TV Roles That Were Too Mature For Child Actors

Playing Paige Jennings (the daughter of Russian spies embedded in 1980s suburban America), Holly Taylor needed to become a powerhouse performer, and she did. As Paige got drawn into her parents' world of secrets and lies, Taylor had to take her character to some dark, shattering places. It was a lot to ask of a performer who was only 13 when she started on the show.

Mostly, what the show asked of Taylor was emotionally exhausting. There was a stretch of episodes where it felt like all she did was cry, and that drained her. But, as she told The Observer, the crying wasn't as demanding as the sheer complexity of adult emotions she had to summon to play a girl whose whole life has been turned upside-down on her. And on top of all that, she had to learn to fight competently.

There's a lighter side to the parallels between Taylor and her character, however. Paige's parents were keeping a huge secret from her, and as it turned out, Taylor's onscreen parents – Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys– were, too. While they were all working together on The Americans, Russell and Rhys fell in love and started a relationship that came as a surprise to Taylor. "I didn't even really know that was going on!" she said. "Honestly!" We bet that surprise was a lot easier to take than the twists on the show, though.