The Death of a Major ‘Sweet Magnolias’ Character, Explained

Glamour: Let’s talk about Bill’s death. That was a shocker. Was that purely storyline dictated? Or was Chris Klein not available this season?

Sheryl Anderson: Oh, no, no, no, no. We love Chris, and Chris loves the show, so it was really, really hard to say, “Hey, Chris, we want to take the show in a different direction, and we need this cataclysmic event to shake up everybody.” Because it’s his death that makes all our adults, and especially our men, question what they’re doing with their lives. That theme of tomorrow isn’t promised. You get to a certain age, and when a friend of yours, who’s your age, dies, it’s always too soon, but especially when you are that age. You realize time isn’t on our side and think, Am I doing what I want to do? Am I with the person I want to be with? What other changes do I need to make in my life?

We wanted to just kind of turn the ship 90 degrees. It was so hard to tell him, because we all love him, and he loves the show. But he understood and took one for the team, because it allowed us to tell stories that we wouldn’t have had had an entrée into otherwise. It was story with a lot of sadness.

As a result, you brought on Judith Ivey as Bill’s mother, Bonnie Townsend. Will she return in a potential season five?

Nobody ever leaves Serenity forever.

Okay, good. How did her casting come about?

We had a dream list of women to play that part, and Judith was at the top of it. We asked our casting director, “Do you think she’d do it?” And the response was, “Let’s ask.” So we did, and she read some scripts and really liked the character. She and I had some really deep conversations about Bonnie, and how Bonnie became Bonnie. At one point, she used the character of Amanda Wingfield from The Glass Menagerie as an example, and I thought, I’m a theater major, I can lay down and die right now.

I really loved the complexity that she brought to kind of a tough character, and you wind up loving her. It was just so fabulous to see her with Caroline Lagerfelt (Paula, Maddie’s mom), who’s a dear friend of hers from their Broadway days. To see the two of them going head to head, as well as with JoAnna and Brooke and Heather.… We were just in awe. Same with Jodi Benson [as Cal’s mom]. Everybody came ready to match their energy, and it was spectacular.