You could hardly blame Holly Taylor, the 20-year-old actress who plays Paige in the FX series The Americans( 10 p. m. Wednesdays) for wondering when she opens the front door in Wayne: Just who might be living next door to me?

“ I try not tothink about that,” Taylor says.“ But you never know.”

In the five years since she began, at age 14, to work on The Americans, she’ s continued aroutine that would seem familiar to most young people. There’ s school: first Wayne Hills High School, where she graduated in 2016, now Kean University inUnion, where she’ s in her sophomore year, majoring ingraphic design.

There’ s hanging with friends: favorite spots include the Wayne Hills Diner(“ One of my favorite places to eat”) and the Outback Steakhouse on Berdan Avenue(“ They have amazing bread, which I’ m a big fan of”). There’ s family life: the regulation mom and dad— Margaret and Mark Taylor— and an older brother, Philip.

All very normal, very routine. But isn’ t that cloak of normality just what the KGB spies in The Americans hide behind?

“ The show does make you think,” Taylor says.“ Especially since this was kind of derived from a true story. What town were they found in in New Jersey? That actually wasn’ t too far from here.”

Richard and Cynthia Murphy, alias Vladimir and Lidiya Guryev, were the spy couple in Montclair whose

2010 arrest by the feds helped inspire the acclaimed series by Joe Weisberg, set in the 1980s, and now in its sixth and last season, with the finale only weeks away. During that five-year run, Paige has become an increasingly prominent character, as she’ s grappled with adolescence, love, religion, and a dawning awareness of her parents’ unsavory doings.

“ When I first started the show, I had no idea what it would become, and what my character herself would become,” Taylor says.“ I didn’ t really know that my character would become anything at all. That was a really pleasant surprise.”

Then too, during the run, the show’ s premise has acquired a new, urgent topicality— as Russian espionage has gone from a dim Cold War memory to front page news.

“ It has been asurprise to all of us

PARI DUKOVIC / FX

26 MAY 2018 WAYNE MAGAZINE