Managing expectations: Sabrina Impacciatore finds a new edition to career

When Sabrina Impacciatore got the script for “The Paper,” she wasn’t sure how she should play Esmeralda Grand, the newspaper’s managing editor.

“I used real emotions,” Impacciatore recalls. “I was really crying. I was really shaking and then, at the end of the audition, I can’t remember who told me, ‘Sabrina do you understand that Esmeralda is manipulative and she’s pretending to cry?’ And at the end of this, I said, ‘I’m going to use this because it’s a process … I’m still figuring out Esmeralda. I’m still trying to figure out what’s going to happen.’”

In the new Peacock series, Esmeralda steps aside for a new editor, but retains control over the online version of the Toledo Truth Teller. Still in charge? Old habits die hard.

For Impacciatore, who earned an Emmy nomination for the seco