Meet the "Motherland: Fort Salem" Cast — Here's Who Plays Raelle, Abigail, Tally, Scylla, and More

If you like women, witches, and Hunger Games-esque training montages, the new show Motherland: Fort Salem (and its up-and-coming cast) is about to be your new favorite thing to watch on TV.

The Freeform series, which premiered on Wednesday, March 18, takes place in an alternate universe where the Salem Witch Trials led to a peace treaty (known as the Salem Accord) between witches and non-witches — and witches began to use their powers in combat situations, fighting wars for governments around the world. Made by Claws creator Eliot Laurence, Motherland: Fort Salem centers on three teenage girls (Raelle Collar, Abigail Bellweather, and Tally Craven) who answer the call to become fully-fledged witches in service to the United States military.

In the first episode, Raelle (played by Taylor Hickson), Abigail (Ashley Nicole Williams), and Tally (Jessica Sutton) leave their homes to begin training at Fort Salem as they prepare for war college. They each come from different backgrounds, with different reasons for joining the military, but together they'll take on a powerful terrorist group called The Spree: an organization responsible for mass murder.

Motherland: Fort Salem airs on Wednesdays at 9 p.m ET on Freeform, but as you delve in, meet the cast of actors portraying your new favorite coven of witches.

Taylor Hickson as Raelle Collar

22-year-old Taylor Hickson is no stranger to the action/adventure genre. Though the Canadian actor started out as a singer who made music with her family, she pivoted to acting in 2015, quickly winning a small speaking role in the Marvel film Deadpool. Most recently, however, she starred alongside Lana Condor in SYFY's Deadly Class as the ghoulish Petra at King's Dominion Atelier of the Deadly Arts.

In Motherland: Fort Salem, Taylor portrays the independent, rebellious Raelle, a young woman still reeling from the death of her mother, a military witch herself who served as a healer. Episode one sees Raelle leave her civilian father for Fort Salem, but not before curing a neighbor of some kind of stomach rash, an affliction that then appears on Raelle's own body. Her power comes at a cost, and her history makes her a skeptical, hasty young soldier-in-training.

"The primary motivation for Raelle is her mother's death," Taylor tells Teen Vogue. "When you first meet her, she's reckless and jaded and loves to challenge authority. She's in a total mode of self-destruction. As the story develops, it shifts. It becomes making her mother proud, and lastly, trying to avenge her mother's death."

Ashley Nicole Williams as Abigail Bellweather

Newcomer Ashley Nicole Williams only has a couple of other film credits to her name on IMDb, but the 21-year-old Dallas, Texas native has been acting since she was a child who took acting classes with Cathryn Sullivan (best known for coaching celebrities like Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato). In Motherland: Fort Salem, she enters the world with a bang.

From her first scene in episode one, Abigail presents herself as someone who is perfectly in control of herself, her sexuality, and her destiny. "This is when you go to college, find a girl, get married, everything nice and good," she tells a passing love interest as she breaks up with him, persuading him with her magical power to leave. "This is when I go grind our nation's great enemies into dust." We soon learn that Abigail's family, the Bellweathers, is not to be trifled with; the long line of witches has created a sense of familial duty and legacy in Abigail, who is clearly ready to serve. But all is not necessarily what it seems. As Ashley tells Teen Vogue, "She doesn't want to fail and she wants acceptance from her mother, but she also wants acceptance from herself."

"She puts on this hard, tough persona that you see in the show, but she has to learn to break down those walls and realize she can count on her team members, her unit," Ashley continues, referencing Raelle and Tally. "You don't have to knock other people down to get to where you want to be. You'll see her have vulnerability and allow herself to open up and to trust herself and not be as insecure."

Jessica Sutton as Tally Craven

The Kissing Booth stans, where are you? If you loved Joey King's Netflix rom-com from 2018, you'll recognize Jessica Sutton instantly. The South African actor, now 26 years old, played Joey's character's popular girl foil Mia in the movie, her biggest role prior to Motherland. Yes, she's the one who delivered the iconic line, "Tastes like green."

Jessica's Motherland: Fort Salem character Tally Craven, however, is introduced as a young witch who is quick to empathize; she watches the news of The Spree's recent attack on TV and is visibly disturbed. That motivates her to join up when it's her time to enlist, even though she comes from a matrifocal community ("No dudes... like ever") and a mother who thinks she's just "in a hurry to get [herself] killed." Though she's close with her family and the conscientious objectors in her home commune, she wants to help, "to do something good" in the world — that carries over into her romanticization of the witch military and the sisterhood she expects to find at Fort Salem.

