‘The Magicians’ exclusive: Stella Maeve on playing Julia, source material, and show’s longevity

Regardless of whether you are watching from Syfy in America or Showcase in Canada, one thing remains the same: There is an ambitious new series coming on the air Monday night at 9:00 p.m. Eastern in “The Magicians,” which explores the world of magic in an imaginative and more adult way than you’ve likely seen it in other forms. The Lev Grossman adaptation will likely bring to mind such things as Narnia or Harry Potter, but at the same time also be reminiscent of other genre shows like an “Alphas” or “The 4400.” We’ve seen the premiere (otherwise known as the first of the two episodes airing tonight), and it’s a thrill to watch.

One of the more fascinating characters in the pilot is Julia, the longtime friend of male lead Quentin Coldwater (Jason Ralph) who at the start of the pilot, has lost some of her belief in magic thanks to growing up and embracing reality. However, much of that is going to change thanks to a few key events that shake the entire universe, and set in motion lives that will never be the same.

To help set up the new series and some of what we know about the Julia character, we spoke with Maeve in a phone interview last week. You can also see the show’s trailer at the bottom of this article.

CarterMatt – Let’s start with this, since I remember watching you [as Nadia] on ‘Chicago PD.’ How did your journey go from being a part of that show over to ‘The Magicians’?

Stella Maeve – It’s actually funny. So Matt Olmstead is the showrunner of ‘Chicago PD,’ and his wife Dawn Olmstead is [within parent company] NBCUniversal. She was helping [develop] ‘The Magicians,’ so she stole me from her husband. That’s the truth! So I got ‘The Magicians’ during ‘Chicago PD,’ and I had to leave ‘Chicago PD’ to do ‘The Magicians.’

I don’t know a whole lot about the source material, but what was your knowledge of it going into this?

When I initially gotten into it I hadn’t read the books, but when I got [the job] and it became a reality and we were doing it, I read them all before we started production.

Are you getting a sense from production that the show is going to stay pretty faithful to the books, or are there some twists and turns to it? Based on what I’ve read, Julia isn’t in as much of the early portion of the [books] but she becomes a much bigger part over time.

Yeah, the second book is essentially Julia’s book. Of course they’ve changed things for TV; so what they’ve done is combine book 2 and book 1, and show Julia’s journey and Quentin’s journey simultaneously. Everybody’s got to format stuff for TV to keep it relevant. Luckily for us Lev Grossman is there every step of the way and signed off on everything and gave us his general approval on everything. I think the avid fans and the readers of the books will be happy to know that he was an avid part of that process.

Is there a little bit of fun in getting to come into this show with this knowledge of these characters, and then getting to maybe explore a few different things? ‘The Walking Dead’ is a good example of a show that has this source material but still finds a way to surprise even some diehard fans.

Yeah, it’s great to have these outlines and guidelines to explore a little bit of what’s off the page, but at the same time stay true to what is true for these characters. It’s a good combination.

When you started to envision the Julia character, how did you see her and how you wanted to play her?

I wanted to play her exactly as it was written. I can only try to due my due diligence and emulate her as best I could. I think that Julia the TV character as well as Julia in the books are pretty similar; there are a few differences like I said, but I tried to emulate it as best I could.

Magic is obviously a key part of the show, and we see early on in the premiere how Julia is someone trying to move on from these childhood games of magic that she had with Quentin. Yet, as time goes on in the episode things change, and she falls into a place where she may start to believe in magic. What was it like for you to play into so many different beliefs and dynamics so quickly?

It was quick. (Laughs.) I think that’s why it was so great, because we do change our minds constantly. We do think that we know [things] and we’ve figured it out, and that is when everything is thrown for a loop. She didn’t believe in magic, but then she realized that magic is real and everything she knew in life was completely questioned. That’s what your twenties are all about, and that is what this show captures perfectly. You think you have it all figured out, but you don’t! Life happens, and you gotta kind of figure it out, and we get to watch Julia figure it out, and she goes through awful things. Julia doesn’t really get to be happy. There are glimpses of happiness, but we don’t get to see her smile a lot. So hopefully season 2 there will be more than that, or maybe not? You never know!

Was it interesting for you to go from a world that was as gritty as ‘Chicago PD’ to one that, while also dark, has this element of magic to it?

There are a lot of questions comparing Nadia and Julia and ‘Chicago PD’ to ‘The Magicians,’ but one thing I think they actually do have in common is the fact that Voight, the leader of ‘Chicago PD,’ is a vigilante in a sense, and here are heroes and our heroines, our lead characters, are also flawed. They’re human beings. The people that we love are not perfect, and sometimes you have to get through the bad and the ugly to see the good, and that’s something that Julia experiences and that’s something that the characters on ‘Chicago PD’ experience, as well.

We get a little bit of a sense of the darkness for Julia coming up in the premiere. For you, how do you prepare and dive into some of this material and get yourself in that kind of place? Is that something that you’re able to get into, get out of, and then get back to life?

Oh god. Honestly, it took me a lot of time. I’m just now getting back … It’s rough. I don’t think there is any way to prepare yourself for things like that. I think you do it and it happens. It’s crazy. It’s really hard to shake. Just now I think I’m feeling normal again and on my way back to recovery.

I wish I was good enough to turn it on and off, I wish I could go from being that person who goes from being really angry to smiling and cracking jokes. I just can’t. When I’m in it I have to be in it in order to believe it.

The relationship between Quentin and Julia in the early going is really fun to watch. What was it like doing those scenes?

I love Jason. We make really inappropriate jokes all day and make each other laugh, and he’s a really great partner to have on set. It was a bummer because so much of this season we were separated … Getting to work with him is always fun and we have really great chemistry and he’s a great teammate and partner.

Ultimately, how long do you see a series like this lasting for?

John McNamara and Sera Gamble were asked a little about that at TCA, and they said they don’t plan on going more than six seasons. They’d stop at six or fine. I always find with TV shows, less is more. We really push things to the limit, and it’s nicer to have a good end, a strong end, than push things along into nothingness.

I think that John and Sera have a really good gauge on this, and I think it’s smart.

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Thanks of course to Stella for the time, and as mentioned you can watch the premiere of “The Magicians” Monday night at 9:00 p.m. Eastern on Showcase or Syfy depending on where you live.