“We have this love quadrangle that we're playing all season long,” teased Miranda Kwok, co-showrunner and executive producer of The Cleaning Lady. FOX’s hit drama returns tonight, introducing Nadia’s ex-husband Robert Kamdar, played by Naveen Andrews. “When we saw Naveen Andrews play Sunny on The Dropout, we knew we had to have him,” added Melissa Carter, the other showrunner and executive producer, during a TCA press conference. “His work speaks for itself, but that role particularly showed a corruptible character who is driven and unexpected, and that's why the character of Robert Kamdar is so threatening and dangerous is that he is morally bankrupt, and yet he has this deep love for Nadia, his ex who got away. So that just gives a delicious mix to the soup that we have. We wanted a new big bad this season, and Naveen is doing an amazing job taking that across the goal line.”
(Jeff Neumann/FOX)
“He’s also very charming as well,” gushed Eva De Dominici, who plays Nadia, about her new co-star. “It is dangerous, and it is very powerful, but it's very charming. When I saw him playing Kamdar, I could really see how Nadia fell in love with him.”
“He can't be anything other than the maligned influence underlying for the other characters,” lamented Nareen Andrews, whose breakout role as Sayid on Lost is still unforgettable. “I wish it was not so but this particular character seems to be so morally bankrupt and devoid of empathy that I can't really deny that he wouldn't have anything other than a malign influence on the other characters, which is sad.”
“We want to see more of Thony's world, and so we want to see more of the other people she's interacting with,” actress Élodie Yung said about the show’s expansion this season. “It's been great because Thony interacts obviously with Fiona and Arman and Garrett, but we have a bit more of Nadia, and now there's Naveen. The kids also are very important in this season. Because of the storyline, I have less lines to learn this year, which is awesome. I can spend time with my own family, with my own kid rather than Luca. But it's great because we get to see this whole world, the family world and then the syndicate because I'm also more involved in crime this year. The line gets blurry between Thony's family, her life at home, and her life outside her family bubble.”
“We get into the second season with him trying to figure out where this money went and how to capture it, at the same time helping Thony deal with the situation with her husband, and trying to sort of get Luca back,” Oliver Hudson shared about his character Garrett Miller. “Stories really start to intertwine, relationships intersect… And a lot of these stories and a lot of these characters’ paths now cross in a really fun and really interesting and in an extremely high stakes way. And it's this web that just sort of needs to be untangled or is just going to get even more insane. Garrett's reins are sort of getting released a little bit. He's not quite holding onto the steed like he used to be able to. He's in a bit of free fall. The horse is galloping now towards the edge of the cliff; he's trying to stop it. And at the same time, he's trying to do his job. So there's a lot that shifts and changes with Garrett and his relationships, especially with Thony and especially with Arman.”
(Jeff Neumann/FOX)
Playing Arman is Adan Canto, who draws on his own upbringing between two cultures for the role. “I have family and friends scattered throughout the country and scattered throughout Mexico as well,” Adan shared. “The one thing I think about his relationship with Thony that is pretty key for him is that it brings him back to his roots, which are very family oriented, good, decent, honorable heart, wanting to do the good thing, wanting to do what's right. That's the reason why Arman ended up where he is, because he needed to save his father first thing, and then he needed to save himself. And in order to do all of these things, he was in this dark world and ended up being Arman Morales, the guy you see today.”
One of the themes of Season 2 is how far a mother will go for her child, which is not just reflected in Thony’s quest to rescue her son, but through Fiona’s arc. “It is something that's so challenging for me because I'm the only nonparent out of the whole cast,” Martha Millan revealed. “The challenges that Fiona is already facing, especially under extraordinary circumstances being undocumented, this situation is just going to further deepen the many worlds colliding on top of her, apart from the relationship with Thony.”
Consistent with Season 1, The Cleaning Lady continues to explore the plight of undocumented immigrants. “Part of the show is turning the camera on domestic workers, on cleaning women, making them the center of their own story,” said Miranda Kwok. “We're actually focusing on domestic workers in that way which feels really fun and fresh and, really, showing these people as real people that are fully fleshed-out characters and human beings who have hopes and dreams as well their challenges. And that is also something we're going to focus on this year, to highlight some of the things that undocumented people can achieve, like starting their own business or owning their own home and not just showing the difficulties but also how they manage to surpass the obstacles that they have.”
Season 2 of The Cleaning Lady premieres tonight at 9/8c on FOX.