TV

Actors to watch this fall

Things were going downhill fast the first day Megan Boone worked with James Spader on “The Blacklist.” The writers changed an entire page of dialogue at the last minute and she was “completely thrown.” Then she had to rehearse with Spader, in a room at the Waldorf-Astoria. “Already I was nervous. And this was terrifying,” she says. “He could tell I was struggling in the rehearsal. I went back to my changing suite. I was running the new lines with the production assistant. I was snacking on popcorn cause that’s what I do when I’m nervous.”

There was a knock at the door. The PA went to see who was there.

“It’s James,” Spader said.

“A kernel of popcorn stuck in my throat,” says Boone, 30. Spader walked in to talk to her. “I didn’t want him to know I was choking. He comes and sits down. And he says, ‘I want you to know that if there’s anything at all you need, I’m here. Pull me aside and I’ll run lines.’ He patted me on my knee and said, ‘We’re going to be great.’

Spader left the room and the kernel of popcorn immediately dislodged from Boone’s throat. She did not choke, learned her lines and went to complete her role of co-starring in the most suspenseful show of the fall season.

On “The Blacklist,” which debuts Sept. 23 at 10 p.m. on NBC, Boone plays Elizabeth Keen, an FBI profiler fresh out of Quantico who is summoned on her first day on the job to meet with the agency’s most wanted fugitive, Raymond “Red” Reddington, played by Spader.

In the show’s opening scene, he saunters into the lobby of FBI headquarters and turns himself in, offering to help the agency capture a terrorist long thought dead — only if he can work one-on-one with Elizabeth.

“The Blacklist” throws Boone and Spader in scene after scene. And though Reddington knows enough about Keen’s past to make her squirm, she’s not afraid of him as was Clarice Starling of Hannibal Lecter. And though you might expect the series to serve as a hammy showcase for Spader, it’s interesting to note that Boone was the first actor cast.

By her account, it was an ordeal.

“The producers were so fixated on making the right choice they couldn’t find any other actor that they wanted to send to NBC with me,” Boone says. “Usually, that’s a bad thing. But they didn’t want to give NBC another choice. There were a lot of women vying for the part.”

One of the criteria for the role was the willingness and the ability to do action scenes. As Reddington leads the FBI suits — played by Harry Lennix and Diego Klattenhoff — to prime targets, the suspense rarely lets up. And Boone gets shot at, tear-gassed and nearly bombed — your average 9-to-5 day in the counterterrorism world. For this interview, she is speaking by phone from the William H. Pouch Boy Scout camp in Staten Island, where her character is going to get knocked around.

Doing take after take of these scenes must wear on a girl, no?

“I’m going to be dragged through the woods by the neck,” Boone says. “I’ll get it after a couple of takes. For me, the physical work is very visceral. You just have to throw yourself in and you’ll ultimately be believable.”

Boone was born in Petoskey, Mich., but moved when she was very young to Florida, where she grew up in a retirement community called The Villages so her parents could be near her grandparents. She became a self-entertaining child.

“It was so strange,” she says, “It was where I began to use my imagination.”

Besides a string of indie films and a small role in one of the “Sex and the City” movies, Boone’s most notable television credit was on the NBC series “Law & Order: Los Angeles.” She played the role of Junior Deputy District Attorney Lauren Stanton.

With shows such as “The Blacklist,” the roles for men often outnumber those for women. Boone, who is single, is the only prominent female in the cast. She insists the guys don’t flirt with her which, given the 12-to-14 hour workdays for a drama series, seems positively miraculous.

“I’m married to my job,” she says.

“You want to make your work environment a fun place. I’m fortunate enough to be surrounded by a bunch of actors who do that.”

Is she ready to become a TV star?

“I’m taking it one day at a time,” Boone says.

With that, a PA interrupts the interview. It’s time for Boone to get dragged by the neck. A sense of humor comes in handy.

“No Boy Scouts were harmed during the taping of this episode,” she says.

TOM MISON
Sleepy Hollow, Sept. 16, 9 p.m., Fox

As Ichabod Crane of Fox’s witty drama “Sleepy Hollow,” Tom Mison is the picture of brooding Gothic elegance. Crane has emerged from his grave after 250 years to roam around contemporary Westchester in pursuit of the Headless Horseman. If you haven’t read the original story, a shrug might be in order. But Crane’s banter with Det. Abbie Mills (Nicole Beharie) is a delight. Mills and her fellow cops think Crane’s get-up is part of the act. Sure, he fought for the Queen’s Army. “You’re not going to break character, are you?” Mills asks him.

“Ichabod thinks he’s the only sane person in the room,” says Mison, 31. “Everyone around him is a maniac.”

Mison’s films include “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen,” but he’s more involved in the British theater, where he played Prince Hal in “Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2.”

He’s close friends with his drama school mate, Rupert Friend, who plays Peter Quinn on Showtime’s “Homeland.” Like many English actors, he was eager to gain a foothold on this side of the Atlantic.

“We in England are looking over and seeing amazing television being made.”

EMMA RIGBY
Once Upon A Time In Wonderland, Oct. 10, 8 p.m., ABC
Emma Rigby has been a mainstay of the British soap opera “Hollyoaks” for five years. Now she’s crossing the pond for a juicy role as the evil Red Queen in the spinoff to ABC’s “Once Upon A Time.”

“It’s fun to play the antagonist of the series,” says Rigby, “because I never have.”

“Wonderland” combines fantasy elements from the Lewis Carroll classics, “Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland” and “Through the Looking-Glass.” In the televised version, Alice loves Wonderland, believes it to be real, and resists the efforts of shrinks to get it out of her head. “I actually auditioned for the role of Alice,” says Rigby. “That would be the usual casting. And funnily enough, when I was younger, we did ‘Alice in Wonderland’ as our school play. I was told I couldn’t play Alice then, and I’m not playing Alice now.” But she’s chewing up the scenery as the Red Queen, an imposing figure even at 5 feet 5 inches, with regal posture. Easy to explain, says Rigby. “I think it’s due to my years of ballet training.”

LIZZY CAPLAN
Masters of Sex, Sept. 29, 10 p.m., Showtime
Quirky characters are her stock in trade. Like the drug-addled Amy Burley in HBO’s “True Blood.” Lizzy Caplan, 31, says she needed that quirkiness to play Virginia Johnson, the female half of the pioneering sex research team Masters & Johnson.
“Virginia Johnson looks like every [1950s] woman around her,” says Caplan. “It’s what’s inside of her that makes her different.”

So different, in fact, that Johnson was Masters’ partner in his quest to understand sex from a scientific standpoint. “She was also sexually adventurous,” says Caplan. “I’m so enamored with her because she reminds me of my mother. [She was] not judgmental. You are not dirty for asking these questions. Virginia Johnson did this for millions of women, for generations of women.”

STEPHEN MERCHANT
Hello Ladies, Sept. 29, 10:30 p.m., HBO
Poor Stuart. He wants to be one of the glamorous people of LA, where he has moved from England, but just look at him. The last phrase he brings to mind is “beautiful people.” But he keeps trying. In “Hello Ladies,” Stephen Merchant, 38, a frequent collaborator of Ricky Gervais (“The Office,” “Extras”), plays Stuart as a would-be pick-up artist and a fish out of water. It’s “Girls” — for geeks.

REBEL WILSON
Super Fun Night, Oct. 2, 9:30 p.m., ABC
Thanks to her roles in “Bridesmaids” and “Pitch Perfect,” the comedy world knows Rebel Wilson is the real deal. In the former, she played Kristen Wiig’s roommate, a woman who enjoys free tattoos from guys in vans, but doesn’t care so much for Wiig and, along with fellow roommate Matt Lucas, kicks her out. Then in “Pitch Perfect,” Wilson stole the film as “Fat Amy,” who willingly goes by that name “so skinny bitches don’t do it behind my back.” Now, ABC is hoping that Wilson’s brash hilarity can translate on the sitcom side with “Super Fun Night,” a show Wilson created about three friends who wrestle with life changes. Given Wilson’s hot streak, it’s worth noting that CBS already passed on this show.

HANNAH WARE
Betrayal, Sept. 29, 10 p.m., ABC
“It’s an encounter that could happen to anyone,” says Hannah Ware of the adulterous liaison her “Betrayal” character, Sara Hanley, begins with a married man who is also her attorney husband’s courtroom opponent. The attraction is instant, powerful and could make her family’s life a living hell.

Ware, 30, does a great job hiding her British accent, and looks very different from the tortured character she played on “Boss,” the junkie daughter of the villainous mayor of Chicago. “When we were casting, I didn’t want to go with the normal names and faces,” says creator and executive producer David Zabel. “I thought it was really important to have an actress who had no associations for the audience, and who could capture the vulnerability and romance of the character.”

ADELAIDE KANE
Reign, October 17, 9 p.m., The CW
In this age of “The Carrie Diaries,” it’s hard to imagine someone as tragic as Mary, Queen of Scots as a teenager, but “Reign,” a fanciful version of her story, is going to freshen the royal petticoats and try. The Scottish queen is played by a young Aussie actress, Adelaide Kane. Set in the 16th century, the show has mystery, romance, palace intrigue, and few beheadings thrown in for good measure. Is it accurate? Hardly. But that doesn’t matter to Kane, 23, best-known for playing Cora on MTV’s “Teen Wolf.”

“It’s entertainment, not the History Channel,” she sniffs. Still, Kane had to read up on the real Mary. “She was witty and charming — a very, very intelligent woman,” Kane says. “She spoke six languages. And she was married three times and widowed twice by the time she was 26.”

That should give “Reign” enough drama for several seasons.

CHARLES MICHAEL DAVIS
The Originals, Oct. 8, 9 p.m., The CW
As the mercurial vampire Marcel in this “Vampire Diaries” spinoff, Davis, 34, has enough charisma to fill the French Quarter over which his character presides with a sly smile. Of African-American and Filipino descent, Davis was born in Dayton, Ohio, and has amassed a string of credits, including roles on ABC Family’s “Switched at Birth” and “The Game.”

LINDSEY GORT
The Carrie Diaries, Oct. 25, 8 p.m., The CW
All hardcore “Sex and the City” fans will have their eyes peeled for Lindsey Gort when she joins the show as the younger Samantha Jones, the role immortalized by Kim Cattrall. The network describes the young Samantha as “a ballsy, beautiful and sexy young woman from the panhandle of Florida who has made her way — and a name for herself — in the rock ’n’ roll scene of 1980s NYC.” Can Gort strut like Cattrall? She’d better — or else.