A Discovery of Witches Day 1 - #ADiscoveryOfComicCon #SDCC #vampires #witches

A Discovery of Witches at SDCC - Day 1

Panel reactions:

@allsoulspod
USA to premiere on SUNDANCE CHANNEL #adiscoveryofcomiccon
Premiere date to follow
Showed a brief clip of @ADiscoveryOfWTV  MATTHEW IS SO GOODE 😍😱🌟
Teresa on chemistry w Matthew Goode: it was there form the start.
Teresa: Diana wants to be normal. Not to stand out. Bothered by idea of being witch. Wants to deny her heritage. Much to her aunts’ dismay.
Teresa: what draws them together is forbidden love; otherworldly; they have a need for each other. There aren’t words to describe that kind of passionate connection. She knows it’s gonna be dangerous and scary. But she can’t help herself.
Alex: Diana trusts MATTHEW. He’s the one she trusts.
Teresa: shooting more action scenes was v specific; readers have ideas of how things look (in their minds); we had to create the way in which she shows these powers.
Teresa: witch wind scene shot over three days
Saw an AMAZING clip of Sarah and Em 😍💜😱🌟
Alex: Sarah and Emily raised Diana after her parents died.
Alex: we raised Diana, and were diff personalities. I’m more dominant. That’s not a euphemism
Alex: Sarah is VERY protective of Diana
Alex: we have a LOVELY house!! Just you wait! And we have a cat, Tabitha.
Deb: everyone wanted to stay in the house, in the keeping room. It just had a feel to it
Valarie: Bishop House is the best (set) ;)
Lachlan: Jan wanted to Create this space and have creative freedom and control we need
Alex: in the novels, the world of the creatures, sexuality is not a problem at all. Racism is between diff species. No question of Sarah and Em’s love.
One more clip!
Owen: Peter Knox is a regular guy. He’s got a reg family life. Misunderstood 🤣🤣🤣
Owen: Peter had tremendous integrity. Purpose is to put back his species to where they belong. I don’t belong in love story between Matthew and Diana
https://twitter.com/allsoulspod/status/1020044029168214016
https://twitter.com/allsoulspod/status/1020044121694560256
Owen: he’s not as naturally gifted.... #AdiscoveryofComicCon
Owen: these characters never lose connection w human race.
https://twitter.com/allsoulspod/status/1020044793643012096
Deb: being different can save the world and that’s what this show is about
Deb: everyone has a hero in them and everyone has a villain in them. Peter, Em, Darah, Diana. Matthew is meant to be incredibly aggravating. He also has a soft heart of gold. Wonderful ball of contradictions. I wanted to humanize monsters 💜
Alex: I’m incredibly suspicious of him. My god, he’s a vampire! He’s coming to our house! I have to grudgingly accept him.
Deb- the first series will follow the events that transpire in a discovery of witches. 8 episodes
Deb- I didn't think that Matthew had friends . Then about chapter 8... He has this friend named Hamish
Deb- I would pick human. alex- I'd be a witch Teresa-i'd be a witch Owen- I'd be a witch Deb-Lachlan is a Daemon
Deb- i can't tell you how those changes are going to affect you...It is an adaptation.   Keep calm. Deb is calm. enjoy the ride. 
Alex- I was drawn into the story. I believe and trust that this is going to be an experience and I wanted to be part of this world.
Lachlan- we haven't cast Gallowglass yet, because we haven't written it yet.
Deb- as a historian vampires are like catnip for me!

@Pure_Fandom
Showing the latest trailer (not new) now-gettttttt excited!!! Cast and Deb out soon! #ADiscoveryofWitches
DEB IS IN THE HOUSEEEEEE!!!!
Guys, Teresa Palmer is S T U N N I N G.
#gameofthrones fans, Owen Teale is here! (Plays Peter Knox in #ADiscoveryofWitches)
Deb wanted to know if there are vampires, how did they date? ;)
They pursued movie project first, but Deb realized the novels can’t fit into a 90-min timeframe.
The theme of acceptance is so prominent in the books, and they made sure that transcended explicitly into the series. -Lachlan MacKinnon
OMG!! #ADiscoveryofWitches will be on Sundance TV SOOOOOOON in the US! (They just found out)
Matthew Goode is filming in Ireland and couldn’t be here 😭😭🙄 He sends his love!!!
Just saw a new clip of Diana and Matthew in the library... the chemistry is W H O A 😍😍😍😍
Teresa and Matthew immediately connected over their kids, families, and of course the story. #yasssss #classy
Meet our Diana Bishop. Teresa Palmer is the perfect cast!
Also, Alex Kingston is perfect. #doctorwho #riversong
“There are so words for their connection.” -Teresa on Diana and Matthew
Fierce women!
Teresa collaborated with Deb on how to showcase Diana’s powers on screen.
Just saw another new clip with Sarah and Emily!! The aunts are P E R F E C T.
Omg Valarie and Alex’s chemistry is hilarious. Love these women!
Alex Kingston: we have a LOVELY HOUSE!!! We can’t wait for you to see it! The spell room is 💯
Alex loves how sexuality isn’t a problem in the creature world and how LGBTQ is portrayed.
Another new clip won’t Leter Knox! Owen plays him perrrrrfffffecttllyyyyy
New clip with Peter Knox***** #whoops
“The book is everything.” -Owen
LOL Teresa brought “Ashmole 782” to the panel!
“The imagination of the human race is slowing down (in the books) and it’s a wonder parallel to today.”
“Being different can save the world, and that’s what this show is about.” -@DebHarkness
“I wanted to humanize monsters. We want to demonize monsters we don’t understand.” -@DebHarkness
The first series covers #ADiscoveryofWitches book, and hope the next two series will do the same with the following novels. 1st season is 8 episodes
Lol Deb didn’t have friends for Matthew initially... then knew he needed a friend and created Hamish!
Deb would choose to be human over alll creatures bc she thinks their lives are harder than they look.
Everyone else says they’d be a witch over all creatures!
And that’s all folks-I’m off to the #ADiscoveryofWitches press room! Look for articles up later! -@lizprugh


