After almost a decade off the air, the Leverage crew --  Sophie (Gina Bellman), Eliot (Christian Kane), and Parker (Beth Riesgraf) -- have reunited for IMDb TV's Leverage: Redemption. While Alec (Aldis Hodge) spends most of the revival otherwise occupied, his role in the team dynamic is filled by his hacker foster sister, Breanna (Alyese Shannon), allowing a new perspective on the world to join the group. Together, the team confronts a new generation of criminals, who've found ways to make the law protect them. Despite the heavy topics the show tackles, it never loses sight of the charm and sense of fun that defined the original.

Ahead of Leverage: Redemption's return on Oct. 8, CBR interviewed series stars Gina Bellman and Alyese Shannon. The duo discussed Bellman's reprisal of Sophie and praised Shannon's fresh perspective as an essential ingredient to makes Leverage's revival work.

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CBR: Leverage: Redemption has such a unique tonal juggling act, confronting heavy topics head-on while still maintaining a sense of fun and excitement. What excites you as performers about being in a show like that?

Alyese Shannon: Well, for me, I'm a little scrub out here auditioning and you see some of the material that comes through and not a lot is really on this level -- that intersection of politics, personal relationships, current events, and social commentary. And for it to approach it all with comedy, it's a jewel of a show where you're having a great time and you're still biting off stuff that's important, but not more than you can chew. It's a fantastic experience.

Gina Bellman: For me, it's a different thing when you watch a show -- how you pick what you watch against how you sort of pick what you're in. If I watch a show, I want to watch something based on where it fits in the society, or what's happening, what it's about, what the themes are. But then, when you're choosing a part, you are much more going for its emotional heart. Like, how it hits you. What I love in any role, for me, is if I can play emotion and an emotional journey, and play physical comedy at the same time, then that's a win-win. That's my sweet spot.

And [the creatives behind the scenes] kept delivering this. They managed to deliver it over and over and over again for me, so I'm always looking for those moments when I re-open a script. But I think, this iteration of Leverage, even more than before, is the emotional stuff was great because it was very late until I was able to internalize it. It didn't depend on somebody else and bouncing off someone else.

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Gina, you were a major part of the original run of Leverage as Sophie. What was the most surprising element of returning to the character after all these years?

Bellman: Well, the thing is when you get offered the job, you don't know what to expect because you haven't seen any scripts in advance or anything. I knew that Sophie was going to have suffered a loss. I was a little bit nervous about playing grief because you want to be really sensitive about that and you want to do it in a way that feels truthful. What I was really happy with is that they didn't overload me with a lot of baggage. Sophie's journey was always about putting one foot in front of the other.

In the past, Sophie had been like a bird in flight. She'd always been looking over her shoulder, attracted to shiny things like the little blackbird. But I think this series, the fact that it was about one day at a time, one step at a time, foot forward, and just dealing with her kind of trying to find purpose and direction... That was surprising because it was exactly what I wanted to play.

Alyson, you get to bring some fresh energy to the Leverage crew with Breanna -- and something Executive Producer Dean Devlin and showrunner Kate Rorick said that I think really stood out about the character was how her youth really defines her experience with the world, in a way no one else on the team can fully comprehend. What was it like to bring that energy to the show?

Shannon: Well, it comes from the existence of me being born of that. I'm a millennial. Some would say I'm Gen Z. I think I'm a millennial. It comes with the way I was socialized and that coming... Sometimes, onset, there are some jokes that Gina does not think are funny, but I'm just sending out my millennial quirky stuff or whatever. She's like, "I don't get that." But sometimes I'll get her, right? Like, I'll get this like one little video of somebody going like, "I'm a gummy bear." I think Breanna has a little bit of that. That sort of approach to life that's just into different things, and, I guess, being that character in that place, you kind of get to this point where you're like, "I see everything differently. And I know that the world is this way."

As far as my representation goes as a woman of color and a queer woman of color and all these things, I just naturally see the world differently, but how can I still show up and be useful and have that to offer rather than holding it over people's heads? I think Breanna gets into the groove of that. Like, in my book, you're evil, but also you have something useful to teach me, too, because I can't just know everything. I think the journey of Breanna is about that -- her coming to grips with both things.

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I don't think it's wrong to say that the dedicated fanbase for the original show is a lot of the reason Leverage: Redemption got the chance to come to screens. What does it mean to you both, as performers, to know your work is bringing such joy to an audience that's been so receptive to the revival, especially during the difficult times we've all found ourselves dealing with?

Bellman: I was at another show before that's called Coupling that had that same effect on people. It brought so much joy to people and people still stop me in the street and say, "I love Coupling so much." The thing is, I've done a lot of drama as well, but there's something about making people laugh. Like you're saying, the kind of darkness, and mundaneness, and the pressure of just daily life these days, and the anxiety. I think, what I love about this show is that we take very sophisticated things in society and issues and problems, then we build really intricate and challenging sort of plots around them, but we treat it with heart, and lightness, and affection. I think it's that sort of combination, that really touches people.

I think, also, that the characters have such affection for each other, as well as the team that is making the show, and that sort of bleeds through to the fan base in a kind of... It's alchemy, in a way. Anything successful, in some ways, is just alchemy. Some people aren't going to get us like we're making serious things seem trivial or whatever, but other people see it as an embrace and a hug, and those are the people that have brought the show back. Those are the people that had given it this other life.

Shannon: Absolutely. As far as I'm concerned, I've never experienced the amount of love and the reception that this show has. So, I feel incredibly blessed and lucky for it to be going off the way it's going off. I feel a sense of responsibility too... The original cast always talks about the sense of responsibility and that's why they take -- despite it being a funny show and a little bit off the ground -- very seriously. It's because of the love that there are people that see themselves reflected in Sophie, Parker, Elliot, Mr. Wilson, and Alec Hardison. They take that so seriously because of it. I see why they do it now, just from those first eight episodes. I see why they come to work and they're always looking for new ways to deepen their character. I think it's brilliant.

A revival of the TNT original series, Leverage: Redemption returns with new episodes on IMDb TV on Oct. 8

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