New Charmed Interview: The Charmed Ones on the CW Relaunch

The new Charmed Ones explained: what the NYCC 2018 interview covered

The CW's relaunch of Charmed premiered on October 14, 2018, and its three leads sat down at New York Comic Con just days earlier to talk about what the new Charmed was trying to be. The conversation is short, but it answers the questions that fans of the 1998 series asked first: is this a remake, does it respect the original, and who are these sisters?

The cast is Melonie Diaz as Mel Vera, Sarah Jeffery as Maggie Vera, and Madeleine Mantock as Macy, a newcomer to the family who moves into the house at the end of the pilot. Rupert Evans plays Harry Greenwood, the Whitelighter who guides them. The series was developed by Jennie Snyder Urman, Jessica O'Toole and Amy Rardin, with Carter Covington running the first season.

If you searched for the new Charmed because you wanted a preview from the people playing the witches, this is the useful part: none of the three describes the show as a copy. All of them describe it as an offshoot that keeps a few load-bearing pieces and changes the rest.

The rest of this page works through the interview question by question, then lists the basic facts about the series for anyone arriving cold.

Why the new Charmed won over a skeptical cast

Mantock admitted she arrived skeptical. She did not understand why a relaunch of Charmed was a big deal or what would set it apart. Reading the script changed that. She found it funnier than expected and described it as current and conscious in a way she had not read in a long time, joking that it felt like what you would get if the people on Tumblr were allowed to write a show.

That reaction matters because it shows the pitch the actors were given. The new Charmed was sold on its politics and its humor as much as on nostalgia.

How the new Charmed treats the original series

Asked whether they think about the 1998 show and its fandom, Mantock said playing a brand-new character is freeing. An existing role carries extra pressure, much like playing a real person, and she was glad the relaunch was not repeating what had already been made. The elements the new series borrows are the sisterhood, the Book of Shadows and the Whitelighter, and she called the result a new offshoot.

Jeffery added that the cast wants the original kept intact and respected. Plenty of it remains, she said, if not identical then similar, but the new characters live in a very different time. In her view that makes it the right moment for the show, and she called the chance to speak on troubling issues cathartic. The aim, as she put it, is to carry over the magic and sisterhood of the original while bringing in the reality of the current political climate.

For the record, the setting did move: the story shifts from San Francisco to Hilltowne, Michigan, and that the family name changes from Halliwell to Vera.

Maggie, college and an intrusive power

One question pointed out that the pilot showed only Maggie's Greek life, not the academic side the cast had mentioned at the panel. Jeffery promised more of both. Maggie is still finding her tribe, and sorority life may not be for her. She is young, she is working it out, and Jeffery wants her to read as relatable and multifaceted.

The follow-up was about Maggie's power, which the interviewer called the most intrusive of the three: she hears other people's thoughts. Jeffery agreed with that word and said it runs through the character. Controlling what she hears, and what she does with it, is the difficulty, and in the coming episodes it surfaces at inopportune moments that can be funny and devastating in the same scene. Her own verdict on mind reading was blunt: it would probably be pretty awful, though it has upsides too.

Sisters who butt heads

Mantock described Macy's place in the family as a real struggle. She is trying to be a friend and sister to strangers while she works out that she is a witch, and she has little choice about moving in. Her scenes with Diaz's Mel were some of her favorites to play, because Mel is far less welcoming than Maggie and the two characters are more alike than they realize.

Diaz said the arguments are hard to film because she likes Mantock and laughs through the takes. Jeffery pointed out that Mel and Maggie have always been close, unlike Macy, and that the death of their mother pulls them apart and together at once. Maggie avoids dwelling on it, Mel insists on finding out what happened, and those two approaches collide. Jeffery hoped the show hit a home run on the family dynamic.

Mel Vera and a matter-of-fact storyline

The last question raised something rare for a network series: in the first five minutes of the pilot, Mel is in bed with another woman. Asked how it feels to play a lead who could become a gay icon, Diaz answered with obvious delight and said she would love that.

She also described a deliberate choice she and the creators made never to talk about Mel's sexuality as an issue. Mel is a woman who loves another woman, a human being and a witch, and Diaz wanted that to be treated as normal. She said she felt great that the creative team took the same view.

New Charmed at a glance

• Network and premiere: The CW, October 14, 2018.
• Developers: Jennie Snyder Urman, Jessica O'Toole and Amy Rardin; Carter Covington was showrunner for season 1.
• The sisters: Mel Vera (Melonie Diaz), Maggie Vera (Sarah Jeffery) and Macy (Madeleine Mantock).
• Setting: Hilltowne, Michigan, with the sisters learning they are witches after their mother's death.
• Run: Four seasons and 72 episodes, ending on June 10, 2022.

New Charmed interview recap: what it told viewers

Read together, the three answers map the show's intent. The relaunch wanted to keep the sisterhood, the Book of Shadows and the Whitelighter, add contemporary politics, and give the middle sister a love life that the series would not footnote.

Mantock's skepticism is the most useful detail for anyone deciding whether to watch. She started where many viewers did and came out surprised by the tone. Jeffery's comments on the original are the diplomatic counterpart: respect for the 1998 show, but no promise of imitation.

The sibling material is where the actors sound most animated. A show about witches lives or dies on whether the sisters feel like a family, and all three leads pointed to the squabbling as the thing they enjoy most. Fans hoping for demon-of-the-week plots will find little in the interview, since nobody discusses them.

One loose thread stays loose. Jeffery would not say how far Maggie's academic life gets explored, only that the show is moving toward it. Diaz, likewise, gave no hint of where Mel's investigation into her mother's death ends. Interviews like this one, held right after a pilot screening, tend to promise direction instead of answers, and this one is no exception.

The tone of the room comes through in small moments. Diaz groans good-naturedly about being angry with Mantock on camera, Jeffery cracks that reading minds sounds miserable, and Mantock jokes about Tumblr writing the show. Three actors who had barely finished the pilot sounded relaxed about the franchise they were inheriting, which is a point in the relaunch's favor before a single episode had aired.

If you want one takeaway line from the new Charmed Ones, take Diaz's: Mel is a human being and a witch, and the rest is normal. It is a modest statement, and it shaped how the character was introduced.

Looking back from today, the series ran for four seasons, and Mantock's Macy was part of seasons one to three. Whether the relaunch hit the home run Jeffery hoped for is a matter of taste, but the intentions described in this interview are visible in the pilot.

Sources

• Charmed (2018 TV series), Wikipedia — cast, premise and premiere date