Are you a good witch or a bad witch? Both, in some actresses’ case!
In the late 1930s, onscreen witches made their mark on popular culture when Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and The Wizard of Oz premiered in 1937 and 1939, respectively. What led to tons of iconic celebrity costumes (remember Ellen DeGeneres and Drew Barrymore’s Glinda the Good Witch Halloween looks?) also sparked a craze that hasn’t slowed down yet — onscreen witches, from The Wicked Witch of the West to Wanda Maximoff.
While witch content had a big moment in the ‘90s (think Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Charmed and Practical Magic), the 2000s have shown us that modern fans are just as game for a little bit of magic. In recent years, movies and shows including American Horror Story: Coven, WandaVision and The Witches have put spellbinding stars front and center.
In 2018, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina premiered on Netflix. Starring Kiernan Shipka, the show offered a darker look at the character Melissa Joan Hart made famous. Existing in the same universe as Riverdale, the series also went to show that any fandom can go crazy for a bit of sorcery.
“The whole concept of witches was that women were speaking up for themselves and fighting for their rights,” Mädchen Amick, who plays Alice Cooper on Riverdale, once said. “The whole concept of witchcraft came into play to hold down women and women’s empowerment.”
Even if they don’t play them on screen, many celebrities are into all things witchy.
“It would be no surprise to anyone I am not weirded out by ghosts or spirits. I am basically a witch,” Lorde told The Daily Telegraph in June 2017. Stevie Nicks, who played a version of herself on American Horror Story: Coven, has also shared her familiarity with the concept of magic.
“I totally believe in magic. Because my life, I think, has been very magic, and magical things have come true for me time after time after time,” she once said.
Scroll to see a list of actresses who have played witches in movies and TV through the years: