Meek Joins The Hunt!

Jeff Meek, best known to soap fans as AS THE WORLD TURNS’ Craig and SEARCH FOR TOMORROW’s Quinn, is headed to primetime in Lifetime’s new thriller, Taken: The Search For Sophie Parker. “Julie Benz [DEFIANCE, DEXTER] is a widowed New York detective and I play her partner, a sort of hard-boiled street guy from Brooklyn,” Meek reveals of the film he made recently in Bulgaria. “He’s in love with her — has been for a long time — but she’s been struggling with the loss of her husband. He challenges her to let him be in her life.”

The budding romance gets put on hold when the daughter of Benz’s character (Naomi Battrick) gets abducted while visiting Moscow with a girlfriend (Jemma Dallender) that just happens to be the ambassador’s daughter! “That’s the caper of the piece: Julie’s character travels to Russia to find her, and I provide support from New York with things that she needs to have done.”

The frantic search proves complicated when the teenagers fall into a Russian sex slavery ring and become potential victims of human trafficking. “I didn’t realize the vastness of [the problem]… it’s prevalent all over the world,” Meek offers. “It’s mostly for the sex trade because they get young women and then indoctrinate them and send them all over the world them. It’s horrible!”

The thriller airs Saturday, September 21, at 8 p.m. and Sunday, September 22, at 12 a.m. EST on Lifetime. For more of what Meek’s been up to lately, check out his upcoming Keeping Track feature in Soaps In Depth.