@ADiscoveryOfWTV
 JUST ANNOUNCED  #ADiscoveryofWitches is coming to the US on streaming platforms @sundance_now and @shudder! #ItsHappening #ADiscoveryofComicCon


A Discovery Of Witches’: Sundance Now & Shudder To Stream Sky’s Drama Series – Comic-Con
https://deadline.com/2018/07/a-discovery-of-witches-sundance-now-shudder-stream-drama-series-comic-con-1202429724/

Sundance Now and Shudder have acquired A Discovery of Witches, the Sky original drama based on Deborah Harkness’ best-selling novel. The eight-episode series starring Teresa Palmer and Matthew Goode will stream on both services, but no premiere date was announced.

Produced by Bad Wolf (The Night Of, the upcoming His Dark Materials), A Discovery of Witches is a contemporary love story that begins against the backdrop of Oxford academic life, in a world where small numbers of witches, vampires, and daemons live and work unseen amongst humans, hiding in plain sight. Brilliant historian Diana Bishop (Palmer) is a reluctant witch denying her heritage when the discovery of a bewitched manuscript in Oxford’s Bodleian Library throws her into the heart of a dangerous mystery – and into the path of the enigmatic vampire and geneticist, Matthew Clairmont (Goode), who hides a dark family secret.

Alex Kingston plays Sarah Bishop – Diana’s aunt, Valarie Pettiford plays her partner Emily Mather, and Owen Teale plays Peter Knox, a member of the Congregation.

The acquisition marks the first partnership of this kind for the two: Sundance Now, AMC Networks’ direct-to-consumer SVOD service, and Shudder, a premium streaming service for thriller, suspense and horror. SundanceTV has also acquired second window linear rights to the series.

“This captivating story is filled with intrigue, romance and magic and set in spectacular locations that underscore those very qualities,” said Jan Diedrichsen, General Manager of Sundance Now. “We know that A Discovery of Witches will appeal to both the premium drama fans at Sundance Now and the genre fans at Shudder.”

a discovery of witches: 13 things you need to know about your new fave show
http://www.mtv.co.uk/a-discovery-of-witches/news/a-discovery-of-witches

The hype is real: based on the best-selling series of supernatural drama novels, A Discovery Of Witches is primed to be your new fave show.

The upcoming fantasy romance follows the story of Diana Bishop, a reluctantly powerful witch, and Matthew Clairmont, a vampire, in a world where vampires, witches and demons live hiding in plain sight amongst totally unaware humans. When Diana discovers a lost book that all creatures are desperate to get their hands on, things go from weird to chaotic to deadly in no time – and that includes her meeting Matthew as a result. It promises to be sexy, grown up and totally binge-worthy.


The show’s stars, Teresa Palmer, Owen Teale, Alex Kingston and Valerie Pettifer as well as author Deborah Harkness and producer Lachlan MacKinnon, took to the stage today at pop culture event of the year, San Diego Comic Con, to show us just why we’re gonna be obsessed when it hits our screens.

Here’s everything we learnt about your new fave show…

it may be about witches, vampires and demons – but it’s rooted in real history. yes, really!
Author Deborah Harkness is an IRL historian, and a professor at the University of Southern California. Inspiration for the A Discovery Of Witches series struck ten years ago, when she was in an airport book store on holiday in Mexico, and realised that fantasy novels were everywhere. “I started wondering, if there really were vampires, what do they do for a living? And how would they date?” she explained during the show’s Comic Con panel. Hey, it’s a question we’ve often wondered!

sparks will fly… literally with magic! but also, with pure sexy chemistry!
“The spark between us was there from the start,” said Teresa Palmer (Diana Bishop) during the panel, when speaking about making the on-screen magic with her co-star Matthew Goode, who plays Matthew Clairmont, “We had really good banter and I felt so comfortable with him to explore these characters. It felt magic from the start.”

diana and matthew’s relationship is going to be passionate af
“Its forbidden love: their love is so intense, they have a need for each other… there aren’t words to describe that kind of passionate connection. It goes against everything that she’s been taught in her life, but she cant help herself – the pull is just too strong,” says Teresa Palmer, “It’s chaotic and beautiful and passionate and romantic.” “And dangerous!” added Doctor Who star Alex Kingston, who plays Diana’s aunt, Sarah.

it was almost a movie before it became a tv show
“We pursued a movie first, but it became really clear that A Discovery of Witches was not going to fit into a 90 minute time frame,” said Harkness at Comic Con. If you’ve picked up the nearly-800-page book, you’ll understand!

the story is set in places like oxford and new york, but the brit production was actually filmed in wales
And that meant recreating Oxford University’s iconic Bodleian Library there too: not a small task, as the real one is the second largest in Britain, and one of the oldest in Europe. “We actually built that in the studio – the entire Bodleian Library - and Deb knows the Bodleian Library like the back of her hand,” reveals producer Lachlan MacKinnon, “So when Deb came into the set for the very first time, she was quite overwhelmed.”

teresa palmer learnt real life skills to play diana bishop
As well as being an all-powerful witch, Diana Bishop is an alchemical history professor at the University of Oxford. And it turns out, you don’t just pick up a Special Collections book, learnt Palmer, there’s a specific art to it: “They showed me how to turn pages, the way you would place the weights so perfectly, you don’t just pick up a book like that.! No one else knew how to handle the book, so on the shoot, when Ashmole came out, I was like, ‘No, you place the weight, here!’ The director was like, ’Um, that’s actually taking a really long time!’ I was like, ‘No, this is how it has to be done!’

game of thrones star owen teale plays villain peter knox – but don’t judge him too harshly…
On playing witch Peter Knox, Owen Teale said at the show’s panel, “You might look at him as the villain of the piece, but he has tremendous integrity, and his cause is to put back his species where they rightfully belong, on an equal setting to vampires…. If we created vampires originally, as I believe is in this book, then we can uncreate them. Call me a baddie if you like! I’m going to stick up for my character!”

get to know the ashmole 782: the lost manuscript that’s kind of a big deal
Speaking on the Comic Con panel about his character, Owen Teale said, “The book is everything and I’ve been looking for it for a very long time, and there’s many rumours about where it exists in the Bodleian Library.” To which, Teresa Palmer pulled out THE book, with a cool “Is this what you’re looking for?” “You can’t buy that on Amazon,” said Teale. Well she IS a witch…

the characters are diverse, and diana’s aunts sarah and em are no exception
On Sarah and Emily’s loving relationship and the way sexuality is portrayed in the show, Alex Kingston revealed, “In the world of the creatures, in a sense, sexuality is not a problem at all – the racism is between the actual different species. So there’s no questioning of Sarah and Em’s love, the questioning is between a witch and a vampire, and that is the thing that is absolutely forbidden. And the same with ethnicity, there’s absolutely nothing… so it’s very interesting, because it addresses the same problems that humans have, but they’re in different ways. Its just a given that Sarah and Em are together.” Valerie Pettifer, who plays Emily added, “they love each other, period.”

bringing the supernatural story from the books to the screen presents new challenges
It’s one thing to imagine magic on a page, but its another to show it actually happening. Teresa Palmer revealed the challenges that playing a witch on screen brings, “She has all these incredible powers. We had to create the way in which we showed these powers. We had wire work, we had to do a lot of stunts. Luckily, we had Deb at our fingertips, so I could message her and say ‘How do you see this unravelling. How does this power come out of Diana?’”

it’s going to air in the uk in september
You’ll be able to watch it on Friday 14th September on Sky One and Now TV.

and here’s how to watch it in the us
It was revealed at Comic Con that the show will be airing on the Sundance Now and on Shudder in the US.

fans of the books should prepare themselves for some changes between the novels and the tv show
Author Deborah Harkness got real about the fans’ worries about the beloved series being adapted for TV: “I’m sensing a lot of anxiety! I can’t tell you how those changes are going to register for you. So things that I was OK with, you might be like, ‘WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE BASE BOARDS IN THE BISHOP KITCHEN ARE NOT BROWN?’” She added, “It is an adaptation, and what an adaption does is take a work and change it so it an be enjoyed in a different format. So it’ s never going to be exactly what’s in the book. My recommendation to everybody is to sit there and keep calm and just enjoy the ride.”