The veteran P.D. star’s outreach set a warm tone for Mandi’s debut as Officer Eva Imani.
As One Chicago newcomer Arienne Mandi joins Season 13 of Chicago P.D. as Officer Eva Imani, the actress reveals to NBC Insider that she has already found an ally in P.D. veteran Jason Beghe.
Beghe has long been applauded as the compass of P.D. due to his long-running role as the dedicated Intelligence Unit leader, Sgt. Hank Voight, and he wasn’t going to let an officer enter his squad room without a warm reception. During her exclusive interview with NBC Insider, Mandi reveals that Beghe reached out to her before filming began to extend a personal welcome to the One Chicago family, offering both guidance and camaraderie.
“I am just blown away by [Beghe’s] kindness and his work ethic. From the moment I arrived, he called me,” Mandi reveals. “Which, nobody phone calls anymore, and I’m such a phone caller. And he called me, he was like, ‘Hey, I want to welcome you.’ And we chatted on the phone, and he’s like, ‘If you need anything, I’m here for you. In whatever way I can help, please let me know.'”
During Mandi’s chat with NBC Insider, she reveals that Beghe has become one of her closest friends on the set of the police drama thanks to their many shared scenes together. Read more, below:
Jason Beghe has helped show Arienne Mandi the P.D. ropes
Following Beghe’s sweet gesture, he continued to help Mandi feel at home in the tight-knit P.D. cast. Despite the adrenaline-fueled action of P.D., Mandi and Beghe have shared many moments of levity behind the scenes. He helped her understand everything to know about his character.
“I think from day one we’d be joking around on set together, and any moment that he could, he would let me in on Voight’s insides,” Mandi recalls, adding that Beghe also helped run her through the “dos and don’ts” of playing a Chicago police officer, giving her some pointers for getting a grip on the police jargon.
“He kind of gave me some tricks in that department, and the cadence of this whole world and how it all kind of flows. So yeah, he was really great in doing that…” Mandi said, later adding, “Everyone was just so welcoming, and I think we were just cracking jokes on set from day one.”
Mandi continues, “‘Cause I mean the work that these guys do — every single member of the cast — it’s not easy work. And they’re really devoted to the details and making sure everything is true to these situations of what P.D. does every day. It’s really cool to see them in action [and] to be a part of it.”
Mandi has already accumulated many fond memories shooting Chicago P.D., recalling a moment when Beghe and Mandi couldn’t stop laughing between takes for a series of action-packed car scenes.
Mandi recalls, “We did a day at Smash Studios. It was Jason and I, and all of these car scenes that we had to shoot from a certain episode. A bunch of sequences that we just got all in one day. And so we’re jumping around and we’re creating this world around us and just the silly things that were said in the car that day between Jason and I. Just the jokes, the laughing, the things that went wrong. The things that came up that we found in the scenes that were so fun that weren’t written on the page.”
“I would say that’s my favorite memory so far…” Mandi concluded. “He is so funny. And I think we’re just very unfiltered around each other, so it’s always a good time.”
Fans can see Mandi’s Officer Eva Imani and Sgt. Hank Voight in action by watching Season 13 of Chicago P.D., which premiered Wednesday, October 1, at 10/9c on NBC for the return of One Chicago Wednesdays.
