The Buffyverse and Beyond

A mainstay of the British theatre scene, Olivia Williams spent her early career turning in celebrated stage work at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National before being snapped up by Hollywood, starring in Rushmore and The Sixth Sense, among other successful movies. Now, she features in the new sci-fi series The Nevers, a fantastical retelling of 19th-century London in which a group of women with superpowers – know as the ‘Touched’ – find themselves ostracised by society. Wiliams is also set to appear alongside Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman in the Oscar-winning drama The Father (out next month), a heartbreaking and illuminating first-person exploration of dementia. She talks to Bazaar about Victorian superheroes, her tomboyish childhood and the power of fiction.

Modern storytellers always want to liberate Victoria women; to release them from their social constraints, their historical servitude, and most especially, their outer clothing. Only then will these ladies be free to express their true, butt-kicking nature. It also helps that Victorian men are ready-made villains. According to this lively-corset-buster from Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the patriarchy at its most mutton-chopped become anxious when women suddenly start acquiring superpowers. It can only be a matter of time, the bewhiskered denizens of clubland opine, before “the immigrant and the deviant” also rise in revolt, and the Empire topples.

Charisma Carpener recently appeared on Michael Rosenbaum’s Inside of You Podcast where she opens up about bravery and survival as well as discussing her long…

The HBO sci-fi/adventure series The Nevers is set in 1890s Victorian London after a supernatural event has mysteriously given certain people, most of whom happen to be women, various unusual abilities. As its core is the friendship between Amalia True (Laura Donnelly), a resourceful widow who has never shies away from a fight, and Penance Adair (Ann Skelly), a brilliant inventor whose creations are often far ahead of their time, as the two women attempt to find and protect the gifted from those who wish to annihilate them.

“That’s where I would like to see the storyline go in the future, just to understand the magnitude and the depth of what she was subjected to,” HBO star tells The Wrap.

Are you obsessed with The Nevers yet? I can”t speak for everyone, but one of my faves is definitely Tom Riley – aka Augustus “Augie” Bidlow. So I hopped on Zoom with Tom to chat about what it was ike filming The Nevers, his favorite Easter eggs, and why my mom likes James Norton so much.

Northern Irish actor Laura Donnelly plays the role of Amalia True, a mysterious, quick-fisted widow. Hailing from Belfast, Laura’s first on-screen role was in Channel 4’s ‘Sugar Rush’ from the mid-2000s, and she has since gone on to star in ‘The Fall’, ‘Beowolf’, ‘Outlander’, and the movie ‘Tolkien’.

Ann Skelly joins Laura as Penance Adair, who is a brilliant young inventor, able to think up new and unique creations which manage to get the pair out of sticky situations. The Dublin actor had a leading role in Virgin Media’s ‘Red Rock’ as Rachel, and also popped up in ‘Vikings’ a number of times as Lady Ethelfled.

For production designer Gemma Jackson and set director Tina Jones, collaborating on Joss Whedon’s supernatural Victorian thriller, “The Nevers” was like pulling the pin out of a grenade and watching the fantastical world explode. While this was a far cry from the medieval trappings of their Emmy-winning “Game of Thrones,” it was arguably more challenging to visualize Whedon’s cerebral take on political power and class division, where social misfits are “touched” with extraordinary abilities to save the planet from future destruction.

Ming-Na Wen Stars in Netflix’s new animated series, Yasuke as samurai, Natsumaru. Yasuke is streaming now and you can watch the trailer below:

Something smells a bit off in the world of The Nevers. Why is The Touched’s benefactor Lavinia Bidlow, played by Rushmore’s Olivia Williams, cavorting below ground with Denis O’Hare’s evil Dr. Edmund Hague? Is she actually a true supporter of The Touched as they are, or is she seeking to capture and harness their special powers? And what is Pip Torrens’ Lord Gilbert Massen up to in Parliament and behind closed doors? His assault on The Touched might seem more forthright, but something feels off there too.