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'Manifest' Season 1: How star Athena Karkanis ditched the suits and guns for amazing Grace

Athena Karkanis played some extremely bold roles of unconventional women before she stepped up as the wife in NBC's show.

Athena Karkanis might not have been a household name for the regular American TV- viewer, but this actress has certainly played some real tough roles during her career. In fact, with creator Jeff Rake's 'Manifest' this is perhaps the first time that Karkanis has dropped off her suits and guns, and taken up some floral dresses, and mommy pants in order to play her character, Grace. Karkanis' Grace, in the NBC show, is the dejected wife of Ben Stone (Josh Dallas) who suddenly finds herself alone with her 10-year-old daughter, Olive (Luna Blaise), when Montego Air Flight 828 goes missing. Grace and Olive had boarded a different plane with the rest of the family while returning from Hawaii, but they soon found out that Flight 828 had mysteriously disappeared in thin air. 

Although as Grace, we mostly see Karkanis is either all tears or all smiles, this Canadian actress has actually played some rather unconventional roles. Born in Alberta and raised in Toronto, Karkanis has always been proud of her Greek-Egyptian ancestry, although now and then she has confessed that she speaks little Greek. Yet, she can fluently converse with anyone from Europe as she has mastered three European languages- French, Spanish, and German. She remains passionate about her dream to act in an European film as she was about the whole idea of acting, while still an undergrad student of political science in McGill University in Montreal, Quebec.