Ryan Michelle Bathé Recalls Moment She Used the Skills She Learned on 'The Endgame' in Her Own Life

Ryan Michelle Bathé never could have anticipated she would be applying skills she learned on The Endgame in her real life.

On the new NBC series, premiering Monday, the world's most wanted criminal Elena Federova manipulates (Morena Baccarin) authorities while she's in their custody. Bathé, who stars as FBI agent Val Fitzgerald, tells PEOPLE that "something happened recently" at her apartment that was "weird," resulting in her taking action.

"The door has this weird thing and sometimes it closes and sometimes, it doesn't. So recently, I came home and it was slightly ajar," she says.

Bathé then entered in "Val mode," utilizing some techniques her character would have likely applied in a similar situation.

"Now I also know that it doesn't always close behind me. Sometimes it bounces and it's this whole weird thing," she explains. "The rational part of me was like, it's probably fine. But I went to the kitchen and I got two knives and I went through the whole house with each knife, and my back to the wall, and doors, and like ... stabbing the air."

Adds Bathé, "I was like, I don't know that I would have done this before [playing] Val. I probably would have called for help."

According to Bathé, this is "definitely something Val would do."

Prior to her role on The Endgame, Bathé had never played a character with a job that required her to have a grasp and understanding of such skills.

"I've never had to really handle a gun and all of those things," she says. "So that, in a very visceral way, makes it very different than anything I've ever done."

Fans who tune in Monday will be treated to an intense face-off between Bathé and Baccarin's characters, which the First Wives Club star compares to a "King Kong and Godzilla" type rivalry.

"Working with [Morena] is like going back to drama school. We could be having to read the phone book back and forth, and it would still be like this incredible exercise in specificity and thought and thoughtfulness," she continues.

"So yeah, it's like going to school in the best way. And I say that as a full-on nerd, full-on, I love homework. You know what I mean? Because somebody might hear that and be like, 'Ugh.' But for people who love school, that's the highest compliment," the mom of two says.

As the series progresses, Bathé says "things move faster in this world than they do in any other world that I've ever watched, or read or been in."

"This ain't no Game of Thrones where one season is all about finding out one clue that's going to lead to the next clue. No, no, no, no, no," she adds. "The dominoes fall but you can expect that the dominoes fall fast and furious in our world."

The Endgame premieres Monday at 10 p.m ET on NBC.