Witches Of East End is currently enjoying its barnstorming second season on Lifetime and star Mädchen Amick tells us that things are only going to get more intense.
“Oh yeah!” she exclaims. “In fact it gets even crazier! They absolutely push the envelope on what kind of concepts can you come up with. It’s interesting, and it’s fun and it’s also riding that fine line of having special effects and still keeping it grounded and still making it feel like humans that are having to exist in this like earlthy realm; and dealing with fighting these other supernatural forces.”
This second season has seen her character, the scene-stealing, rebellious Wendy, forced to grow up a bit as her nine lives were drastically reduced to one in the first season finale.
“It’s definitely raised the stakes,” she explains. “She’s kind of had to take things a little bit more seriously and not be so haphazard with losing lives as she’s been in the past. And every time she puts herself in harm’s way to help protect the family, she’s basically offering herself up as a sacrifice so it’s definitely raised the stakes! And it’s made her look at life a lot differently and her relationships and her love life. It’s a little bit uncomfortable for Wendy but she’s trying to be more responsible!”
It’s not all doom and gloom, though. Amick tells us that she’s thrilled to see Wendy with a beau who proves to be more than a match for her.
“You get to see Wendy take her love life a lot more seriously, she ends up meeting somebody that becomes really special to her, and can really throw her quick-witted attitude right back at her, and then he gets really involved in the actual storyline of the family in trouble, in harm’s way, he’s right at the centre of it, so I think probably my favourite episodes are when we’re exploring that relationship. It’s definitely something to look forward to, there’s a lot of really good naughtiness and there’s also just a good old fashioned love story as well!”
As much as Wendy is concerned for her own safety and her own love life, the series continues to develop the dynamic of the Beauchamp family as they attempt to survive as witches and deal with their own problems, and Amick tells us that it’s these scenes between the actresses that she enjoys the most.
“Oh yeah, we acknowledge that all the time,” she enthuses. “There’ll be a lot of great fun, like ‘Ooh, that was so cool when I was in the forest and I blew the trees!’ and there’s that really fun stuff that you get to do but every time they get the four of us together in a scene where they bring the family back together and we have a scene together, there’s just something really magical that happens, no pun intended, but it’s true, there’s just such a great chemistry and combination, just bringing that together and the chemistry we have as actors too it’s always the highlight of any episode is the scenes we get to do together as a family.”
“Nobody wants to tune in and watch fluffy, dumb female roles and just make them look sexy and give them some witch powers. Maybe it would appeal to a small group of people but it’s nothing that we would be very interested in playing, and we all try really hard to really ground what we’re doing and make sure it makes sense as a grounded character and not play the fluff. Give it some real levity to everything we do. I’m just so thankful to be working with these amazing three actresses, Jenna [Dewan-Tatum], Rachel [Boston] and Julia [Ormond], just so thankful. We bonded immediately when we started filming and our bond is just getting stronger and stronger as we go. So very thankful.”
Witches Of East End is also part of the growing trend of shows focused on largely female casts, sitting alongside shows like American Horror Story: Coven. When we ask Amick if she’s happy to see this emerging trend, she answers in the definite affirmative.
“Yeah, and it’s about damn time! Yeah, we’re definitely seeing good characters. At what I would say the height of my career, coming off of Twin Peaks and doing films and things it was just so frustrating because really the only roles that were available to women were just like the decoration, just like the sex object, and I never had any interest in playing that, so I would turn down big box office movies that probably would have been good for my career financially but I just didn’t want to play that, I wanted to explore good female characters which kind of led me more into more offbeat independent stuff.
But now to see some really good strong female characters and to see that it’s successful, that people pay money to go to the box office to see it and they sit down at their TV and watch it, and it’s not just a female viewership, it’s just as much male, it’s amazing and we have to pay attention and keep making more stories like that. Not have it just be a wave.”
Witches Of East End airs on Mondays at 10pm on Lifetime. You can keep up with the latest TV news with the new issue of SciFiNow.
