INTERVIEW: Jade Tailor brings magic to her role of Kady on ‘The Magicians’
The Magicians is gearing up for its season-two finale Wednesday, April 19 at 9 p.m., and audience members are on the edge of their seats hoping to get answers to some of the show’s biggest questions. One of the many mysteries on the series involves the character of Kady Orloff-Diaz, played by Jade Tailor.
For the uninitiated, Kady is not exactly a model student at Brakebills University. Having been thrown out of the magical institution, the character has seen her dark abilities change the lives of so many, and when she becomes entangled with Julia and Reynard, the magic is amped up to a destructive level.
Tailor came to the show thanks to a connection she made on Aquarius.
“I was working on the show Aquarius, which John McNamara was the executive producer of,” the actress said in a recent phone interview. “We had just wrapped for the day, and he came up to me and goes, ‘I want you to meet David Reed,’ who was one of the writers for The Magicians. He was like, ‘I really want you to come in for this new project.’ And for me, anything John does, I’m there because I just think the world of him and everything he does. Everything he touches turns to gold.”
A couple days later, Tailor found out the project was The Magicians, based on Lev Grossman’s successful novels. She immediately became excited because she had heard rave reviews about the series from her friends.
Tailor went into the audition process reading for the role of Margo Hanson, now played by Summer Bishil. “Being that I’m from L.A., I had a very different interpretation of Margo because I think in the description it said, a typical L.A. type of girl,” she said. “I read for it, and then I got a call that day saying, they love you, but they want you for this other role. And in the original script, Kady had died, and so I was more so looking forward to the other character because of that. But I did love Kady and her tough exterior, and fast forward a couple days later. I’m meeting with the director, and I pretty much got the role then. It was quite the exciting journey.”
Tailor said she loves the character’s complexity and her brash way of communicating with the other magicians. Kady is a certainly multi-faceted role, one that has allowed Tailor to flex her creative muscles, and the character has evolved quite a bit since the days of the pilot when she was supposed to have died.
“It’s been a beautiful journey to continue to discover and be challenged by her,” Tailor said. “I interpreted her in the way that I did, and I guess it matched what their vision is. You never really know exactly what their vision of the character is going to be until they really see it come to life from the actor, and I think I definitely brought my own spin to it. Then I know [executive producer] Sera [Gamble] had a very specific visual as far as her clothing goes and things like that, so it was exciting to go with the flow of what she wanted to create. But also, as far as how I was going to say the lines and just her different personality characteristics, that was I think a blend of their vision but also my own creation I guess.”
Sometimes the actors on the show don’t know where their character is headed. The creative team keeps them in the dark about major plot points, and that keeps the acting fresh and the mystery always captivating.
“There’s been moments where I’ve called them and said, ‘Hey, I just want to know where my character is going, so I know how to play her in this moment,'” Tailor said. “Then John half-jokingly would say to me, ‘Well, it’s like life. We never know what’s going to happen tomorrow.’ And so oftentimes I wouldn’t know what was going to happen, but then they would give me just a little bit to go off of. For the most part, we get the script two weeks in advance, if not a week in advance, and we go from there. I think sometimes they have a little bit of leeway, and with a lot of the characters, they already have so much of the backstory because of the books. And with mine it’s a little bit more flexible because she’s sort of a meld of a couple different characters, and I sort of go based off the script more than anything. And you really never know what you’re going to get.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Magicians will air its season-two finale Wednesday, April 19 at 9 p.m. on Syfy. Click here for more information.
