‘The Irrational’ Star Jesse L. Martin Divulges Why He Finally Agreed To Sing On The Show

Although he spent years performing on Broadway, Jesse L. Martin was reluctant to warm up his pipes and sing on his television series

“It’s not surprising that they asked me to do. It’s surprising that I said I didn’t want to do it,’ he admits.

He says that he was standoffish because he wanted to make sure that it realistically felt like something his character would do.

In The Irrational, Martin plays Alec Mercer, a world-renowned behavioral scientist who lends his expertise to an array of cases involving government and law enforcement incorporating his unique approach as he uses psychology, body language, and emotion to assess human behavior in various high-stakes situations.

Because Mercer’s life is rooted in science, Martin felt that it might be weird for him to just break out in song, so, “I agreed to it, but I will tell you they were caveats, because I was like, ‘Well, okay, but it has to be kind of an accident’ [because]

I didn’t see Alec being that guy who’s just going to run up just start singing, no matter what the case might be.”

Martin also gives credit to his co-star Karen David and her character, Rose, Alec’s love interest, for pushing Alec into such situations, as he points to her and says, “This one here who puts me in these precarious positions so that I end up having to do all kinds of things.”

He then explains how the duo end up becoming involved in putting on a show. “Okay, so Rose gets called into a case where she has to follow a young man whose husband believes that he may be being unfaithful. So, we follow him, and we find out that he’s doing a lot of stuff, but he’s also in a production of Little Shop of Horrors. And my character ends up auditioning for the show and getting a role by some crazy circumstances. So, we did the show.”

While Martin is convinced that Mercer personally feels that he’s not a good actor, “but he knows that he has to commit 100% to the role, in order to solve the case, and more importantly, learn from the experience.”

As for David, in discussing how her character Rose feels about being in the musical, she points out that because of Rose’s background as an undercover operative in the British spy organization MI6, “Rose was just a little too excited, about doing this because she’s used to putting on so many different masks and wearing so many different hats. In her mind, this is another opportunity where she doesn’t have to be herself. She can be someone else. That’s her comfort zone and her sense of escapism. So for her, this was just very, very exciting.”

She mentions that this particular episode is ‘an eye opener’ too, because, “it’s the first time that Alec is doing undercover spy work, and he’s actually really good at it.”

The adventure deepens Rose and Alec’s relationship as well, says David. “There’s a lot going on in the mind of Rose, which I feel like makes their relationship so exciting and terrifying for her, and beautiful as well, because she’s finally met someone that really sees her.”

She adds, “I feel like this procedural is just so special, because not only do we look at different cases, but I also love that we show the personal relationships and how each of the characters interact with each other. To see this relationship [between Rose and Alec] grow from a very embryonic stage, to watch that arc, is just everything. It’s perfectly imperfect.”

Martin, swinging back to his thoughts on how behavioral scientist Alec Mercer ended up outside his comfort zone performing in a musical, says that, “Because of the nature of this show, we never know what situations we’ll get called into, and it’s not only exploring different modes of life, but different cultures. That’s one of my big dreams _— to learn a lot about different cultures and how different cultures behave. Just because we’re all humans doesn’t mean we all have the same. So the more we get to do that in this show, I think only expands what we want to do, which is present to a big audience who can see themselves reflected in [the stories we tell].”

‘The Irrational’ airs Tuesdays at 10 e/p on NBC, and is available for streaming the following day on Peacock.