"We think of Raelle, Abigail, and Tally as the triangle, and Raelle as the rebel definitely represents this questioning mind, carrying the cross of her mother's grief and the pain that the military has caused her," Jessica tells Teen Vogue. "There's Abigail, who's very much this alpha leader despite being in the shadow of the mother, who's basically military royalty and [has] all the pressure to uphold the name, and she represents the body. And then there's Tally, who I would say is like the truest believer in the cause and in the sisterhood and this unity and just basically everything that Fort Salem stands for, and she's the heart.

"So we have the mind, body, and heart — all three of these women, they don't know yet what they're capable of."

Demetria McKinney as Anacostia Quartermaine

Seasoned theatre actor Demetria McKinney is perhaps best known for her role on Tyler Perry's TBS sitcom House of Payne and its spinoff The Paynes, where she played Janine Payne for years. But Demetria is somewhat far from comedy in Motherland: Fort Salem, where she plays drill sergeant Anacostia Quartermaine.

The three young witches first meet Demetria's character as she gives a speech about rules in the barracks. "My job is to keep you alive during basic," she says in episode one, before getting to the heart of it: she's responsible for whether they build their skills enough to go to war college. A vigilant training instructor, Anacostia is described as "a tough but wryly humorous drill sergeant whose chief concern is keeping the young recruits alive through basic training," according to Shadow and Act. She's also already proved her power, and her ability to lay down the law, in the first episode, when she helps the students control their voice magic with magic of her own.

Amalia Holm Bjelke as Scylla

In a character description from Deadline, Scylla is described as "a playful yet dark and mischievous recruit who is not what she appears to be." We see hints of that darkness in episode one, where she's clearly an enabler for Raelle's recklessness. They first meet when Raelle sneaks away from a training gathering to watch magical tornadoes, bonding over their shared punishment at being out of bounds.

With her penchant for smirks and sneak-outs, Scylla easily wins over Raelle, even when Anacostia tells Scylla to stay far away. By the end of episode one, there's clearly something more brewing between them: Scylla and Raelle get the honor of first couple to emerge in Motherland: Fort Salem as they make plans for rebellion mid-makeout. Talk about multitasking — but if the end of episode one is any indication, Raelle doesn't know Scylla as well as she thinks. Could she be a member of The Spree?

Playing the mysterious Scylla is Amalia Holm Bjelke, a Norwegian-Swedish actor whose past work includes The Girl in the Spider's Web and The Eternal Road, as well as another new 2020 series, Den sista sommaren.

Lyne Renée as General Adler

In the trailer for Motherland, you get a sense of General Adler's whole deal: the head witch in charge loves an empowering speech-slash-teaching moment, and she's clearly not afraid to get in the middle of conflict (even if it involves Madam President). "Witches, you are called to greatness," she says in the first few moments of the trailer. "All of you will serve as soldiers of the United States Army. Make me proud." The first episode shows off that speech prowess right off the bat, as she passes on her belief in the divine purpose given to their military work — foot-stamping applause resounds as the witches buy into her vision.

The fierce leader is played by Lyne Renée, a Belgian actor who has appeared in The Meyerowitz Stories, Madam Secretary, and more. The actor also has a forthcoming film in 2021's Cash Truck, appearing alongside Jason Statham and Josh Hartnett.

Sarah Yarkin as Libba Swythe

26-year-old Sarah Yarkin has appeared in so many beloved shows and movies, with roles in The Good Place, American Horror Story, and Happy Death Day 2 U, as well as a recurring part in The Middle. But in Motherland: Fort Salem, it seems like she'll be an eventual enemy to Abigail Bellweather, playing fellow witch Libba Swythe.

Deadline reports that Libba is of the same legacy-focused social class as Abigail, and she's "a coldly upper-class, athletic, ruthlessly ambitious young woman who has an old grudge against Abigail."

Fun fact: Sarah also has a running bit where she poses next to random car license plates on Instagram.

Annie Jacob as Glory Moffett

Actor Annie Jacob joins the cast of Motherland: Fort Salem as Glory Moffett, though not much is known about the character just yet. Annie's most recent work includes Vanessa and Laura Marano's film Saving Zoë, as well as Fist Fight and In Broad Daylight.

Kai Bradbury as Gerit Buttonwood

In Motherland: Fort Salem, Kai Bradbury plays something rare in that world: a man. You might recognize Kai from his work on several major networks — the CW’s Supernatural and Warigami, Netflix’s Altered Carbon, and Amazon’s The Boys, among other shows. And though he didn't appear in the Motherland pilot, we already know he'll have some sort of romantic dalliance with one of the leads.

Per Deadline, Gerit is "a male witch who comes to Fort Salem and strikes up a whirlwind relationship with Tally." We can't wait for more.

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Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue