As the production of the second season of the Netflix supernatural series Fate: The Winx Saga has started, actress Paulina Chavez stands out as one of three new faces.
Chavez is Flora, the fairy of nature from the planet Lynphea that draws her power from plants as she makes her first appearance in the popular teen series.
San Antonio-born Chavez has joined returning cast members Abigail Cowen, Hannah van der Westhuysen, Precious Mustapha, Eliot Salt, Elisha Applebaum, Sadie Soverall, Freddie Thorp, Danny Griffin, Theo Graham, Jacob Dudman, Ken Duken and Rob James Collier. Other new cast members include Brandon Grace and Éanna Hardwicke. Fate: The Winx Saga was created and is executive produced and showrun by Brian Young, an executive producer and writer of the CW teen series The Vampire Diaries.
“I feel great,” says Chavez in a video tweeted by the streamer this week showing the cast members coming together for a table read in Ireland. She should. Her character almost didn’t happen.
Flora, widely believed to be Latina, was magically absent in season one. That in spite of being among the original pixies of the Nickelodeon animated series Winx Club that served as the basis for the Netflix live-action drama. (The animated Flora was reportedly inspired by Jennifer Lopez and voiced by actress Alejandra Reynoso.)
Instead of Flora, who appeared in all eight seasons of Winx Club, the producers created Terra, a new character played by Salt, who was introduced incidentally as Flora’s cousin.
All that did not escape Winx fandom’s attention, who was asking what happened to three of their favorite fairies: Flora; Musa, considered to be Asian (now played by Applebaum); and Tecna, the fairy of technology that totally vanished from the new show.
Paulina Chavez in the Mexican ruins of Teotihuacan (Credit: Courtesy/Instagram)
Whitewashing accusations of what used to be a diverse series ensued. Even leading actress Cowen, who plays Bloom, reportedly supported bringing in Flora on season two.
The pressure for and conversation about diversity and inclusivity in the Netflix fairy drama seems to have had an impact.
Now Chavez’s live-action Flora may be doing what her animated version did: decorate her room with many plants as if it were a greenhouse, protect friends and the environment and use her herbology expertise for good.
Chavez comes into Fate: The Winx Saga after recently playing the lead in another Netflix series, The Expanding Universe of Ashley Garcia, created and executive produced by Daytime Emmy Award-winning Extra host and actor Mario Lopez (Saved By the Bell). Chavez’s role as a teen science prodigy earned her a nomination for an Imagen Foundation Award. The 19-year-old actress also co-starred with Lopez in the Christmas movie Feliz NaviDAD, directed by Melissa Joan Hart and written by Aliza Murrieta and Peter Murrieta.
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