‘The Passage’ TV Cast: How Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Saniyya Sidney Landed Brad, Amy Roles

Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Saniyya Sidney lead the cast of Fox’s new high-concept, sci-fi drama, “The Passage,” but how did they go about landing their roles?

The show, which premieres Monday night, is based on the novel series of the same name by Justin Cronin and follows Federal Agent Brad Wolgast (Gosselaar) and young orphan Amy Bellafonte (Sidney) as they must work to save each other…and the human race. The series is all about drama, vampires, human connection and government conspiracies.

Gosselaar’s starred in quite a few shows throughout his career — “Saved by the Bell,” “Pitch,” “NYPD Blue” and more — but he’s never done a genre series like this before. Nonetheless, “The Passage” show creator, Liz Heldens, told a small group of reporters at New York Comic Con in October that he was the only one who didn’t have to audition for the project; She just knew he was perfect for the role of Brad.

“He’s so right for it. I had watched his work on ‘Pitch,’ and there’s a little DNA in common with the characters, I think,” she said. “That kind of dry sort of guy that doesn’t talk so much. You can see him thinking…Little sarcastic. Can do a little small-ball funny, in a good way.”

As for Sidney, who comes to the show after working on movies like “Hidden Figures” and “Fences,” there were some negative fan reactions when her casting was first announced because the character of Amy was written as white in the novels, while the actress is African-American.

When books are adapted for TV, not all original character descriptions are always kept because show executives usually prioritize finding the perfect overall actor or actress for the job, instead. And that’s exactly what Heldens told International Business Times she did.

“Saniyya walked in and just took the part off the table for anybody else,” she said. “It was just very clear, the minute she opened her mouth, that this was her part and it was nobody else’s part and that’s just the way it was gonna be. And that’s what you want. You want the actor to come in and go, ‘It’s mine.’ And then you go, ‘It’s yours, okay.’”

The casting process was pretty similar for Brianne Howey, who plays Shauna Babcock.

“Brianne came in, she’s so — she came in, she was so rough around the edges as Shauna Babcock, [while] the actress is not, but she was — she just painted this portrait and she just got it. And that was it,” Heldens told IBT.

As for “Entourage” alum Emmanuelle Chriqui, who stars as Dr. Lila Kyle on the new Fox series, Heldens joked to IBT, “I threw a coat over her head and I stuffed her in the trunk of my car and drove her to Atlanta.”

Henry Ian Cusick (Dr. Jonas Lear), Vincent Piazza (Clark Richards), McKinley Belcher III (Anthony Carter), Caroline Chikezie (Dr. Major Nichole Sykes) and Jamie McShane (Dr. Tim Fanning) also star.

See all of these actors bring the book’s characters to life when “The Passage” premieres on Fox on Monday at 9 p.m. EST.