Meta Golding's Ace in the Hole

The night before Meta Golding auditioned as the fearless Enobaria in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, she had a dream about being a knife-wielding ice skater. "They were so secretive about the script," Golding says of the 2013 film. "I get in the audition and they just wanted to do an improv. So, I was like, You know what? I'm going to take this dream I had and use it. That got me a pretty big job."

Securing her new role as Hailey Winton in Rabbit Hole, the Paramount+ thriller premiering March 26, required some physicality, but it was the mental match-up with series lead Kiefer Sutherland that was the real test. "The minute Kiefer and I met, it was a hardcore tennis match with each other. He's super intense, gives 1 million percent," she says.

The eight-episode season follows John Weir (Sutherland), a master of deception in the world of corporate espionage, big tech and even bigger conspiracy theories. But Golding wasn't intimidated by the actor who singlehandedly shaped espionage thrillers for the small screen. She tapped into her training as a competitive ice skater to seal the deal. "Hailey is a very physical person; she does Krav Maga," Golding says of her character, a headstrong lawyer with a secret. "When you have a background as a dancer or as an athlete, you're just always in your body. I always use my body to tell the story."

Born in India, Golding spent her formative years in Italy with her international aid worker parents. At Cornell University, the budding actress embraced storytelling on stage because to her, she says, "It felt very natural ... but also, that I needed it." These innate feelings did not circumvent the precarious life of a working woman in Hollywood. However, she found footing knowing she was on the right path. Golding says, "I'm a woman of color, and it hasn't been easy, but I've always enjoyed myself and I've always worked. I've been such a journeyman actor."

Golding has had meaty parts in Criminal Minds and Empire and playing Rosa Parks ("a highlight of my career") in the television movie Behind the Movement, but Rabbit Hole is the first role that she's crafted from start to finish. As the primary female voice on the series, Golding has found the heart of the character in grounding Hailey as her life turns upside down. "That's what we always try to do when circumstances are really big," she says. "Hailey's life explodes when John comes into it, and his life explodes when she comes into it. But just from a human being perspective, how would you react trying to save the world?"

Thankfully, we know Golding's up for the fight.