Luke Mitchell's Been Putting His Blood, Sweat & Tears Into 'Blindspot'

19 April 2017 | 3:33 pm | Sam Wall

"I'm not allowed to use my hand, which is the most frustrating part because I'm right-handed and of course I cut my right hand."

Shooting for season two of Blindspot wrapped just a couple weeks ago and Gold Coast native Luke Mitchell is coming home for some much-needed R&R with the friends and family. "I actually haven't been home for almost a year," he shares, "so it's a little bit overdue, you might say." While he's here, however, he'll also be stopping in at Supanova to meet fans of the crime thriller, not to mention his turns on The Tomorrow People (John Young) and Agents Of SHIELD (Lincoln Campbell).

"We did a couple [conventions] last year, one in London and then one in Hanover in Germany, and we had a great time," says Mitchell. "It's just great to be able to meet fans from all over the world. It's a really kind of surreal and cool experience. At the end of the day, without fans we wouldn't have a job. If people don't want to watch you, you're not gonna get employed [laughs]. So I'm incredibly grateful."

He's safe in the job as Blindspot's Roman. Introduced at the beginning of season two as the brother of main protagonist Jane "Remi" Doe - whose discovery in a duffel bag in Times Square with her memory wiped but her ass-whooping skills intact, a la Jason Bourne, kicked off the show - Roman became an instant favourite.

"There's a couple of intense fight scenes coming up and there was a slight mishap during one of them where I cut myself with a knife and ended up in the emergency room."

"I think joining a show after the first season is always a tricky thing, you know, entering a fandom," Mitchell explains. "You never know how the fans of the show are going to respond to your character. It could be a really positive thing or it could be a really negative thing... But I've got to say the response from Blindspot fans has been pretty special considering I play a pretty complicated character."

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Mitchell is being polite. Roman's been working his way into the light, but he's still an amnesiac super soldier/terrorist with a Masters in torture and an extreme case of antisocial personality disorder. "He's a very interesting character to play, let me tell ya," Mitchell allows.

"It's a tough one," he adds. "I guess I just try and boil it down to the basics, you know, and the basics are he has this incredibly strong connection with his sister, who's his only blood relative. He's been through a very traumatic childhood experience, and so this bond he has with his sister is the driving force behind this guy."

Difficult mentality aside, Blindspot is another in a line of physically demanding roles for Mitchell, as Roman has a tendency to resolve his issues by throwing people about the room. "I'm currently post surgery on a tendon repair in my hand," chuckles Mitchell a little bashfully. "There's a couple of intense fight scenes coming up and there was a slight mishap during one of them where I cut myself with a knife and ended up in the emergency room. But I've been looked after very well and now it's just up to me to do some rehab to get the movement back. So it's about ten to 12 weeks of doing exercises with my hand every two hours. But apart from that I'm not allowed to use my hand, which is the most frustrating part because I'm right-handed and of course I cut my right hand. So I'm doing everything left-handed at the moment, which is, ah, interesting."

With the season (and Mitchell) wrapped up and only a couple of episodes left to air you might be hoping for a few sly hints as to where things are going to end, but Mitchell is admirably tight-lipped, only offering, "[Roman's] going to continue to walk a complicated path. It's very tough to say without giving too much away because a lot happens in the tail end of this season. But basically everything that can happen will happen," laughs Mitchell. "Trust will be tested and when things come up it'll be interesting to see how the different people react, and let's just say for the majority of the time they don't react well."

Luke Mitchell is appearing at Supanova Comic-Con & Gaming Expo at the Gold Coast this weekend, 22-23 April.