Christopher Gorham sees success for his CIA analyst on USA's 'Covert Affairs'
Christopher Gorham, who costars with Piper Perabo in USA's new espionage series Covert Affairs, explains that his role as Auggie, a blind CIA analyst, "requires an extra level of focus."
Christopher Gorham, who costars with Piper Perabo in USA's new espionage series Covert Affairs, explains that his role as Auggie, a blind CIA analyst, "requires an extra level of focus."
"I can't physically do anything in any scene without thinking through how I would do it without being able to see," he says. "If we're sitting at a table, I can't just grab my glass and pick it up to make a toast - little details like that."
Focus clearly isn't a problem for the 35-year-old TV veteran (Popular, Felicity, Jake 2.0, Ugly Betty). He conducts the interview while driving his wife and three small children from a visit to Chicago back to Toronto (where Covert Affairs is produced), somehow carrying on a thoughtful conversation above an insistent chorus of high-pitched squeaks and wails.
"Auggie is such a special character, a womanizing blind guy with not one ounce of self-pity," says Doug Liman, the executive producer of Covert Affairs, which debuted strongly last week with 4.9 million viewers.
"What Chris has done, which is amazing, is that he has transformed Auggie from a blind guy to a guy who among other things happens to be blind," says Liman. "His blindness does not define him. This is why Chris has hit a home run with this performance."
Auggie is a former Special Ops commando who was blinded during a mission in Iraq. His disability makes his computer proficiency all the more impressive.
"He has software that will read files to him," says Gorham. "He listens to them at three times normal speaking speed. To me it sounds like gibberish. But Auggie can do that.
"The only part that is a little unrealistic is how good he is at braille. The really great braille readers typically have been blind since birth."
Gorham tailored Auggie's behavior to fit his special circumstances.
"One thing I've noticed is that people who lost their sight as adults are really good at making eye contact. You often forget that they're blind.
"It can be disconcerting. It's hard to tell if they can see you or not. Typically, people who are blind since birth have to be taught to look at people. It's not something they naturally do."
The painstaking effort to make Auggie convincing can mean more work for the rest of the cast.
"Chris' diligence requires an extra rehearsal or two, especially with props and action sequences," says Perabo, who plays Annie, the fledgling agent undergoing a baptism by fire. "He works through each step, piece by piece to make sure everything is true. New characters still walk up to him to hand him things without announcing themselves, so the rehearsals keep everyone on the same page."
Gorham has been honing his acting skills since he was a kid growing up in Fresno, Calif.
"In fourth grade, I was in Alice Through the Looking Glass. I played the Mad Hatter. I won best actor that year, an honor usually reserved for sixth graders," he says modestly.
His TV career did not begin auspiciously. He was fired from his first series, Push, a 1998 drama about aspiring Olympic athletes.
"I couldn't understand why I was let go. I felt my performance was really good," he says. "I recently found the tape cleaning out the garage. The fact that I looked like I was 12 kind of undercut my ability to play a character who was essentially Michael Phelps."
Push was canceled after three episodes. By that time, Gorham had landed a recurring role on Party of Five as Elliot, the boyfriend of Jennifer Love Hewitt who realizes he is more attracted to Scott Wolf.
Gorham may be best known for his role on Ugly Betty as Henry, Betty's sweet suitor from the accounting department. But he got more satisfaction from playing a very different Henry - the serial killer on the 2009 CBS series Harper's Island.
"It was a nice change of pace," he says. "The last episode I was really proud of. It was one of my best performances to date. To make people feel sorry for a guy who just killed all his friends so he could sleep with his half sister? I felt pretty good about that."
After working steadily for more than a dozen years in prime time, Gorham has developed a pretty good sense of when a show will succeed. And he's getting a good vibe off Covert Affairs.
His optimism was fortified while walking around Chicago with his family.
"We took the kids to Navy Pier," he says. "I saw hundreds of people walking around with Covert Affairs fans. It was a promotional giveaway. It's just Piper looking sexy with a gun, which is interesting because she doesn't carry a gun on the show. But it sure makes a great poster."