Our Story

Hi there! I'm Julia, the creator of Girls Like Magic, and I just wanted to tell you a bit about myself and how this show came to be. I'm an actor and a writer from London living in Los Angeles. Not one to sit around waiting for an opportunity, I decided a few years ago to start creating my own content focusing on inspiring positive social change.

Girls Like Magic was inspired by real events and people, including one of my best friends Shantell Yasmine Abeydeera, who plays Jamie (one of the lead characters in the show) and one crazy night out at The Abbey in West Hollywood! This series is a real family affair - most of the cast and crew were friends of ours and our incredibly talented director Kit Williamson. We all pulled together to make something a little bit dark, with a whole lot of heart, that will hopefully make you laugh.

Inspiration

Coming from the UK, I hadn't experienced anything quite like the LGBTQ community in Los Angeles before: the fun, the drama and celebratory nature of the community. On a deeper level, I was entranced by the freedom, the intense self-awareness and the rigorous commitment to being who you are. I felt I could relate to the LGBTQ community in a way that I hadn’t been able to relate to a group of people before. My friendship with Shantell Yasmine Abeydeera led to a deeper understanding of her experience as I was able to observe the struggle of growing up as a queer woman of color. Girls Like Magic is based on our real-life friendship and is a love letter to her.

Although, Girls Like Magic is a comedy, I wanted to address, head on, the harsh realities of coming to terms with who you are, and the prejudices, both internal and external, that come with that. I also wanted to explore the blurring lines of sexuality. It’s not all black and white, gay or straight: Love and attraction are not that easy to define. At the end of the day maybe the only definition we need is love.

Our Commitment to Diversity

Right from the start, we were committed to representing as diverse a cast and crew as possible with regards to race, culture, gender, sexuality, nationality and religion. Our team is incredibly diverse, both behind the scenes and in front of the camera and this is something we are very proud of. We are British, Australian, Sri Lankan, Indian, Persian, Arabic, Macedonian, American, Jamaican and Chinese, homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, transgender and queer. 

Our world is a melting pot of different cultures, genders and sexualities. In Girls Like Magic we wanted to accurately represent that. We have worked to uncover the human commonality that runs beneath all of our ‘types,’ as represented by our characters on screen, to reveal the human struggles that bind us all.