Ten Years Later Life Is Still a Witch for Catherine Bell
The Good Witch begins its fourth season this weekend on Hallmark Channel. What started out ten years ago as “one little movie” for series star Catherine Bell has matured into a full-fledged franchise for the network with all involved thrilled to be celebrating its 10th anniversary. “Yeah, it's officially ten years of witchiness!” beamed Bell during a recent exclusive interview with MediaVillage. “We are literally pinching ourselves that it's been this long. The fact it's at series level and now we are in Season 4; I mean we just did the one little movie 10 years ago and thought that was it. But it turned out that people really liked it, and from there it just kept going and it's incredible.”
During her years working on the series Bell’s character Cassie has experienced many changes. However, the biggest change for the actress is her on-screen daughter Grace (Bailee Madison), with whom she started working when she was 13. “Bailee just turned 18 -- that's crazy,” Bell laughed. “She literally grew up before my eyes. I'm so proud of her. She just gets more lovely and more wonderful, caring and passionate about her work. She's grown up into such a beautiful young woman who has a boyfriend now, and she's super in love. It's kind of sweet; we've had some talks on set and she’ll come to me because we are out of town working so we've talked about the challenges of [that] and being away from loved ones.”
Another major change for Bell’s character was finding love last season. Season 4 finds Cassie and handsome neighbor Sam (James Denton, pictured at top with Bell) engaged and planning their wedding. But with Grace (Madison) and Sam’s son Nick (Rhys Matthew Bond) not speaking, the engagement comes with challenges. Bell is excited to navigate the blending of the two families. “That’s something we’ll definitely be exploring,” she explained. “With the kids not getting along, and probably not being okay with us getting married, that's the immediate problem. How are we going to merge this family? Then, because we live next door to one another who is going to sell their house? Sam will be working on bonding more with Grace and Cassie will be getting closer to Nick, so there are some clever episodes coming up to give us a chance to do that.
“The season is about a lot of different things,” she continued. “But we’re going towards this wedding and then there are all the challenges of what kind of wedding? What kind of dress? All of which lead to some searches that turn out to be fun along with some magical Cassie ancestry sort of stuff. Then there are the challenges of other people and what they think about the wedding; along with all the other people's individual stories and troubles and tribulations. The mayor is going to have some problems in town with some things that may affect her standing, and someone else may have to step in. It's not just about Sam and Cassie. It's going to be a really fun season and I'm really excited to share it.”
With Season 4 of The Good Witch wrapped, Bell is content to spend time being a mom and decorating her new home -- for a while. She’ll soon be heading to Fiji to start work on another movie for Hallmark, co-starring Hallmarkie favorite Cameron Mathison. “It’s a non-Good Witch movie,” she revealed. “It’s a fun summer romance in which I play a doctor who takes my 13-year-old daughter to Fiji for a vacation and to show her a place that was very special to her father, who passed away. But I meet a guy who lives on the island (Mathison) and with my character up for promotion, what do I do? Do I leave the crazy corporate world and its stress or do I stay? I just don't know!
“I think I might stay for the man though, and for Fiji,” she added. “Fiji is amazing. The last 10 years of doing all the Good Witch and Hallmark movies were always Christmas in Vancouver or Toronto, usually in the snow, or in the rain and adding snow and it's always cold. I guess this is my reward and I'll get a tan, which I'll then have to maintain. I’m executive producing on this one, too. I'm usually busy acting, but for sure I always get some say in the scripts and the people involved. That's just lovely. Hallmark always listens, so it's very collaborative and that's something I love. Then hopefully its back to The Good Witch Season 5 -- fingers crossed.”
The Season 4 premiere of The Good Witch will be telecast Sunday, April 29 at 9 p.m. on Hallmark Channel.
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Steve Gidlow
Steve Gidlow, a long-time columnist for MediaVillage ("Behind the Scenes in Hollywood"), has written about television and pop culture since 1994, beginning in Australia. Since moving to Hollywood in 1997, Steve has focused on celebrity interv…
