Olivia Applegate: Rylee starts to “push back” in Driven Season 2

Olivia Applegate lives and breathes Driven. After debuting as Rylee Thomas in the series’ first season in 2018, she’s had a lot of time between seasons to process who the character is and what she’s about, especially heading into the second and third seasons. Applegate talked about Rylee’s evolution during a special Q&A session following the red carpet premiere of Passionflix’s Driven Season 2.

K. Bromberg’s Driven Series follows the tale of social worker Rylee and race car driver Colton Donavan. Rylee and Colton have their fair share of demons in the closet but over time they realize that they’re better together no matter how much their fear threatens to push them apart.

Olivia Applegate: What to expect from Rylee in Driven Season 2

At the end of the first season, Colton tries to push Rylee away after waking up from a nightmare, and that’s the starting point for season 2, which follows the events in Bromberg’s Fueled.

"I think Rylee really comes into her own and really starts to push back on Colton in a way that you don’t get to see in the first book. She really puts her foot down and is like, “No, I am a match for you. Deal with it,” which is really satisfying to get to play. And I think that was something that’s new. And I mean, I don’t know, it only gets more emotional y’all. Y’all are going to see some, just all kinds of sides of Rylee. I think, I really love the metaphor [Michael Roark] had of layers, that there are a lot of layers to peel back. And the more you watch these episodes and the farther we get into the story, the more layers that get peeled back on Rylee. And I’m just, I’m excited to be able to see what she does. That’s it."

Applegate also opened up about how the time between seasons allowed her the opportunity to grow as a person, putting her in a much better place to bring Rylee’s complex story to life in seasons 2 and 3.

The second and third seasons of Driven were filmed back to back in fall 2020, with Passionflix CEO Tosca Musk behind the camera as the director. There is no release date as yet for Driven Season 3 as of this writing, but thankfully it has been filmed and will arrive sooner than later.

Passionflix founding members were on hand at the red carpet premiere to enjoy a screening of the first two episodes of the four-episode second season of Driven. It was also a chance to see the smoldering chemistry between Applegate and new co-lead Michael Roark, who stepped into the role of Colton for the second and third season.

Driven Season 2 premieres on Passionflix on July 22.