesn’t wanna say goodbye to it. The anticipation is so strong. We were like, “Oh, my gosh, we’re going to actually do these scenes in Cairo.” And then, when we were there, we were experiencing it. After it’s done, you’re just in the wake of this incredible fever dream, it feels like. We know how quickly these scenes come and go, so we were running the lines as many times as possible, so we could live in those shoes a little bit longer.

The ‘Quantum Leap’ Showrunners Are Willing to Keep the Cast Informed

When they gave you the information for what this season would be, did they just tell you where you’d be starting at, or did they give you a pretty good sense of where the season would also be ending?

LEE: I like to ask for a pretty rough sketch, overall. And then, when it comes to specific character dynamics and relationships, especially love relationships, I like to track it a little bit closer. Dean and Martin are an open book, and they’re willing to tell me anything and everything that I need to know to help me, as an actor. I also like not knowing everything, as well. As far as tracking relationships, I wanna know about something as intricate as Addison, Ben and Hannah, and also Tom. To know how I’m supposed to react to Tom, it’s important to know that he’s gonna show up, but it’s less important for me to know when they’re gonna leave. That, I like to be surprised by.

How weird is it for Ben to have Addison as his hologram again, he’s gotten to know Tom enough to actually like him, and he has these feelings for Hannah? It’s quite the interesting situation for him to be in. Would you say that he’s processing the current state of his life and relationships outside of leaping, or is he just trying to stay focused on the leaping?

LEE: Ben has a lot to unpack, and I love it. Anything where you can layer on complexity and throw as many things at this character as possible, I have a huge appetite for wanting to know about the way people work, the way they perform under stress, and the way they have to juggle three different bits of information at once while trying to retain the overall plot. To be able to play these little moments and to excavate those moments on my own is really where the work is. And then, once I’ve done all my homework and I put myself there as Ben, and I have Addison over my shoulder while I also have googly eyes for Hannah, those are the real juicy parts of what they’ve written for me. That’s what really makes for a great story. As plot-driven as our show is, we get to really layer in the character’s journey this season, which talking about an appetite, makes it very delicious for me. Those are the really fun scenes to play.

According to Raymond Lee, Ben Is Still Unpacking His Feelings About Addison

Since Ben started leaping, this thing with Hannah is the first time Ben has been able to build a relationship with someone that he can actually physically touch in the same space. Do you feel like actually being able to connect with Hannah has helped him understand why Addison ultimately moved on?

LEE: That’s a great question. Yeah, I suppose that’s something that can help him. I think Ben is still unpacking that, but that is something that can definitely help him understand Addison’s journey. That big blow-up episode where Ben asks Addison to not be in his hologram anymore, I think he just couldn’t handle all of it, at the time. And then, there were some times in between, where you weren’t seeing him on screen, and maybe in those quiet moments, he was able to dissect those thoughts. It’s my understanding that one of Ben’s major love languages is touch, and he and Addison have been able to communicate to one another many times.

In the world of Quantum Leap, we’re having to deal with big ideas all the time, so we’re all working at the top of our intelligence to figure out what’s going on with the science of it all. In the quiet moments, Ben and Addison could be alone and just be with each other in a room and maybe hold each other and calm each other down or be with one another. Ben has that now with Hannah and it’s a source of major comfort. It’s also really amazing because I’m not there for the scenes with Caitlin [Bassett] and Peter [Gadiot], but from what I’ve been watching, they’re almost in an embrace every time they speak to one another. With Ben and Hannah, and Addison and Tom, the language of love that they’re speaking is the thing that they’ve both been missing.

In each episode, we get moments that feel a little less like Ben and a little more like whoever it is that everyone else is seeing, and you really get to play with your mannerisms and physicality in those moments. Out of the Season 2 characters you’ve lept into, what were you most nervous about pulling off?

LEE: The Salem witch trial was challenging. It started with the fitting. I was like, “Okay, cool, it’s a bonnet. I’m in my teens. I have to fit the period. I’m a servant girl, so I have to play status.” There was status, wardrobe, age, and time period. When somebody is of lower status, which was very clearly defined in that time period, as a servant girl to someone, I can’t readily yell orders at whomever I’m trying to save. So, how can I play status and play this gender, age, and all of that, without losing it? I needed to retain that, the entire time. I find out more things, on the day, than I do in preparation, a lot of times, because you meet the actors, you look at the costumes, you look at the time period and the set dressing, and you go, “Okay, this is the world I’m in.” So, it really helped me to be around our guest cast a lot because they were teenagers. Just being around that energy helped me to stay in Ben’s character better.

Was there anything that could even compete with Egypt, as being the most fun episode?

LEE: Egypt was fun, but it was also extremely challenging. It’s hard to parse out the fun times when you’re like, “Did we get it? I hope we got it. Was that background in the shot? Was that shop owner, who’s living in 2023, in that shot wearing a hoodie and ball cap? Should we shoot that over? Can we even shoot it over? Can we lock down this entire block? It was fun watching me see all the A.D.s try to get everything together. I’m really just having a lot of fun with the Ben and Hannah arc. Our writers are smart and they know how to put me in great wardrobe to be in these romantic scenes. As a UFO investigator, I wore a very smart suit. As a spy, I wore a very smart suit. As somebody who was a professor during the Oppenheimer era, I wore a very smart suit. They had me looking good for the romantic scenes, and those have been the most fun to play. If you look good and you feel good, you have fun.

I love how Hannah is on Ben’s level. She’s not somebody that he has to keep explaining everything to. She just goes with it and can figure it out, in any moment, which is nice because then we really get to know them, instead of her trying to catch up on everything.

LEE: Yeah, they really bounce off each other well. They’re finishing each other’s sentences. I love that they’ve written in that any time they need to solve a problem, it has to do with physics. It’s so nerdy and cool, at the same time, which is kind of the show.

Raymond Lee Reveals There Are Bigger Things at Play in ‘Quantum Leap’ Season 2

What can you say to tease, what’s to come this season, after where this episode leaves off? What will they have to look forward to next, moving forward after Egypt?

LEE: I’d say that whatever you’re expecting to happen is not gonna happen. There are bigger things at play than just these love relationships. We’re gonna see how these love relationships get tested by forces outside of them that they have no control over. We’ll see which relationship can really stand the test of time, so to speak.

To end on a fun and silly question, I saw a video with you where you said that your childhood celebrity crush was Kelly Kapowski. I’m curious about whether you’ve ever tried to get Tiffani Thiessen on the show. I feel like she would be great in any era and that totally needs to happen.

LEE: I certainly wouldn’t say no. I hope she is reading this article. It’s always fun to hear if somebody is a fan of the show because our follow-up question is always, “Would you wanna be on it?” If she’s watching the show and she’s enjoying it, I feel like our writers would be very open to having her. I certainly would put in a strong vote for her. I feel like our guests get to have an exceptional arc in our show and I get more excited for the guest’s arc, a lot of times. So, anybody who is reading this who’s a fan of the show, please let us know.

Quantum Leap airs on NBC and is available to stream at Peacock. Check out the Season 2 trailer:

Watch at Peacock