Skip to main content

INTERVIEW: Brandon Routh and Caitlin Bassett Talk Father Daughter Relationships in ‘Quantum Leap’

Caitlin Bassett as Addison standing next to her father (Brandon Routh) on Quantum Leap

Quantum Leap might not be a show you grew up with but you probably have at least heard of it. Especially now with the new NBC series that takes us on a journey through the Quantum Leap project. The original series starred Scott Bakula as Sam, who would leap into the lives of people and try to fix something that had gone wrong. The reboot series does the same thing this time with Ben (Raymond Lee). At his side to help him with whose life he’s jumped into is Addison (Caitlin Bassett).

Recommended Videos

She does a great job at guiding Ben but she also clearly struggles with her own past and is growing to be a better person. We see little moments where she opens up to Ben about how she used to be and we see her grow with each mission but her biggest task comes when Ben jumps into the life of one of her father’s old crew.

In preparation for Addison’s big journey with her father, I spoke with Bassett and Routh for their roles and I asked Bassett about getting to explore Addison in these moments where she could easily just stay the same because it is about Ben and who he is helping. But instead, the show highlights each of its characters and gives them their time. “What a treat, right? That’s what I think is so special about this iteration in particular is that, as the season will go on and as we go to season two, everybody on this team gets to grow, including Ben through what has happened,” Bassett said. “It was traumatic when Ben did what he did, but like most traumas, it then allowed and called to it great moments of growth for all of the characters. And I love that the writers are really taking opportunity and giving us as actors these bigger journeys to go on that isn’t just so focused on Ben himself and using the leaps as ways for all of us to grow and learn things.”

And in episode 14, Addison comes face to face with her father. Brandon Routh joins the cast of Quantum Leap as Alexander Augustine, a complicated man who wants to protect his daughter but doesn’t know the impact it will have on her. And there’s a beautiful moment at the end of the episode when Addison is talking to him even though she knows he can’t see her and Alexander responds in his own way. So I asked Routh about bringing that scene to life and the emotions there playing it as someone who doesn’t hear what is being said to them.

“We’re playing, right? We’re creating a moment,” he said. “Though absolutely I allow for the possibility that if Augustine was really having that moment, if the events of this episode play out as they play out at the end and he makes the decisions he makes in the episode, which could potentially shift his future, maybe he is able to project emotionally into the future to a version of his daughter or just feel the impacts of that future moment in the present.”

You can watch our full interview here:

Brandon Routh’s guest starring episode of Quantum Leap is out now and seeing Routh and Bassett’s work together is incredible.

(Featured image: NBC)

Have a tip we should know? [email protected]

Author
Rachel Leishman
Rachel Leishman (She/Her) is an Assistant Editor at the Mary Sue. She's been a writer professionally since 2016 but was always obsessed with movies and television and writing about them growing up. A lover of Spider-Man and Wanda Maximoff's biggest defender, she has interests in all things nerdy and a cat named Benjamin Wyatt the cat. If you want to talk classic rock music or all things Harrison Ford, she's your girl but her interests span far and wide. Yes, she knows she looks like Florence Pugh.

Filed Under:

Follow The Mary Sue: