Tiffani Thiessen stars as Miss Graves in the new Freeform series Coven Academy.
The actress opened up to Good Housekeeping about returning to TV after five years and why it feels like a “full-circle moment.”
Coven Academy airs on Thursdays on Freeform, and new episodes drop on Disney+ and Hulu the next day.
After five years away from TV, Tiffani Thiessen is back—and feeling proud of the path that brought her here.
Starting October 1, fans will see the actress in the young-adult Freeform/Disney+ series Coven Academy. The show follows three teenage witches on their journey of self-discovery, and Tiffani’s character helps guide them while also carrying secrets of her own.
And while Tiffani’s acting career may have started as a teenager on Saved by the Bell, she now loves being the adult on a teen show.
“It's a full-circle moment, for sure,” she told Good Housekeeping. “It feels good, and I feel extremely fortunate to still do what I love.”
Tiffani also appreciates that Miss Graves feels different from the typical adult figure on a teen show.
“As you get older, you tend to be put in some sort of box, and being over 50, of course I usually play more maternal roles,” she explained. “But Miss Graves has layers, and I love that for both the character and myself. I’ve never gotten to play a role like this, so it was definitely a little check in my box for unique roles in my career.”
She also picked up a few new skills while filming.
“I think some of the best parts were learning Latin for saying all the different spells,” she said. “And also deciding on the movement of your hands for doing them—I was so unfamiliar with doing something like this, and everybody has a unique little way of pretending they’re performing the magic. It was so neat and nothing I’d ever done before.”
While the cast awaits a potential season 2 renewal, Tiffani’s excited to help some of the younger Coven Academy cast members navigate fame.
“We have a couple of girls on the show that this is their first big TV break,” she said. “Like, this is their first thing, and so I'm so excited to see them take this brand-new journey in their career, and I get to be a little bit of a part of that. It's fun."
“It is an interesting moment as well for me to see these young kids—and I call them kids, even though I know they're adults, but they're kids to me because I could potentially be their parent.”
We love this for her!
