Ever since Sight Unseen premiered on The CW, viewers have had questions about Sunny (Agam Darshi).
Upon her introduction in the series premiere, it’s clear she’s concealing a part of her life from both viewers and Tess (Dolly Lewis), with whom she forms a fast connection.
Monsters and Critics was fortunate enough to speak with Agam about the mystery surrounding Sunny and what it’s like working on a crime series that delves deep into its characters.
Check out the full interview below, and be sure to check out our previous interview with Daniel Gillies, who plays Jake.
Monsters and Critics: I’ve watched the first two episodes. It’s so good, and it’s leaving me with plenty of questions.
Agam Darshi: Oh, lovely. I’m so glad you’re enjoying it.
Monsters and Critics: What attracted you to Sight Unseen?
Agam Darshi: A lot, actually. It was really exciting to see a show with two female leads. And it was just quirky. It was written in a way that made it hard to pinpoint what genre it was.
Obviously, it’s a crime detective police show, but there’s something kind of light about it at the same time. There’s a lot of humor in it. It was just something that I felt like, as an actor, I hadn’t really been a part of before. So I think just finding the tone and really exploring what that was in the audition room was really exciting for me.
Monsters and Critics: I really like how it has its crime elements, and the characterization is so good as well. Many procedurals don’t focus as much on the characterization, but the show does so well with that.
Agam Darshi: You’re completely right. What’s so interesting is that the show’s main characters are the ones that the audience tunes in to watch week after week.
I feel like they have such great arcs throughout the season, and sometimes, especially in procedurals, you don’t usually get to see that. I completely agree with you. They’re really thoughtful, well-thought-out characters that Karen Troubetzkoy and Nikolijne Troubetzkoy created.
Monsters and Critics: Sunny is so interesting because there’s so much we don’t know about her, and everything she does leads to more questions. What has it been like for you to play as an actor?
Agam Darshi: I mean, I had a lot of questions as well coming into it. It was really interesting because I think Sunny was a big question mark from the very beginning.
I remember throwing myself on tape for the audition way back. A few months later, I heard that they wanted me to come in and talk to John Fawcett and Niko Troubetzkoy about the character before my next audition. So, you know, they gave me some information just to make her a little bit lighter and a little bit funnier, but always grounded.
And so that’s what I did. But then, once I got into testing for the role, there was a little bit of improv, but she’s very funny. She’s tragic, and she covers that up with a lot of comedy. And so that was sort of the seed that I took with me once I got the role and started to play with her: How much does she actually show?
What is her public and private persona? How much does she actually reveal to Tess?
She has a lot of baggage and secrets. So, how much does that weigh on her? And I think as the season progresses, we see that it does weigh on her, and as an actor, I would get little nuggets. I would get little ideas of the direction that they were going into, but a lot was a big question mark until I actually got the script, and then I was like, “Oh, wow, this is what happens.”
So it was very fun.
Monsters and Critics: She truly is a great character. It’s interesting that we know so little about her past but a lot about her personality.
Agam Darshi: I completely agree with you. Yeah, she’s so well-written and funny, and she has such a great balance with Tess’s character.
They’re a great balance for each other. They both need each other, which is great.
Monsters and Critics: Sunny and Tess’s relationship is so interesting. In the space of one episode, they’ve become so close, but there’s still this element that they aren’t fully open with each other. What do you think is holding Sunny back from telling Tess the truth about her past?
Agam Darshi: Well, you’re going to have to watch it. She has a lot of secrets and baggage, and I think she’s scared of a lot of things. Her fear really holds her back from being completely honest with everybody.
Monsters and Critics: Episode 2 is very telling because we see Sunny tell herself that she’s ready to go out on this anniversary date, but it doesn’t quite go as she expected. What can you tell me about her mindset as we head into Episode 3?
Agam Darshi: She’s disappointed in herself. She really thought that this time, she could make it happen, and she struggles with a lot of things that I think most people who have mental health conditions struggle with. I think she has good intentions to turn her life around, but there are a lot of things that she’s just unwilling to unpack.
