Actress Piper Perabo discusses playing Annie Walker in Season 3 of Covert Affairs, debuting Tuesday, July 10 at 10 PM ET on the USA Network

While summertime is the biggest time of the year for the movie industry, with most TV networks airing reruns and reality programming, it's also when the USA Network rolls out its biggest and best shows. The network is bringing back Covert Affairs for Season 3, debuting Tuesday, July 10 at 10 PM ET with Episode 3.01: Hang On To Yourself. Series star Piper Perabo, who plays the covert operative Annie Walker, recently talked with the press about what viewers can expect this season. She first spoke about the separation between Annie and Christopher Gorham's Auggie, and their new long-distance relationship.

"Both Auggie and I are reassigned this season. We both go into more secretive departments, but different departments. And my office where I go to work is sort of in this bunker in the basement and he's working with the really high up powers of the CIA. So we're not only physically very far apart from each other whereas we used to be our desks could see each other. Now we're physically very far apart. And also because of what's going on in our personal lives, we start you know seeing less and less of each other. As the season goes on, that causes all kinds of problems because you begin to realize that having Annie and Auggie together, they support each other in a way that ends up solving things. And when they're not together, wires get crossed all over the place."

The actress also talked about Annie's relationship with her sister Danielle (Anne Dudek), and how she is fully entrenched in the spy world.

"Well, I can't tell you exactly what happens with Danielle this season. But there is a big thing that happens in Danielle's life. And it sort of puts a strain on her relationship with Annie. Anne Dudek who plays Danielle, you know she went on the road with us and traveled at the end of Season 2 and got involved in Annie's mission. So now she's really waist deep into the spy world with Annie. She knows how dangerous it is. She knows what's going on. And so it makes Danielle worry even more now that she realizes the great risks that Annie is under. So when Danielle's life gets complicated, it puts a lot of stain on the sisters."

While the show can be very physically challenging, the star revealed that learning up to 18 different languages was the most challenging aspect of playing this character.

"We're up to 18 languages that Annie speaks. And I told the writers they have to sort of put a lid on it because it started to get a little ridiculous. Although, you know some languages have gotten easier. At the beginning, Annie didn't speak any tonal languages. And now she speaks Mandarin. The tonal languages are still really difficult for me. But the European languages and Russian I sort of have a handle on. So at one point, the boys were saying if we could find a way to justify it, we could do a whole act in a foreign language. And so, I think that's such an exciting idea. And I don't know what language we'd do it in. But, I just hope it's not Mandarin."

She also talked about one of the new cast members this season, Sarah Clarke, who plays Annie's new handler Lena.

"Lena is she's super ambitious and she doesn't care about the rules. I mean way beyond Annie. Annie you know Annie will disobey Joan, but she still has moral integrity. She still tries to obey the laws best she can. Lena just is (unintelligible) about getting the op done at all costs. I always think of Lena as like when you're in high school and there's that really cool girl who all of sudden invites you to a party or something. And she's never talked to her before. Even though you're not supposed to go to the party, it's so exciting that that cool girl asked you to go. You think, 'Well maybe I'll just get in trouble and do this. I'm so excited she wants to hand out with me.' I think Lena's sort of like that. And she's so talented. She's so highly regarded. She's so cool, that she starts having an effect on Annie."

Covert Affairs is a unique show that actually spends a lot of time on location in various parts of the world. Piper Perabo also talked about some of her favorite locations from this season.

"We're in Marrakesh. I mean we've been in so many beautiful places. You know the light in Paris is so outstanding. Venice is so good for it's architecture. I liked Berlin just because the art was so amazing. But I have Marrakesh and the spy local is so perfect. It feels far away. It feels fantastic. The souks make for these incredible chase scenes where there are shacks of light and darkness. And I think that Arabic is such a beautiful language. And it has this kind of curvaceous and still strong feeling. For me Marrakesh was incredible for the show. And I really like, you know we're always filming our scenes earlier. We're always with no lockups out in the street with boys with handheld cameras. And so, we eat a lot of street food when we're filming on location. And Marrakesh has the most incredible street food. So, Jamie Barbara, the DOP and I are often, while they're picking out which side of the street they want to be on, he and I will be sitting there eating fried eggplant and French fries on the curb and just waiting for them to make a decision. And it's one of the funniest parts of filming abroad, eating street food with Jamie Barbara."

You can watch Piper Perabo as Annie Walker in USA Network's Covert Affairs, which kicks off Season 3 Tuesday, July 10 at 10 PM ET with Episode 3.01: Hang On To Yourself.