As moderator Natalie Abrams put it at the Alcatraz panel at WonderCon this weekend, actress Parminder Nagra may have spent more time in a hospital in Alcatraz Season 1 than she did in her entire time as a cast member of the hospital series ER. Nagra plays Dr. Lucy Banerjee in the present-day sequences of Alcatraz, and of course, we’ve seen her as Dr. Lucille Sengupta in flashback sequences. Needless to say, there’s a lot of her backstory left to be explained.
KSiteTV’s Craig Byrne was one of several journalists to speak with Ms. Nagra at the WonderCon Alcatraz press room. The panel, which preceded the press Q&A, implied that Lucy might come out of a coma as early as tonight, to which Nagra simply says “I think everybody will be pleasantly surprised.”
Nagra admits that she has many questions about her present-day counterpart. “What was it like meeting Hauser for the first time, especially if they had been involved romantically. What does it mean when you see somebody again that you adore, and they’re not the same person? Physically they’re not even the same person. What does that even mean? There are so many questions just like that. And also, just how he’s changed as well, in terms of his personality. You’ll see in a lot of the flashbacks that the young Hauser is very upbeat and jovial, and almost sort of vulnerable to a certain extent. And then you see Hauser in the modern day, who’s slightly cynical, likes to shoot people… How does somebody who’s known him as the other person deal with this new person she’s come up against? The same person, in that sense. It’s sort of been quite nice to play that, actually.”
Regarding theories about her character, Parminder says that they all have theories about Alcatraz. “I think we all sit around having these conversations about what we think it could be, where we think it could go, and I don’t think any of it ends up ever being true. When the writers come to visit, we’re always trying to grill them, and sometimes try and point them in directions we would like them to take our characters,” she reveals.
Whether or not Lucy awakens tonight, Executive Producer Jennifer Johnson tells us that tonight’s Alcatraz episode, “Webb Porter,” has many “big moments” that serve almost as a mini-finale before next week’s big two-hour season finale. Lucy out of her coma certainly would qualify as a big moment… stay tuned, be sure to watch tonight, and keep an eye on KSiteTV for more interviews as the week progresses! In the meantime, enjoy this promo reel for Season 1, telling the story so far and possibly offering some teases of the future:
