Emma Mackey is ready to bring the chaos. The Barbie star, who plays Jadis in Greta Gerwig’s Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew, opened up to Empire about her take on the villain, describing a character still on her way to becoming the White Witch audiences know from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
“There’s this great line in the script where she’s described as ‘all chaos and bad plans,'” Mackey told Empire. “She’s this larger-than-life creature who appears in Digory and Polly’s world and takes them by surprise.”
In The Magician’s Nephew, chronologically the first Narnia tale, Jadis has long been trapped in the realm of Charn when she crosses paths with young Digory (David McKenna) and Polly (Beatrice Campbell), and she is preparing to unleash fresh anarchy.
Mackey also broke down Jadis’s look, which follows Gerwig’s glam-rock inspirations. “We had to have that duality of fun, which is what the kids are seeing, a shiny, exciting person, but also, ‘Wow, you’re a little bit scary, and I don’t really know what foot to dance on with you,'” she said. “It was very shiny and exciting, but also comfortable and ready for war.”
Empire’s full world-exclusive cover story on the film, featuring Mackey alongside Daniel Craig and Meryl Streep, arrives in the magazine’s November 2026 issue, on sale Thursday, September 24. Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew arrives in cinemas on February 12, 2027, and streams on Netflix starting April 2, 2027.
For more, see our earlier coverage: first look at Meryl Streep as Aslan in Greta Gerwig’s “Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew”.