Actress and musician Tommi Rose reprises her role as Olivia Harris in Season 5 of Sweet Magnolias, the beloved small-town drama that just premiered on Netflix on June 11. Joining the cast in Season 3, which premiered in July 2023, Tommi showcases both her acting and musical talents through the role of a musician and bandmate of Ty Townsend (Carson Rowland). The two form a musical duo and begin touring across Europe. However, Season 4 sees Olivia growing homesick for Serenity and ultimately leaving Ty behind to return home.

In addition to returning to the new season of Sweet Magnolias, Tommi will also star in the upcoming shark thriller The Devil’s Mouth aslongside Kathryn Newton, Gavin Casalegno, and Lana Condor, set to premiere this summer on Prime Video. We caught up with Tommi to discuss her understanding of Olivia after several seasons of Sweet Magnolias, how returning for Season 5 felt more natural, while also teasing a more mature, emotionally honest season.

Exclusive Photos for Popternative Magazine by Manfred Baumann
PR: Headlands Creative Co

Do you feel like you have a strong understanding of the character now, or are you still discovering new things about her?

Tommi: When I first saw the character breakdown and everything for [Olivia], I think she came very naturally to me. But at the same time, the more material that you get, the more information you have. So, you can know so much about a character and still have more to learn, the same way that you can know a lot about a person and still have a lot more to learn.

Tommi: You can know someone for years and years and years, and then suddenly one day you just find out that they’re left-handed. It’s that kind of a thing; there’s always more to learn about a [person], and it’s always so fun when a character drops new information about themselves. It just expands her for me and makes her that much more interesting. I think it’s more fun to learn a little bit more and implement that into who she is.

How did your preparation for Season 5 of Sweet Magnolias differ from your preparation for Season 3? What were the biggest differences for you?

Tommi: I think that for the first season that [I joined], it was very much [about] building a character and taking the information that I had and making her feel real to me. And now, I think going into this [new] season, she already felt very real to me, and I knew exactly who she was, and how she would say things, and how she would react to certain situations. I also think that her dynamics with the other characters were already so set in place, [but] it’s so much easier to step into that [now] when I’m coming back onto a set where I’m so close with much of the cast, as opposed to just getting to know everyone.

Tommi: [It’s funny because] I knew half the cast before [I joined] from other projects. One of the actresses, Harlan Drum [who plays CeCe], she was my best friend in middle school, it just so happened that [we both ended up on this sweries], and then Carson [Rowland] and I were close friends from I Am Frankie, which we did years ago, Logan [Allen] and I also did a movie together. But I didn’t know them as their characters interacting with my character. So after two years, you start to understand the dynamics and build the dynamics between these characters [even more].

What can you share about Season 5 in terms of its tone and overall feel? Are there any elements that make it stand out from previous seasons of Sweet Magnolias?

Tommi: My [character] in Sweet Magnolias lies with Annie and the younger generation, and I think that a lot of them are dealing with growing up and people not doing what you expect them to do and not knowing what to do with that. [But it’s about] of figuring it out one step at a time. There’s a lot of unexpected things that come up in the young characters’ lives that I think is going to really resonate with the audience, and I think that all the conversations that you want to happen, they do happen.

Tommi: It’s just very interesting, and I know that’s a little vague, but I think that it’s very honest [in] the way that these young characters deal with a lot of things, and the way that they don’t immediately know what to do. I love the way that these young female characters go to each other for advice on not even just what to do in situations, but how to feel about such situations, and I’m really excited for people to feel like they’re a part of that. Having characters with depth is just always so interesting, and it’s always so much fun to play with. It’s [also] very relatable to me, because there’s never a time that I’m not trying to figure something out in my head. My best friends and I, we literally just sit around and talk about life, that’s 90% of what we do, just in different locations. So, I think that having characters and a series where there is so much of that going on just feels very real.

_

Season 5 of Sweet Magnolias is streaming on Netflix.

Follow Tommi Rose: Instagram | TikTok | Spotify