Joan Allen moves to TV for her latest role in new ABC series "The Family"

NEW YORK (WABC) -- Her co-star in the movie "Room", Brie Larson, won an Oscar a couple of weeks ago, and Joan Allen has been a contender for an Academy Award three times.

But she stepped off the big screen for her latest role in the new ABC TV series "The Family".

Joan Allen is the latest star nominated for Oscars thanks to her film work to embrace what's been called the new golden age of television.

"There's just a lot more work, and it's interesting work, and it's a very exciting time," said Allen.

A time when the best shows are not confined to cable.

In "The Family", Allen plays a mayor who runs for governor after she learns her son, who she thought was dead, has returned, following her abduction ten years before.

"It's not easy like 1,2,3. It takes effort, and practice basically to be reunited," Joan said.

Allen drew on her own real experience as a mother to make this mom's anguish true to life.

"I remember there was a time when my daughter was maybe five years old, and we were in a mall, and I turned around, and she was gone for like 5 minutes, and the terror that you feel is beyond any other feeling I think I've ever felt in terms of intensity of emotion," said Allen.

Allen trained in the theater, in Chicago's famed Steppenwolf acting company, and she won a Tony award for her first Broadway show.

She finds parallels between her start there and her TV family decades later.

"We are an ensemble, and the joy of working with the same people over and over again is very reminiscent of our theater past. And it really is like a little theater family, just you know doing it front of a camera."

"The Family" airs "tonight at 9 on ABC7.