Sasheer Zamata On Jennifer’s Satisfying and Sorrowful Reunion with Herself in ‘Agatha All Along’

Imagine Agatha Harkness strolls into your wellness shop and pitches an idea to join her coven. You would be more than a little cautious, and I am sure that Sasheer Zamata feels comfortable that there is a countertop between them in their first scene together in Disney+’s Agatha All Along. Zamata’s Jennifer Kale doesn’t let anyone pull any punches while they stroll down the Witches’ Road, and she gifts us a performance of vitality and strength as a woman is reunited with her lost identity.

There are trials and duplicitous dangers (not to mention the Salem Seven) aplenty throughout this addictive season, but was Zamata worried about telling Patti LuPone’s Lilia Calderu that she was pitchy on their first foray into song?

“Patti is so game,” Zamata says immediately. “I think I was a little nervous for that scene, but that was our first day as a group shooting, and it honestly created such a unifying moment for us as a cast. As a coven. I think it helped us carry through the entire season.”

The idea of a coven conjures up an unshakable bond. Are many covens born out of necessity like on the journey that we are taking? Because her powers were stripped from her, it has to make her feel vulnerable to to trust anyone, let along a notoriously controversial witch like Kathryn Hahn’s Agatha. Jen mostly connects with Lilia as they progress down the Road, but that doesn’t mean it won’t take time for Jen to trust others.

“Trust is a huge factor for Jen’s arc on the show for many reasons,” she says. “She is very distrustful of other witches, and she has been stripped of her powers–she’s been wronged. I think she felt very lost for a long time, and then couldn’t even rely on the people she knew to help because she was no longer a witch technically. Being a part of this group on this journey was really hard for her, because she didn’t like these people. Jen thinks that a lot of her fellow witches on The Witches’ Road are in her way. Throughout the course of the season, though, she realizes that they need each other. That need is something that Jen hasn’t really felt for years. I think she got a lot of pride from being a healer and being someone in her community who can help.”

There is a seemingly throwaway line where someone brings up how doctors took advantage of midwives and Jen says, ‘Do no harm, right?’ There are lines sprinkled through Jac Schaeffer’s series that indicate so much about history and lore alike.

“It was so cool to be part of a project where it’s about witches and magic, but our writers deeply care about history, too” Zamata says. “We did a lot of research about midwifery and how a lot of midwives are labeled as witches in order to push them out of the medical community so male doctors can make money off of work that they had been doing for years. It was so fascinating to swap articles and research with the producers and the writers to mold this history for this character that I was playing.”

Zamata would be curious to spend time with her character before her powers were taken away from her, and, in another conversation someone asks her, ‘Aren’t you furious?’ She responds with, ‘I mean, always,’ but it’s how Zamata says it that gives it an extra twinkle. Your powers are an intimate, personal thing and to have that stripped away must be maddening–I’d be furious too.

“I’ve only been with Jen in this part of her life’s journey, and I would love to know what we think Jen was like before she lost her powers,” she says. “Was she always this cynical? Was she always this distrustful or furious? Maybe that was the emotion that developed because of the things that happened to her throughout time? It’s hard to say, but I do think, at this point, that she’s fed up. Something bad happens at every trial. Alice is gone. It’s not that the trials are a danger, this coven is a danger. Jen doesn’t want to turn her back on anyone.”

Normally, I don’t ask performers or actors about their costumes, but Daniel Selon’s designs feel like they were molded onto these characters’ bodies. Jen wears a lot of light, soft pink tones, and that extends to her Donna Summer-inspired look in episode four. Think about how much walking you have to do on the Road, and you don’t know where each trial will take you. For Zamata, it gave her permission to get closer to her character, and she wore her accessories like any true warrior would.

“Daniel is a genius, and I truly felt like the costume helped inform the character,” Zamata admits. “The boots I was wearing would alter the way I walk. When I first get to Agatha’s house, the jacket I am wearing would force me to hold my hands in a certain way. The pink dress that I’m wearing was pink and light, prim and proper, and it’s getting destroyed throughout every trial and task. Daniel and I talked about how the things that Jen puts on herself are like armor. I wear so much jewelry, and I love the earrings I wear. By the end, the rings have left at some point, and it feels like we finally got to Jen. She was able to reconnect to her true essence and even the chains are breaking a bit on the dress. I loved being able to witness the visual evolution of Jen with these outfits, and it’s echoed in the character.”

As this coven reaches the end of the Road, Jen is left with Agatha and Joe Locke’s Teen/Wiccan before she realizes who bound her. There is an incredible, powerful moment when Zamata is kneeling on the floor, her eyes closed, and her hand touching her chest. There is something about her touching her own body that reinforces Jen’s personal longing to find herself. It’s a special moment that Zamata was thankful for.

“Kathryn [Hahn] is such a generous scene partner, so I felt so supported in that moment for Jen,” she says. “She missed herself, and she’s been missing this feeling for a century. Being able to feel this familiar, comforting, familial, ancestral feeling in her body again is just so satisfying. It’s sorrowful like grief for the time that we lost together. There’s joy for being able to regain it like anger. It all happens in one moment. In my life, I feel like there are moments when you get tight in your chest, but it feels good to have this huge, inexplicable feeling rush through you.”

Agatha All Along is streaming now on Disney+.