Next we had the panel with Taylor, Amalia and Ashley.
Question. Tell us a book that has influenced you.
Taylor had several. Her go-to answer was The Power of Now [by Eckhart Tolle]. She also mentioned the Twilight series. She was complaining that she hadn’t brought Eclipse with her because she had already finished reading Twilight and New Moon on this trip.
Amalia mentioned a book she had come across on holiday when she was young – The Secret Life of Bees [by Sue Monk Kidd]. But she hasn’t watched the film made from the book.
Ashley chose The Bible. She said she read this on a daily basis.
Amalia told her that it can be a story. So Ashley mentioned The Giver [by Lois Lowry] and the Percy Jackson series.
Amalia contributed that Jess would have said Erica Jong’s Witches. Taylor mentioned that Jess reads a lot of poetry. She also likes Big Magic [by Elizabeth Gilbert].
Question. Out of the whole cast, who would you bet on to win in a fight?
Ashley – Me.
Taylor and Amalia were both adamant that Demetria ‘would hand us our ass’.
Question. If your character was an ice cream, what flavour would they be?
Taylor thought Jess would be rainbow sherbet.
Amalia would be strawberry, dribbled in Vanilla.
Taylor went for Black Tiger. Cue some confusion, so she had to explain that this was liquorice and orange. Then concluded that this might be a Canadian flavour.
Amalia thought Scylla would be mint chocolate.
Ashley felt that Abigail might be cookies and cream oreos – like her. Taylor disagreed and thought Abigail would be black cherry
Question. What was the most physically difficult / tiring scene they had to film?
Ashley – the Bellweather fight from 1.05. It took 20 hours to film. Ashley and Cat had mentioned this in their group meet too. The bit where Abigail and Petra fight back to back had been their idea. They thought that there should be a part where they are fighting together against the attackers.
Taylor chose the dungeon scene from S1. She said it was hard for both of us [Taylor and Amalia]. The body feels the trauma and doesn’t know that it is not real and can’t just stop it at the end of filming. Amalia agreed that is was difficult, but felt that the crew were super respectful. Things like, if people are talking you can’t get to the most difficult places.
Taylor mentioned the beach scene. This had been filmed the day after the Bellweather fight scene. She had spent so much time in the water that she practically got hyperthermia. It was hard.
Amalia said that Taylor had been upset for days and asked whether it was crossing a line.
Ashley said that at that point they were ‘anything for the shot’. She said they were psychotic. But they were young and didn’t speak up for themselves.
Question. Did you do any research on witches and did it have any effect on you?
Taylor said she learned about Wiccan and astrology. This changed her practice of healing and medicine.
She mentioned that she had originally played Raelle as a weak character, a jaded misfit. But when she did the fight scene with Abigail she realised that there was something missing. Nobody knew what it was, so Taylor hired an acting coach, for the first time. The coach wanted her t0 speak form her diaphragm and have a powerful stance. When Abigail kicked the sh*t out of her, they saw it – a strong defensive frame.
Amalia said that was a harsh reality for you [Taylor]. She didn’t research, she took it for granted. Witch trials are part of Swedish history. Instead, she worked on Scylla’s terrorism.
Ashley hadn’t done any research, she just learned from Taylor. They wanted Abigail to be more of a bitch, when she auditioned for the first time. When she auditioned the second time, she brought an attitude of ‘don’t give a f*ck’, which gave her a queen bee attitude. But she did care. She wanted to make sure Abigail was not just one note, she dived deeper.
Amalia said she did ask Eliot about the Mycelium. Taylor said that idea wasn’t introduced until later.
Question. What scene took the most takes to get right?
Taylor said ‘anything you are filming until 2 am’.
Ashley mentioned the 20 hour day and they didn’t finish. ‘We were losing it’. She also mentioned filming on her 21st birthday, but didn’t elaborate.
Amalia didn’t recall anything particular. But she was proud of completing 8 minutes of screen time in one day for 2 episodes – the dungeon scene. ‘You guys work in a different way’.
Taylor mentioned being so tired she would sleep in the car.
Ashley mentioned being so tired that she was memorising her lines while they were doing hair and make up.
Taylor said she would work for 6 days and then sleep on Sundays.
Ashley did say that dance rehearsals were on Sunday [for 1.04].
At the end of this panel, Alicia @AliIsBk1 stood up and told us that she and others had arranged for one of the local sandwich shops, which is normally closed on Saturday, to open especially for the convention and that if we went there for lunch we could have free sandwiches. This was incredibly generous and I am very grateful to Alicia and her colleagues for their continued generosity to the fans. Last year they bought us literally hundreds of donuts.
I must admit that I didn’t have time to go and get my sandwiches because I had an envelope of extras cards to sort out and a lot of autograph pictures to get ready for the afternoon. Some BTS photos of me during the afternoon show me with folders.
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