Atlanta-filmed 'The Passage' premieres on FOX

ATLANTA (FOX 5 Atlanta) - Atlanta is going “viral” thanks to a new action-packed series filmed right here in our city.  After a long wait, “The Passage” finally premieres Monday night on FOX 5, bringing the best-selling trilogy of books to life.

“The Passage” stars Mark-Paul Gosselaar as a federal agent tasked with bringing in a 10-year old girl, played by Hidden Figures actress Saniyya Sidney, in for testing on a dangerous virus that could either save or destroy humanity. 

For Sidney, the opportunity to play a character called “the most important girl in the world” was almost too good to be true.  "I was actually getting ready to go on another film when my manager told me about this, and she said it was going to be on FOX, and I did “American Horror Story,' so I was kind of already in the FOX family,” she says. “The first thing that she really told me was, I play Amy Bellafonte, and that she was white in the books.  And to be able to be a black girl, that was originally supposed to be a white young lady, I think is really awesome."

Also starring in the sci-fi series are Emmanuelle Chriqui (“Entourage”), Henry Ian Cusick (“Lost”), Jamie McShane (“Bosch”), and McKinley Belcher III,  who happens to be an Atlanta native.  “I was born downtown, a Grady baby, true ATL!  Went to high school in Smyrna, then my parents lived in the Marietta, Austell, Powder Springs area,” he says.  Of filming in Atlanta, Belcher says,  "It's surreal, especially when we shoot things that are outside and I see things that I remember seeing as a kid.  So it's a very, sort of, full-circle moment.  Makes me proud, and my family's really proud, too!"

Good Day Atlanta’s Paul Milliken got to spend some time on the Atlanta set of “The Passage,” chatting with the cast and crew and learning more about the much-anticipated series.  Click the video player above to see more – and be sure to catch the series premiere of “The Passage” Monday, January 14 at 9 p.m. on FOX 5.