Fox spotlights multiple generations of child stars in its TCA panel on ‘The Passage’

Mark-Paul Gosselaar tried not to take it personally that his 11-year-old costar in the upcoming Fox drama “The Passage” didn’t recognize him from the seminal family comedy “Saved by the Bell.”

He’d mentioned the name “Zack,” and here’s what immediately came to mind for Saniyya Sidney:

“Zac Efron!” she proclaimed at the Television Critics Assn. summer press tour. Gosselaar smiled and shrugged.

Oh, well, up-and-coming television stars don’t always know the history of the medium. But it didn’t hurt the on-screen chemistry between the two actors, they said during a session for the pandemic thriller, scheduled for midseason on Fox.

“We had to bond,” Sidney (“Hidden Fences,” “American Horror Story”) said. “When I connected to [my character] Amy, I connected to [Gosselaar’s] Wolgast. Amy needed Wolgast, and I needed Mark-Paul.”

The two characters and their unconventional father-daughter relationship form the “beating heart” of “The Passage,” based on a bestselling trilogy from novelist Justin Cronin, said showrunner Liz Heldens.

Although it revolves around a kid in peril as Gosselaar and Sidney are on the run from bad guys, their scenes “are some of the most hopeful and buoyant” on the show.

“The fact that she has this protector and advocate makes the story bearable,” Heldens said. “And they’re weirdly funny together.”

Gosselaar (“Pitch,” “Franklin and Bash”) did have tips to share with his pint-size costar — the wisdom of age and experience — but not because he was a “younger performer,” as one critic in the assembled crowd deemed him. He quickly corrected her:

“I was a child star,” he said with a laugh.