There’s a new super-sleuth in town on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, and while the name Aurora Teagarden might sound familiar to fans of the network's hugely popular franchise, this week’s premiere of Aurora Teagarden Mysteries: Something New introduces someone different. Candice Cameron Bure originated the role of Aurora back in 2015, but now that the network is exploring Aurora’s early years, she is played by Skyler Samuels, who perfectly captures the essence of Aurora as a young college student developing her super-sleuth skill set.
When it came to taking on the beloved character, Samuels (pictured at top) readily accepted the challenge. “It was really a serendipitous surprise that they reached out to me about playing Aurora,” she beamed during an exclusive interview with MediaVillage. “The opportunity of getting to kind of reinvent and reimagine this beloved character in her earlier years was really fun, and a new creative challenge I haven't gotten to do before. It was an exciting job to take on and it's been a joy.
“What helped was watching some of the original Aurora movies and kind of honing what I thought were her character staples,” she continued. “I was sort of thinking, 'Okay, what are these little building blocks that are central to the character?' You don't want to do an imitation, but you also don't want to bring in someone who is nothing like the person you're meant to be playing. Just little quirks, or tendencies, and things like a certain way she might talk or move, or some of the dynamics in her relationships. I sort of cherry-picked a few of the things that felt most essential to her, and then the fun was sort of reverse engineering that into what a younger version of her might be.
“What's really nice about working backward is that when Aurora is introduced in the original movies, she's a little more polished and together,” she continued. “She's good at solving crimes and you meet her when she's in her stride. I thought it would be fun if she's just not good at this -- like at all! [Then] to see how she figured out that superpower. I do think of her as a superhero, but what's Aurora's origin story like? What was the thing that launched her into becoming insatiably obsessed with murder, mystery and solving these crimes? She kind of had to figure that out as she went. It's been really fun to go back in time and see her stumble into her superpower. It's not always seamless, and it's certainly not always polished, but it’s really fun.”
Samuels admits she had a lot of creative license when reinventing Aurora circa 2008, working very closely with director Jessica Harmon on merging their ideas. The period in which the prequel is set also helped mold that younger version. “Aurora is in school for library sciences,” she explained. “So, the methodology of homework and research is very much true to [me], and I related to that component of Aurora. Although, it's funny going back in time to the year 2008 as you can't use your iPhone and Google someone the way you can now. It's a fun challenge incorporating that because if Aurora wants to do research, she needs to go to the library or get to a computer. I was in 8th grade when I got my first cell phone -- now Aurora uses the exact same phone, and it’s a prop!”