Crisis negotiation team takes center stage in ‘Ransom’

HANCES are you’ve never heard of Laurent Combalbert and his partner, Marwan Mery.

They’re world-renowned crisis negotiators — and the inspiration for “Ransom,” a new CBS series premiering Jan. 1 (before moving to Saturdays starting Jan. 7).

“It’s a fascinating world I knew nothing about,” says “Ransom” executive producer Frank Spotnitz. “There are something like 30,000 private kidnapping and hostage negotiations around the world each year. These guys travel all over the world, and their one job is to negotiate the safe return of loved ones … in all kinds of situations.

“We have one episode where a couple has a woman carrying a baby for them through IVF, and the woman is kidnapped, along with the baby,” he says. “These aren’t true stories, but they’re inspired by real-life cases.”

The series’ lead character, Eric Beaumont (Luke Roberts), is a composite of Combalbert and Mery: he’s a highly skilled crisis negotiator — part psychologist and part badass — who works with a team of three: ex-cop Zara Hallam (Nazneen Contractor); psychological profiler Oliver Yates (Brandon Jay McLaren); and wannabe investigator Maxine Carlson (Sarah Greene), who joins Team Beaumont in the series premiere carrying some emotional baggage — and a big secret.

“She’s a strong female character with a deep back story, which gives me a lot to play with,” says the Irish-born Greene, who earned a Tony nomination for her role in “The Cripple of Inishmaan” and had a small role (as Hecate Poole) on Showtime’s “Penny Dreadful.” “I’m still finding out who she is … I don’t have all the answers, but she wants to help people and get answers from her past she believes Eric can answer for her.

“She’s a little bit lost in the world — and she’s hoping to find her place with this team.”

Greene says Maxine is the first character (either in the theatre or on screen) that she’s played with an American accent — which isn’t too much of a stretch for her. “We’re very lucky [in Ireland]. We grew up with American TV as kids and I worked on Broadway and lived in New York for a time so I’m very aware of the [American] accent,” she says. “A lot of kids in Ireland speak with American accents because they watch a lot of American TV.”

Maxine’s back story will be fleshed out as “Ransom” progresses, but even Greene says she’s in the dark about some biographical elements of her on- screen alter ego. “They’re still keeping secrets from me, like who [Maxine’s] dad is,” she says. “She grew up with her aunt and uncle and was given a sugarcoated version of her background and was sheltered from the true story of what happened to her mother.”