A Witch’s Tale’ Cast Talks ‘Amazing’ AMC+ Series (Exclusive)

We spoke to ‘Sanctuary: A Witch’s Tale’ stars Amy De Bhrún, Stephanie Levi-John and Hazel Doupe.

A new series about witcraft has landed on AMC+ and Sundance Now. The first two episodes of Sanctuary: A Witch’s Tale are now streaming, and the series takes a look at a mysterious death in the fictional town of Sanctuary. PopCulture.com spoke to cast members Amy de Bhrún, Stephanie Levi-John and Hazel Doupe about what fans can expect from the series. 

“At the heart of the story is Sarah Fenn (Elaine Cassidy), who is a registered witch in this small, close-knit town in the depths of England somewhere, and it’s called Sanctuary, the Town,” Doupe told PopCulture. “And it’s a story about friendship, motherhood, grief, betrayal, and protection, and all of those things, and of course, magic and how they all kind of come together to create a big giant mess sometimes. But it’s so interesting. I watched it recently and I just kept wanting to watch the next episode, and I’m having to hold myself back at the moment. But yeah, it’s amazing. It’s a really amazing story. V.V. James did an incredible job with the book, and then bringing it to life on screen was just fantastic.”

Doupe plays Sarah’s daughter Harper who is accused of killing Dan Whithall. The two were in a relationship, and many believe that Harper was mad at Daniel at the time of his death. Those same people also believe that Harper is a witch like her mother and that she used witchcraft to kill Daniel. 

Daniel’s mother, Abigail, is played by De Bhrún, and she wants justice for her son’s death, no matter how she gets it. “I think the biggest challenge of playing Abigail is that she’s not just an impression of somebody or a two-dimensional idea or an archetype of the grieving mother or somebody trying to get vengeance or anything like that, or get revenge,” De Bhrún said. “It’s really about padding her out and finding her humanity and finding her vulnerability. And that’s the challenge with it. And also trying to, I think I said it to the director, Lisa [Mulcahy], when we had our first meeting. I said I don’t want it to… Particularly, because her emotions were running high. I just didn’t want it to be one note. I wanted to find the ebb and flow and the ups and downs. Just make it quite a well-rounded character with depth and movement in it.”

Levi-John plays DCI Maggie Knight, the lead investigator in the case. Maggie knows that she has to be smart about the investigation or there will be chaos. “She’s just trying to, for want of a better term, hold it down, trying to just keep everyone and everything calm, because yes, I feel like there is a threat of if this does connect with the witchcraft or connect with Sarah Fenn, then yes, things could erupt,” Levi-John explained. “And so I think that she’s just trying, once again, she’s just trying to find the truth and the facts, but there’s a lot of pushback with everything that she’s trying to do, which then could possibly get quite crazy. So yeah, I think she’s just trying to hold it down more than anything because there’s a lot going on and there’s a lot of information that she needs to not only correlate it but also explain to other people and all this kind of stuff.”

New episodes of Sanctuary: A Witch’s Tale premiere every Thursday on AMC+ and Sundance Now with the finale streaming on Feb. 8.