The Birch Season 2: Chatting with stars Xaria Dotson and Jordyn DiNatale

Hidden Remote: And Jordyn, what attracted you to The Birch and what was it like coming on to the second season, having already seen the first?

Jordyn DiNatale: The first season was so cool! I mean I binge-watched the whole thing once I got the material sent to me and I was reading through the character and I was like, “Oh, this is really interesting!” And I couldn’t stop! I watched all the episodes in a row –– which is saying something for me because I’m not really a horror person.

I was pretty scared, but I powered through. It was really cool coming on for the second season just to see how the story is changing and how it’s evolving. Like Xaria said, I was like, “What’s going to happen?!” It was so suspenseful at the end and now we get to see a new person summon the Birch and Evie Grayson coming in to save the day. Even though she says she’s not the hero, but still it’s pretty cool!

Hidden Remote: Your storyline this season is a pretty topical one since your character is dealing with cyberbullying and harassment. Can you speak on that a little bit?

Jordyn DiNatale: In our society, right now, cyberbullying is very prevalent. It just follows you anywhere, it has that ability because you can’t get away from it. It follows on your computer, on your phone, so I think fans like to see that happening and see that it happens to everyone.

It’s not just you and it can happen over the smallest thing, like a harmless post that someone might tag you in could spiral into memes and mean things like hashtags and stuff like that. It’s really sad to see it happening and hopefully, this can raise awareness that it’s not cool and it could cause a lot of bad problems for people.

Hidden Remote: Xaria, is there anything you wanted to add to that since Evie dealt with similar harassment in the first season?

Xaria Dotson: I think what’s being addressed in this series is that it’s never not a serious situation, that should always be handled right out the gate or it will reach a point where it spirals out of control and people who are very vulnerable, like Evie was, might be led down a path that they definitely never saw themselves going down.

Evie was one of those people who ended up finding out she was attacking innocent people in the end and she didn’t want to do that anymore, she didn’t want to be responsible for doing what her bullies were doing to her indirectly, and she didn’t want to be seen as a monster like the Birch.

In this season, we’re sort of addressing what happens when you ignore certain behaviors and I don’t want to spoil anything but it definitely spirals out of control very quickly because the people who are meant to be Rory’s support system don’t help at all.

Hidden Remote: Speaking of what Xaria just said about Rory lacking a strong support system, do you think the events of The Birch Season 2 would play out differently if she had, Jordyn?

Jordyn DiNatale: Yes, definitely the support system, like Xaria said, is so important and without giving too much away that is something you’ll see in this season. Rory is just yearning for some love or support of some kind and she seeks it from her mom. She tries and asks for it, but what she finds out is that you can only seek it out so many times before you feel beaten down and she didn’t get it, over and over again.

She even seeks it out from some other characters you’ll see and she thinks maybe stuff is turning around for her and then it just ends up being another weight on her shoulders that keeps pushing her down. I think if she had that support system things would have turned out differently for sure.

Hidden Remote: I think that’s something people relate to with both of these characters they’re very accessible and the problems they face –– even though horror is outside our realm of reality –– it’s very humanistic. Jordyn, is that something that attracted you to this? What made you say “I’ve got to take on this role.”

Jordyn DiNatale: I think it was the characters in the story, they had so much depth to them. It’s not just horror and jump scares. There was a lot more going on and I like that the show has a message. It can be fun with the horror element, but it’s also tackling some really serious issues, like cyberbullying, so that’s what really drew me to it.