2018 has been awesome for winter TV programming so far — almost all of our favorite shows are back on the air with new episodes, including Syfy’s The Magicians!
For those of you that haven’t seen the show yet, stop what you’re doing and binge the first two seasons now. The series is based on the New York Times best-selling trilogy of the same name by Lev Grossman, looking at magic through a dark lens and following a group of oddballs and misfits on their unpredictable adventures.
Our girl Brittany Curran plays Fen in the dark drama, who is the Fillorian wife of Eliot (Hale Appleman) and a member of the High Council to the kingdom of Fillory. At the end of season two, Fen (Curran) was left in a dark place having just lost her baby to the Fairy Queen, and giving up her toes to said queen in order to return her kingdom in Fillory. In the string of new episodes, airing every Wednesday at 9PM on Syfy, Curran’s character will have a wild ride throughout the season.
Celeb Secrets caught up with Curran not too long ago to talk about what’s to come for this highly-anticipated new season, the transition from being a recurring guest star to a series regular, how she’s grown as an actress since getting the role, and a behind-the-scenes secret from filming that you wouldn’t know when watching the show.
Take a read at the full Q&A and a teaser from tonight’s episode below.
Make sure to tune in to The Magicians tonight and every Wednesday @ 9/8c on Syfy as well as follow Brittany on Instagram at @brittanycurran.
Celeb Secrets: “The Magicians” is finally coming back for a third season! What can we expect from upcoming episodes this season?
Brittany Curran: “A great quest! There is a lot of adventure and unexpected twists and turns this season, especially with my character Fen, things get crazy. We also have the Muntjac this season, the majestic boat from the books. We shoot partially on a real boat out on the water, and partially on a set which is the interior of the boat. Being on the set really makes you feel like you’re in a magical and whimsical world, so hopefully the audience will also feel that same departure from reality. We also have some incredible recurring actors on the show this year that we get to see a lot more of like Jaime Ray Newman, Candis Cayne, Rizwan Manji, Sergio Osuna, Marlee Matlin, and of course, Sassy the Sloth.”
CS: Your character is now a series regular this season. How was it like being on set more with the cast and crew?
BC: “I loved the shift. When I was recurring, they would fly me back and forth each week between LA and Vancouver, and when I became a series regular I moved to Vancouver, which I love. That alone makes me feel more immersed in the world. Being on set more this season also means feeling more and more like a family with the cast and crew. We get to hang out more which means we get to be ridiculous together even more often. On July 4th (which is obviously not celebrated in Canada) Jade Tailor and I went to the dollar store, bought sparklers and all their American flag related items, went to a nearby field, and frolicked around with our American stuff. After frolicking like complete idiots for a while, we finally noticed that at the bottom of the hill we were on, there was a Shakespeare in the park sort of performance going on, and we had been in the background behind the actors the whole time.”
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CS: Would you say you’ve seen a lot of growth in not only your character, but yourself as an actress from when you first started on the show until now?
BC: “Absolutely. I feel myself growing as an actress and leaving any lazy habits I still had behind. I’ve gotten so invested in Fen that I want to honor her as best as I can. Fen goes through a bit of a psychotic break at the beginning of season 3, so I called up my real life therapist in Los Angeles, and did a Skype therapy session with her, but for Fen instead of for me. Fen also grows immensely this season. I can’t go into detail, but she goes on a path that I least expected but most respected. I admire her in a lot of ways.”
CS: What’s one thing you really want fans to look forward to this upcoming season?
BC: “I want them to look forward to the strong female role models and the equally as strong men who support them. We have a staff of many talented female and male writers, as well as a crew that employs women in a lot of positions you usually don’t see women represented in as much. And I think that sense of equality is portrayed on screen as well. For instance, Summer plays Margo in such a beautifully vulnerable yet incredibly strong way and Hale’s character Eliot unconditionally loves and supports the strong woman that she is, and I love that so much. The way our writers and Sera Gamble and John McNamara (our showrunners) craft these characters really aids in putting strong and independent women in the forefront as human beings and not as props, which happens to female characters quite a bit, but fortunately less and less often these days.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BeahqOXnU_G/?taken-by=brittanycurran
CS: Since we are Celeb Secrets, can you share a behind-the-scenes secret from filming “The Magicians” that people wouldn’t know when they watch it?
BC: “When Hale and I were filming the scene from last year where Eliot rounds up all the couples from the castle into our bedroom and Fen is appalled at the idea of watching them “do their thing”, Fen disrobes at the end of the scene. So I had pasties on for all the takes except for the last one. I didn’t tell Hale that I was going to take the pasties off for his last close-up, so that he would be surprised. So I stealthily removed them, handed them to the costumer, did the scene, disrobed at the end, and surprised the hell out of Hale. That was the take they ended up choosing for the final cut because his reaction was 100% real. We’re friends in real life and have definitely laughed about that day.”
