Catherine Bell on the Magic Behind the Good Witch

After seven the Good Witch movies for the Hallmark Channel, the magical Catherine Bell-starrer was morphed into a TV series. Now it’s back for a second season and Cassie (Bell), now a widow, and her neighbor Sam (James Denton) are in the throes of deciding if they want to move their friendship on to something more romantic.

But there are impediments in the way. One of the biggest is the fact that Sam’s ex-wife is living with him, but in Season 2, we also meet John (Dan Payne), an old archaeologist friend of Cassie’s, who comes to Middleton with the intent of doing more than checking out ancient ruins.

Parade.com spoke with Catherine Bell about the changes that were made in transitioning the movies into a series, the new Cassie-Sam-John love triangle, whether or not Cassie is actually a witch, and more. 

There were some there were some big changes when you went from the movies to the series. Cassie became a widow, they aged her daughter, can you talk a little bit about the transitions and how you felt it went in Season 1?

Chris Potter, who played my husband in the movies, was not available, so it wasn’t the original intention, but somehow it worked out because we thought, “Well, what do we do? How do we stay true to the fans and honor this character that everybody loved?” So we decided the best way to do that would be to age forward in time.

So now I have a teenage daughter, played by Bailee Madison, who is phenomenal. She is just a great actress and a really great girl. That also provides fun tension between  a mother and a teenage daughter, who has some of my witchy abilities, but maybe doesn’t know how to use them so well, and how does this mom help her daughter? You know, I help everyone else so easily and so smoothly, but, of course, it’s never as easy with our teenage girls. So, it ended up being a great, I guess, happy accident in that regard.

Then, of course, we got to bring in James Denton. And again, because we were never clear in Season 1 about how many years it was since her husband passed away, it’s enough time, but Cassie’s guarded and not totally ready, but at least open to somebody new.

So, all of those things I found were great new things to play. I always thought the movies were fun and amazing as one-offs, but I thought if we did that every week, where Cassie always knows everything, and everything’s always perfect in her life, and nothing ever ruffles her feathers, it might be a little boring as an audience member to watch, you know? So now we have this handsome guy next door, but is she ready to date?

Also, the ex-wife is there, so I imagine she is going to cause problems.

You know, there was kind of a love triangle in the first season, and now Season 2, there’s someone else from Cassie’s past that comes back — a tall, dark, handsome archeologist — and there is definitely some conflict and confusion, and again the ex-wife is there, so that’s not ideal. So there are some bumps along the way, but I do believe a lot of fans are rooting for team Sam and Cassie.

Were you resistant at all to the idea of a teenage daughter because your kids in real life aren’t anywhere near getting ready to drive?

Well, you know, my daughter is turning 13 in a couple of weeks. I know, crazy, right? My son is five and a half. So, actually Bailee is playing just turning 16, so she was 15 when we started.

Right, because Grace is learning to drive.

Right, exactly, exactly. There’s some fun scenes on that. Yeah, not so far off. It’s amazing that I have an almost teenage daughter, and I get to do these scenes with Bailee, who reminds me so much of my daughter — just a sweet, sweet little soul. And when I do scenes with Bailee, it’s so easy to get emotional and just have that connection with her because of who she is, but also because how similar she is to my daughter.

So you mentioned this archaeologist. It seems that in several of the movies people also showed up from Cassie past. Is that something that works well for the story because part of her past is mysterious to us?

Cassie’s past is still a bit mysterious, you know? Little bits were revealed along the way in the movies, like her parents were killed, and just all the different things along the way that shaped her, and the travel around the world. More gets revealed this season.

Actually, it’s kind of cool because this guy John comes back from her past, and we find out what she did out of college and archeology and travelling the world, but you get to find out more about who Cassie really is, what drew her to Middleton and why she’s there now, and why it’s perfect for her.

There are a lot of shows on TV now that are about magic and superpowers, but this show has a gentle magic to it. Why do you think that’s so appealing because it really has quite an audience? It’s Hallmark’s top-rated series.

It’s kind of amazing. We made one movie every year. People kept tuning in, and seven years later, now we’re a series. I think, to me, the show is always a question of: Is Cassie a witch or isn’t she? Does she have magic or not? She’s extremely intuitive and understanding of people and positive, but does she have a little something else? So, it’s a little more vague, and I think it leaves more to people’s imagination as opposed to true witches and warlocks and magic spells.

Do you have anything else coming up?

I do. Next week I start Rescue on the 55th Floor back in Toronto. It’s an action movie. I play a woman architect who designed the building that she and her family live in. She takes off on a business trip, and there is an explosion in the skyscraper that her son and husband are in. And she knows the building really well, so she decides to sneak in and try to rescue them. It’s pretty intense, pretty action packed.

NCIS has been picked up for two more seasons, and it was a spinoff of your JAG series. Do you ever talk about doing a guest role?

We talked about that for a while. My fans keep asking and the producers of that show were thinking…I haven’t had time. My off time has been their off time, as well. But there was some talk of having my character guest star on that show, which would be really fun, I would love that. And actually John Jackson, who played our admiral on JAG, he guest starred. Let’s do it.

Season 2 of the Good Witch  premieres Sunday, April 17 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Channel.

Also check out the photo gallery and exclusive clip from Season 2 here.