Justin Hartley and Wife Sofia Pernas Say Shooting Their Joint Quantum Leap Cameo Was 'Not Work at All'

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It's not every day you get to work closely alongside your significant other, but for Justin Hartley and Sofia Pernas, guest starring together on NBC's Quantum Leap reboot didn't feel like work at all.

The couple — who wed in May 2021 — appear in Monday night's episode of the series, which is set 30 years after Scott Bakula's Dr. Sam Beckett disappeared upon entering the Quantum Leap accelerator. This new version follows a new team, led by Dr. Ben Song (Raymond Lee), as they re-open the secret project in hopes of better understanding how it works.

This week's episode, "A Decent Proposal," follows Ben as he leaps into the body of 1980s Los Angeles bounty hunter Eva Sandoval as she tries to nab a hard-to-catch target. Hartley, 45, plays Eva's boyfriend and professional partner Jake, and Pernas, 33, plays as the bounty hunter's target Tammy Jean.

Chris Haston/NBC

It's no secret that Hartley and Pernas have worked together before, as they met while working on the soap opera The Young and The Restless. But as they exclusively tell PEOPLE, joining the world of Quantum Leap felt more joyous than laborious.

"It's play. It's not work," Pernas explains as Hartley agrees, "No, it's not work at all."

The This Is Us alum continues, "We both love acting. We're both in love with acting, and to be able to do it together and play these — I don't want to say outrageous characters, because they're really, I don't know, they're kind of outrageous. I can say that without offending anyone, right? The characters are outrageous!"

Pernas chimes in, "I get this question a lot where it's like, 'Do you guys work well together?' 'Would you want to work together?' Because there are people out there that are like, 'We can't. We need a break from each other.' I'm like, 'Yeah, I want to do everything [with him]. We work very well together. So yeah, it's funny that that's actually the case."

Ron Batzdorff/NBC

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Hartley adds, "I think in life, every time you can experience anything ... you experience things that you love together, vacations or whatever those things might be. Watching movies, having dinners, conversations, getting to know each other. [It] brings you closer together. And then also, the way life is, tragedy also brings you closer together."

He continues, "Heartache, pain, all of that stuff that's kind of burdensome or annoying. That brings you closer together as well. I think anytime we have an experience together, it brings us closer together, I guess. We're pretty close though."

Vivien Killilea/Getty

The opportunity to appear on Quantum Leap was extra exciting for Hartley, who's a longtime fan of the original series.

"It was awesome. I had watched it when I was a kid. I was a fan of it. I looked forward to watching it every week," he says.

"When they rebooted it, they reboot a show like Quantum Leap, and I'm going, 'Wow. This is kind of great that I have an opportunity to be on Quantum Leap. I never thought that would happen,'" he adds. "So the fan in you kind of takes over. And the stars really aligned. It ended up being just a really great experience in every way."

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Quantum Leap airs Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on NBC, and the premiere episode is currently available to stream on Peacock.