Holly Taylor is jumping from grounded espionage to a mile-high mystery.
The 23-year-old actress, who played daughter-turned-spy Paige Jennings opposite Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys on “The Americans,” joins NBC’s “Manifest” as a series regular for Season 3 (Thursdays at 8 p.m.)
The hit drama starring Josh Dallas follows the passengers on a commercial airliner flying from Jamaica to New York City. Upon landing, they’re shocked to find out that they’ve been missing and presumed dead for five years — and have not felt the passage of time. As they try to resume their lives and find out what happened on that flight, many of them begin displaying supernatural skills such as visions called “Callings.”
Taylor’s character, Angelina Meyer, is a fellow passenger who plays a key role in Season 3. Taylor answered some questions for The Post.
What can you share about Angelina?
For this season, viewers can expect a rocky road. It’s definitely a journey, Angelina really evolves throughout the season in many different ways. We find her as she’s in a dangerous place mentally, physically and emotionally. She has a lot of trauma and baggage that she’s bringing with her and she’s working on healing that. She becomes friends with Olive [Luna Blaise] and Olive really helps her to embrace her callings and follow those. Then, surprisingly, I didn’t think she could have any more trauma but she does — so we’ll see more crazy events unfold around her.
Were you familiar with the series?
I watched the first episode when it first aired but I hadn’t kept up with it since — even though I really liked it, and one of my best friends is obsessed with [‘Manifest’]. As soon as I got the role, I binged the first two seasons in a couple days. It was so addicting. And it’s funny, because on set people would be explaining it to me assuming I didn’t watch, and I was like, ‘Oh no, I know, I was very invested and I know fully what happened with Grace in Season 2, Episode 3!’ So I was on top of it all.
This is your first big genre show, right?
I’ve done a couple things that were smaller here and there that had special effects — but “Manifest” is like nothing I’d ever done before on this scale. The special effects and the mythology of it was very different than “The Americans.” It was hard to get used to, at first, acting in scenes that are going to be fully fleshed out later in on post-production. Having to imagine all these crazy things happening around you was a unique challenge.
Did you bring anything you learned from “The Americans” to “Manifest?”
On “The Americans,” playing Paige had a lot of emotional ups and downs as well, so that helped me to get to an emotional place with Angelina. And also just in general, “The Americans” helped me in so many ways because of how professional everyone was on set, and how kind everyone was. It really just set a good example for me going forward on any set that I go to.