Interview: Raymond Lee on Costumes, Crew and How Theatre Prepared Him for QUANTUM LEAP

The season 1 finale of "Quantum Leap" is this weekend, and before the audience finds out what happens with Ben and the team, lead actor Raymond Lee chats about taking on this series reboot, how he gets into character, and how doing theatre helped him prepare for this role.

Raymond Lee plays Ben, the lead in the new "Quantum Leap", which is more of an exploration and continuation of the original than starting over from scratch. As Ben, Lee plays both his main character and the characters of the people he leaps into each episode. Once he does, like in the original, he has to figure out why he is there and what he needs to do to help that person. Juggling two characters at once can be a challenge, plus there is the additional challenge of the fast pace of filming.

"Sometimes we have episodes coming down the pipeline that a lot of people are really excited about and usually, the costume department hears about it first because they have to start gathering together things.

So I'll hear in the makeup trailer, or while I'm in wardrobe, it's like, 'hey, episode six, you're going to play a flight attendant.'

I have it in my mind, but I have to be so present with what's going and filming on right then and there. So I can't think too much ahead. For me, it starts while I'm getting my wardrobe put on. While I'm picking out, oh, yeah, this pantsuit is right for the '80s and for a person in this place in their life.

We also play theme music, so if we're in the 50s, we'll play music from the 50s while we're getting dressed. So you just kind of have to trust yourself to whatever's happening."

Lee says that it's the terrific cast and crew that help him get into character so quickly for each new adventure.

"When you're there when you look at all the, you look at the set, and you look at everybody and their hair's made up, and they're wearing their period pieces. It doesn't take much, there's all the imaginative work it's done for you.

Hat's off to our casting department and everybody, our art department, set decoration, and everybody who puts it all together. Because now I'm just playing make-believe in another era, and it's very actually not that hard for me to get into that.

They're the unsung heroes of this show. Because we have to create a new world every week while they're striking the old world every week. It's an incredible amount of labor and they make it look easy.

I would love for them to get the recognition l that they deserve, it's miraculous what they do."

Not all costume choices are as fun as others, like when Lee played a lawyer and run around in painful high heels all episode. But he says that even that became fun in its own character-informing way.

"Walking around in high heels, those were painful, the higher they go the more it hurts. It became its own bit, too, because that episode was so fast-paced and we wanted to show a window into the life of a public defender. They have case files on top of case files and it's impossible feet to do all of this.

It's just running around in those heels, it kind of became its own character choice. Yeah, again, the costume informs."

Raymond starred in Qui Nguyen's new play VIETGONE when it premiered at MYC in New York. He says that working on that play, which was an irreverent look at the playwright's parents' stories as Vietnam War refugees, was a multifaceted challenge. It demanded linguistic, mental, and physical dexterity, complex language, and even musical rap interludes.

"Working on VIETGONE, and being the lead helped me realize that I can lead something like a tv show, like this one."

You can watch "Quantum Leap" Mondays at 10/9c on NBC and streaming the next day on Peacock.

Photo Credit: "Quantum Leap at WonderCon -- Pictured: Raymond Lee -- (Photo by: David Yeh/NBC)

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