Rowan Mayfair has a mixed life – empty at home, busy at work.
She’s a gifted neurosurgeon, navigating a hospital filled with male egos. She doesn’t need any complications, but now there’s one more: She’s a witch who can inadvertently kill with her mind.
All of that happened in the opener of “Mayfair Witches” (shown here with Alexandra Daddario), available on AMC+. The second episode (10 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 15, on AMC and AMC+) takes it from there.
Lots of TV characters seem to find they are witches or werewolves or such. Most are young, their lives in flux anyway; author Anne Rice changed that when she created Rowan. “She’s been a good girl for her whole life,” said Esta Spalding, co-creator of the eight-week series. But then she finds “that other side of her, which is powerful and potentially destructive.”
That side finally emerges during problems with the male hierarchy. “It’s a wonderful metaphor,” said co-creator Michelle Ashford, “for finding your voice, whether you’re a witch or not. Every woman who’s out in the world is going to encounter these issues.”
The demanding role went to Daddario, who has moved to the heavy side of the acting world.
The daughter of two lawyers (and granddaughter of a congressman), Daddario, 36, grew up in Manhattan, went to Professional Children’s School and was doing soaps as a teen. She went on to two “Percy Jackson” films, two Dwayne Johnson films (“San Andreas” and “Baywatch”) and more.
All of that might seem surface, but she’s also a Method-trained actress who received an Emmy nomination for playing a newlywed, struggling journalist in “White Lotus.”
Now she’s jumped into a fiercely emotional role. “I enjoy what I do,” Daddario insisted. “There’s an aspect of exploring those kinds of feelings that I think is cathartic for me.”
This is a character of extremes: At work, she’s diligent and painstaking; at home, she’s alone, inviting strangers for dispassionate sex.
“She lives on a boat, where she’s sort of unmoored,” Spalding said. “She doesn’t hang out with people from the hospital. There’s a kind of … uninhibited side to her that we see on that boat.”
But not at work – until her rage pours out. Viewers now know part of her back story; Rowan doesn’t.
Visually, Daddario fits the usual mode for TV witches – attractive face, framed by dark hair – but also has what Spalding calls “those magical eyes.” To match her, Ashford said, several related characters needed blue contact lenses.
Rowan, after all, has lots of family. She’s the 13th Mayfair witch, going back centuries. Rice’s three Mayfair novels introduced all of them; “when you have eight episodes, there’s only so much history you can tell,” Spalding said.
In the opener, viewers learned about Rowan’s biological mother, who’s still a mystery to her. Coming is the story of the first Mayfair witch. “In the sixth episode … it all connects,” Spalding said.
And then there will be more. AMC has bought rights to all the Rice books. (It started with “Interview With the Vampire, now on AMC+.) There will be more witchly tales ahead.