ABIGAIL SPENCER ATimeless Star’s Big Break THE ACTRESS TALKS ‘10,000 HOURS’ OF WORK, HER FRIENDSHIP WITH MEGHAN MARKLE AND MOTHERHOOD By CHRISTINA DUGAN

hree days after NBC’s time-travel drama Timeless was canceled in 2017, star Abigail Spencer woke up to hundreds of texts, missed calls and a tweet from theLate Late Show Thost James Corden. “I thought maybe he was ask- ing me to do a crosswalk musical on his show,” she says. Instead the 36-year-old Florida native learned that the past wasn’t quite set in stone. “All these people who loved the show campaigned and brought it back for a second season,” she says. “Those three days were a real ride.” It was just the latest twist in Spencer’s unlikely

HAIR: CHARLES DUJIC/ORIBE & HARRY JOSH PRO TOOLS/TMG-LA; MAKEUP: BETHANY MCCARTHY/CHANEL/NEST ARTISTS; LOCATION: HOTEL COVELL, LOS ANGELES LOS COVELL, HOTEL LOCATION: ARTISTS; MCCARTHY/CHANEL/NEST BETHANY MAKEUP: TOOLS/TMG-LA; PRO JOSH HARRY & DUJIC/ORIBE CHARLES HAIR: journey on the road toTimeless, in which she plays

Photographs by JUSTIN COIT PEOPLE March 19, 2018 59 Out of the Past With her Timeless costar Matt Lanter. The series returns March 11 on NBC at 10 p.m. ET.

Mad Woman Spencer played one of Don Draper’s lovers in season 3 of Mad Men.

a fearless history professor. After a decade of strug- gling to make it in Hollywood, the onetime soap actress broke through in 2009, when she landed the role of Suzanne Farrell alongside Jon Hamm on AMC’s Mad Men. “I had been working under the radar for 10 years, and this ‘I had this was the first time anybody had really deep seen me act really except my mom and my friends and my longing agent,” she says. “I had to be for my life like, ‘Am I a good actor? Yes, to not be keep doing it. Don’t quit.’ ” about me, Those “10,000 hours” she had and I didn’t put into her work prior to Mad know how Men soon landed her roles on series including the USA legal to get it’ drama Suits, which costarred out I was pregnant, it was instantaneous—my life —ABIGAIL SPENCER her good friend Meghan Mar- was just no longer about me.” kle. These days, of course, Now a single working mom to 9-year-old theroyalbride-to-beisinthemidstofplan- Roman (she and Pruett divorced in 2012), she ning the biggest wedding of the year along- says, “Every day is a new challenge. It does side her fiancé, Prince Harry. “I’m just so require a big support system, so there’s a excited that the world will get to experience lot of delegating.” At the same time, she

herloveliness,”Spencersaysofherpal.“I adds, “becoming Roman’s mom was such FROM TOP: SERGEI BACHLAKOV/NBCUPHOTO BANK/GETTY IMAGES; EVERETT;STEFANIE think that with her platform for charity an incredible reinvention of myself. and her fortitude, she’s going to have a I started writing. I wrote a pilot that KEENAN/GETTY IMAGES; TOP RIGHT, LOCATION:HOMESTATE, LOS ANGELES great moment to change the world. If I sold. I started writing films. I just felt anyone can do it, it’s her. I’ve known this creative rebirth on every level when her for so long. I’m just excited the world I became his mother.” gets to meet the person I love so much. Now, as the second season of Time- It’sjust sowonderfulto see her so happy less kicks off, she’s content to be in Princess Pals and so in love.” Spencer (left) calls the present.“When I was a little girl, I Her own personal life changed for- Markle (center, always wanted to be an actor,” she says. ever in 2009, when she and her then- with Constance “The fact that every day, I roll onto the husband Andrew Pruett welcomed son Zimmer in ’16) lot—full sweatpants, full acne, full what- “one of the Roman. “Right before I became a mother, loveliest human ever state I’m in—and the two guys at I had this really deep longing for my life beings.” the gate say, ‘Hey Abigail! How are to not be about me, and I didn’t know how you? Welcome back to Paramount’— to get it,” she says. “The second that I found I’m living my dream.” •

60 March 19, 2018 PEOPLE