Marvel's new Netflix series "Jessica Jones" premiered to much fanfare last Friday, and although Krysten Ritter's titular character rightfully gets all the headlines, co-star Rachael Taylor has made quite the impression as well. Taylor plays Trish "Patsy" Walker, a former model and child star who is Jones' best friend and working as a radio host/partner in crime with Jones.
Marvel TV President Jeph Loeb said of her character: "What's most important is the relationship between her and Jessica, and how these two women who are, in some ways, sisters, in terms of their friendship, could be that different, and yet believe in the same kinds of things."
So, if you're curious, here are five things you need to know about Taylor.
1. Origins
Taylor was born in Launceston, Tasmania, Australia in 1984. The 31-year-old expressed an early interest in modeling and acting, being crowned Miss Teen Tasmania in her early years and appearing in several American productions. She secured roles in TV movies about Natalie Wood and the making of "Dynasty" as well as the horror feature "Man-Thing" and "See No Evil."
2. Breakthrough
Taylor's big break came in 2007 when she nabbed the role of Maggie, a signals analyst, in Michael Bay's "Transformers." In the blockbuster, Taylor shared the screen with Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Anthony Anderson and other well-known actors. Her character quickly became a fan-favorite for her smarts and for her beauty. Unfortunately, Taylor was not involved with any of the film's sequels.
3. "Jessica Jones" Character
Patsy Walker is a female superhero character from the comics who was also known as Hellcat and even became a member of the Avengers at one point. Taylor's character is slight reimagining of the original.
"Trish Walker is based on the character Patsy Walker, one of Marvel's oldest female characters from the '40s and '50s," Taylor told Elle Magazine. "And then in the '70s, she re-emerged as the character Hellcast. And in the show, Melissa [Rosenberg] decided to make Trish Walker a former child star who had a television show called 'It's Patsy.' She was known as Patsy Walker - like how Miley Cyrus was known as Hannah Montana. And since then she's gone through this complete collapse, had addiction problems and an abusive stage mother and completely ejected herself from the public life. She went to college and did a lot of work rebuilding herself into a very capable, earnest, ambitious woman who has her own radio talk show. So she's become quite serious and articulate. But of course, like all the characters in Jessica Jones, there's more to her that meets the eye.
4. Netflix Appeal
The digital age is changing the way viewers consume television as well as changing the way in which actresses build a career. Once upon a time, a network show was the way to establish yourself as the next big thing on TV. But Taylor was drawn to the Netflix/streaming format.
"Our series is really like a 13-hour movie, which is the beauty of streaming television," she said. "We're not so bound by these traditional parameters of ad breaks and catching the audience up on what happened last week. The ad breaks were actually a big one for me; I even felt it as an actor, that I didn't have to build my character towards these synthetic peaks and troughs that were to serve commercial breaks."
5. Future Projects
Taylor's next gig will see her star as Rosanna in Australia's "The Olive Sisters." Based on the popular novel of the same name by Amanda Hampson, the feature is said to deal "with who we really are and why belonging to a family really matters."
"The Olive Sisters" is slated for a 2016 release.
