Singing and Spellcasting: The Magicians at NYCC

Behind the scenes footage. A happy birthday singalong. An introductory song from Freestyle Love Supreme that included the line “Forget Yale, where my hedgewitches at?” A tutting demonstration. The Magicians’ NYCC panel was a lively, goofy conversation with the entire main cast, executive producers Sera Gamble and John McNamara, and moderator Aisha Tyler, who couldn’t stop referring to the cast by their characters’ names. Here are ten highlights we caught in between the bouts of laughter!

1. Margo’s season two nickname is “Fillory Clinton,” because she handles so much. “You get to see more of the Janet from the books,” Summer Bishil said. (#janetismyqueen)
2. Jason Ralph can’t talk about things he cares about in front of people. “I cry!” he said, while trying not to do just that.
3. “Another network tried to educate Sera [Gamble] and I on what was acceptable,” executive producer John McNamara said of the show’s darker content. “And we thought what was unacceptable was to work at that network.” When he objected in a meeting with that network, Gamble’s agent got a call that she was difficult. “Hashtag, sexism!” McNamara said.
4. The cast are not all great at tutting, the complex hand movements involved in spellcasting. “Sometimes I just make shit up,” said Bishil. Hale Appleman (Eliot) was urged to demonstrate his moves, and managed to make gracefully waving his hands around look pretty cool, even outside of Fillory.
5. There are musical numbers in season two. (“Hale just happened to blithely mention that he has a three octave range,” McNamara said.)
6. The Fillorian throne room is massive, and Eliot is clearly quite at home in it.
7. Rick Worthy’s Dean Fogg is going to have a romantic relationship in season two.
8. “The greatest love stories in the books, to me,” said Arjun Gupta (Penny), “are between each character and themselves.”
9. “[McNamara]’s like, ‘Can we sing more?’ and I’m like, ‘Can we talk about rape culture?’ and together we make The Magicians!”—Sera Gamble
10. A sneak peak of the next season included a scene where Margo yells at Eliot, “Get over yourself, Ned Stark!” Please let this not be foreshadowing.