When we move into the third episode, Sunny is not ready to completely tell Tess about everything that’s going on. She’ll tell her something, but not everything, and she still really covers a lot of her issues with humor.
The whole season for Sunny is about peeling away the onion layers and discovering the truth of who she is, but it is also about peeling away her fear that she’ll be rejected by the people she cares about.
Monsters and Critics: Do you think Sunny feels a lack of support from her husband? We see their conversations, they’re through the phone, and we see that he isn’t very open to going up to the apartment to have a meal inside.
Agam Darshi: Yeah, absolutely. Her marriage is unraveling quite quickly, and at this point, it’s at the end of it, and so for Sunny to come downstairs to leave her apartment to finally go on a date with her husband, who has actually been supportive towards her for the last number of years, is really big.
And she knows that as soon as she decides to stay inside, that as soon as she decides not to go downstairs and meet him, it’s going to be the end of her marriage. I think these kinds of issues are great. What’s so great about the script and about the season is that it’s not black and white.
None of these characters are necessarily good or necessarily bad. And you can put yourself in any of these characters’ shoes and see their perspective and why, you know, Sunny’s husband wants her to come downstairs, why he’s at the end of his rope because she’s also not an easy person to deal with because she’s not dealing with it.
I think that’s the frustration. I think he’s in a tough situation as well, and she’s not being fully honest about her feelings towards him or about what’s actually happening in her life. She’s just sort of carrying on as though it’s very normal when, in reality, it’s not.
Monsters and Critics: We’re heading into the third episode, and so far, you haven’t really filmed alongside your co-stars because Sunny is in her apartment for her scenes. What is it like to have this massive input on these cases every week but to be, I guess, filming without appearing on screen with your co-stars?
Agam Darshi: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it was a challenge, for sure. When we were shooting, I was lucky enough to do a lot of Dolly’s off-camera lines. So anytime Dolly or Tess was speaking to Sunny, I was actually there on the day and behind the camera, just feeding her the lines as Sunny would.
That was really helpful because Dolly and I got to know each other as actors and as friends. I was also able to actually see how the scenes were being shot and what the cases were really about because it’s one thing to read about it, but it’s another thing to actually be there and see how it’s being filmed and just feel the emotion from the other actors.
After the first few episodes, I wasn’t able to go in anymore because of scheduling, so a lot of it was just my own imagination and having to imagine what it would be like. I would close my eyes and see myself as if I was really there. With that amount of dialogue, it’s really hard for me, at least, to regurgitate all of those words unless I actually have an emotional connection with them.
So I had to close my eyes and imagine that I was exactly where Tess was. It was interesting. Throughout the season, it was a real exercise, a real acting exercise for me. It felt like a one-woman show a lot of the time because I was by myself.
But it also felt incredibly joyous and a lot of fun. I got to explore the depths of who she is and how weird she is because we are such weirdos when we’re by ourselves compared to when we’re in public or with other people. And so it was really fun to shed some light on that.
Monsters and Critics: The first two cases were so different from each other, so I’m expecting that the rest of the season is going to keep throwing curveballs at us.
Are there any cases that stand out that you’re particularly excited for viewers to see?
Agam Darshi: Oh, that’s a really good question. You’re completely right. Every episode feels a little bit different from the previous ones. And some of the cases feel lighter, a little bit quirkier.
Some cases are really dark. I found that in Episode One, I wasn’t expecting that case to be quite as haunting as it turned out to be. And because I was there on the day, I think that’s one of my favorite episodes, in terms of the case, because I was surprised at how dark it was and how much the guest actors brought on the day, but I also really love the last episode because it has to do more with Sunny and her backstory.
I think I’m a little bit biased, but I really love that one. They’re all fun and interesting, so it’s hard to pick a favorite.
Sight Unseen airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on The CW. Catch full episodes on The CW app.