‘Blindspot’s Luke Mitchell on Why Roman Might Be Redeemable

Luke Mitchell as Roman, Jaimie Alexander as Jane Doe in Blindspot - Season 2
Peter Kramer/NBC
"Let's lie to Weller. That always works out well."

Oh brother, where art thou backstory?! Ever since Jane (Jaimie Alexander) came face-to-face with her previously unknown brother Roman (Luke Mitchell from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) in the Season 2 opener, we and Jane (Jaimie Alexander) have been trying to figure out what is up with the guy.

At times sweetly protective, other times horrifyingly brutal, the hottie who has aligned himself with their adoptive mother, Shepherd (Michelle Hurd), has a lot of issues and even more secrets. In this exclusive clip from this week’s episode, Roman implores dear old mom to start sharing more of the Sandstorm group’s goals with Jane, so we implored Mitchell to share his take on whether his character is a maniac or just misunderstood.

Ok, first off, this guy is so violent! In the second episode, Roman just went to town on that one guy…
Oh, yeah! Yeah, he won’t hesitate and he doesn’t care if he’s bloody. He doesn’t really notice when he’s quite…there was that scene where he was punching that guy in the face so much that there’s a little bit of splash-back on his own face. That was good. [Laughs]

The writers have been laying little nuggets about this guy. He’s been referred to as “a psychopath” and “the maniac brother,” we’ve seen his hair-trigger rage, and yet he also mentioned that Jane always took care of him as a kid. So what’s going on with this guy?
How long do we have? [Laughs] Everything’s been going on with this guy. He’s a very complicated kid. I think that deep down he’s this little boy in that crappy orphanage. His parents were killed and he grew up in, or spent some time, I should say in a pretty horrendous orphanage in South Africa, and then was raised by Shepherd, who wasn’t the most motherly of people. He was a weak kid, or the weaker kid of him and Jane. We’re going to explore that a little more moving forwards.

How would you assess his relationship with Jane?
They’re blood related and, like I said, his parents are dead, and he went through this traumatic experience with his sister. She was there and tried to protect him the majority of the time. They were taken into the care of this woman who rescued them and is their savior, but as it turns out she might just be in an anti-government organization who has plans to completely change the world as we know it, so there’s that. [Laughs] But his entire life he’s never been seen as good enough, and now that Jane is back into the fold he’s now reminded that he’s No. 2 again.

He needs a hug!
[Laughs] I think deep down, the little boy in him wants Shepherd to look him in the eyes and say, “I love you. You’re good enough.”

So there’s some sibling rivalry, but I feel like, if there’s going to be anyone who Roman would care about it’s going to be Jane.
Absolutely. There is a little rivalry there, but nothing compared to the love that he has for her. I say he has for her, because she doesn’t remember what their relationship was. She’s starting to get the fact that they are brother and sister, but she’s still trying to figure out what that means and what that relationship is now. He’s still got all of that. He’s got all that history, all that memory, all that feeling. Above all else, he wants to protect her. He can’t lose her again. He lost her three times already. That’s where it gets interesting in the story, because he’s a part of this organization that’s headed by his mother to determine to achieve this goal, but his allegiance is a hundred percent with his sister. He will do whatever it takes to protect her.

RELATED: Interrogating Blindspot’s Jaimie Alexander and Sullivan Stapleton

I’m just realizing also that you and Jaimie are both graduates of the Marvel universe now. She even brought her “Thor” character, Lady Sif, to S.H.I.E.L.D. a couple times.
Yeah, I think she was maybe in Season 1. Maybe again in Season 2, but I hadn’t started yet obviously when she came in.

Have you guys discussed your experiences? Do they give you a secret handshake for everyone who’s worked in the Marvel world?
[Laughs] Yes, we have a secret handshake, but it’s a secret, so we can’t talk about out! Obviously it’s nice having common ground with someone that you’re meeting for the first time and have to work with a lot, so it was good to have some conversations about working on S.H.I.E.L.D. She’d tell me about working on the movies and all that sort of stuff. I thought that was cool.

Blindspot airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on NBC