“Covert Affairs” returns for its Season 4 premiere next month on USA, but residents of Medellin in Colombia, will be getting an early first look as Piper Perabo heads down to South America for a special screening on Saturday.
Piper will appear alongside her new “Covert Affairs” cast member Manolo Cardona (a superstar in his native Colombia), and director Stephen Kay, as they screen the premiere and third episode of the new season, both of which were filmed in the area.
“It was really exciting,” Piper said on the “Covert Affairs” set in Toronto last week when USA Network flew AccessHollywood.com and several other outlets up to the set as their guests. “It was Holy Week [when we filmed down there], so the kids were coming out and watching and after the first take they would applaud.
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“We were like, ‘You can’t applaud, because we’re filming,’” Piper laughed. “And so then, the teenagers were like, ‘OK, we’ll be in charge of saying nobody can applaud.’ It was like just this incredible community.”
While filming the show’s season premiere in Colombia, Piper learned from Laura Silva Roldan (who served as a producer for the show in the locale) that only a handful of towns in the nation have movie theaters. To bring movies to the masses, Roldan and her husband have started The Wandering Cinema Project, where they take a portable screen and travel around the country, to bring movies to the people.
During filming, Laura suggested to Piper that she and her husband would be interested in screening “Covert Affairs” for the community they shot the episodes in, a request that inspired the series star to go one step further.
“When she said, ‘We’ll show it to them,’ then I called USA — I actually called the president of USA, Jeff [Wachtel]. I was like, ‘You need a base tan, don’t you?’ Let’s go to Colombia and let’s do a screening for them!’ And so we’ve organized this screening to show Episodes 1 and 3,” Piper said. “So they’ll see it before the United States will see it.”
To make it a grand affair, USA network will be providing beverages and popcorn for the community at the screening. But, Piper joked the fans might be more interested in one of her co-stars in attendance than the food or the television drama.
“Manolo is coming,” she said of her new easy-on-the-eyes co-star. “He’s so famous, nobody’s gonna even watch the episode. They’re gonna be staring at Manolo.”
“We go flying through these places when we film… but this was a place that it was a lot of work for them to let us [film in] and I was just so happy to find a way [to say], ‘Thank you,’ and ‘We’re not using you as a backdrop’… I hope they like it,” Piper added. “I’m so excited.”
USA Network made a donation to Wandering Cinema for equipment and to help create a safe, green space for the community screenings.
Catch the USA network premiere of “Covert Affairs” on July 16 at 9/8c.
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