'Beautiful Creatures' premiere
Beautiful Creatures hopes to introduce the world to a new kind of witch and warlock — or casters as they prefer to be called in the world of the Ravenwoods and Duchannes — when the movie adaptation of Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl’s best-selling YA novel hits theaters Feb. 14. These characters join a long list of pop-culture conjurers including Disney’s many diviners and the spell-spinners of J.K. Rowling’s universe. So when the cast and crew gathered for the world premiere of Creatures last night at Hollywood’s Chinese Theatre, we wanted to find out which witch had charmed their way to favorite status and why.
While many famous folk were enchanted by Bewitched‘s Samantha Stevens, read on to see which other famous witches left them spellbound:
Emmy Rossum, Ridley in Beautiful Creatures: “The Witches of Eastwick is probably my all-time favorite witch story. In fact, I call one of my ex-boyfriends Daryl Van Horne because I think he is the devil but he still has some kind of weird power over me.”
Alden Ehrenreich, Ethan in Beautiful Creatures: “Samantha from Bewitched. And also I was very partial to Jeannie from I Dream of Jeannie. But I guess she was a genie, not a witch, although in practice they’re very similar. They basically do the same stuff. They are like one degree apart on the supernatural continuum.”
Alice Englert, Lena in Beautiful Creatures: “I really have always liked the bad witch from The Wizard of Oz. I always felt like she was very misunderstood. She had a hard time. She also had a better dress sense to be honest. The other witch’s outfit was just terrible. And she had flying monkeys. So cool and bizarre.”
Director/writer Richard LaGravenese: “I grew up on Bewitched and was in love with Elizabeth Montgomery, like every kid my age at the time. She could do no wrong in my book. But I was also a huge Buffy The Vampire Slayer fan. She is one of my favorite supernatural heroines and Willow was a great pop-culture witch. I loved when she became evil Willow.”
Thomas Mann, Link in Beautiful Creatures: “I loved Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman in Practical Magic. That was my mom’s favorite movie when I was growing up and that was my first introduction to witches. This movie has some similarities to it since it is about not fitting in and feeling like an outcast.”
Tiffany Boone, Savannah Snow in Beautiful Creatures: “I loved all of the witches in The Craft. I used to watch that movie pretty regularly because I thought maybe I could grow up and be them one day. There was even a character that looked like me. Even though it turned out bad for them and was probably not a good set of role models to have, they were cool with their black hair and short skirts. It was such a fun movie.”
Kami Garcia, Beautiful Creatures series co-author: “My favorite witch book of all-time is The Witching Hour by Anne Rice. It is southern gothic and that’s my favorite genre. It was a giant inspiration to us when we wrote the Beautiful Creatures series. We are also giant Buffy fans and Willow became a fantastic witch.”
Margaret Stohl, Beautiful Creatures series co-author: “Our good friend Melissa De La Cruz has a series called The Witches of East End. It was just picked up as a Lifetime show and that has some really cool witches in it. And our other good friend Deborah Harkness has the best-selling adult witch book at the moment called A Discovery of Witches. It’s romantic, sexy, and so smart. And that screenplay was just finished. Witches are just cool because it is one of the few times traditionally where woman get to have the power and be amazing and strong.”
Lea Thompson (Back to the Future): “Samantha in Bewitched. That’s how old I am. She was so peppy and wry and nonplussed about things. It was a funny show and I loved it. It is an example of how you don’t need a giant special effects budget if you have a great story and a great cast.”
Shanola Hampton (Shameless): “I love the Wicked Witch in Wicked. You get to see how the story all started. You went in with this idea of who the Wicked Witch was and how she was all evil and mean. But really Glenda was an airhead and the Wicked Witch was smart. She was just misunderstood. I just loved seeing why she became the woman and witch that she was down the road.”
Nolan Gerard Funk (Glee): “My sister made me watch The Craft with her on Halloween and I have to admit that I ended up liking it. They were sexy goth teen witches. And I loved Bette Midler’s witch in Hocus Pocus. That was a really funny movie. Sometimes silly witches are more fun.”
Michael Steger (90210): “Do wizards count? If so, I’ll go with the gang from Harry Potter.”
Read more:
Meet the cast of ‘Beautiful Creatures’