‘Maggie’ star Rebecca Rittenhouse channels a psychic who’s less ‘odd and kooky’

Dating is hard — and it’s even harder when you can literally peek into the future and see if there are wedding bells on your horizon. On the new Hulu comedy “Maggie” — premiering Wednesday, July 6 — Maggie (Rebecca Rittenhouse, “Four Weddings and a Funeral”) is a psychic who can see into the future of her friends, parents, random people and clients who seek out her psychic services. Needless to say, this complicates her dating life, especially when she sees her own future and that of a complete stranger overlapping.

Rittenhouse, 33, answered some questions about “Maggie” for The Post via e-mail. The idea of playing a psychic seemed kind of fun, but honestly, it’s less interesting to me than telling this relatively straightforward story about the balancing act between trying to do everything right/trying to control all the variables in life and recognizing that we miss the experience of life if we can’t just be in it — mistakes and all. I talked to my family friend who is a psychic and reads tarot [cards], but honestly, Maggie being psychic isn’t what the show is really about.

It’s really about the challenges of living your life in the moment and making the best decisions you can with the information you’ve got (even when you think you know what’s going to happen) because Maggie often doesn’t see the whole picture. Her experience is universal in that way. Maggie’s dating experience.

She often uses her vision as an excuse to close herself off [since] she assumes she knows everything about a situation based on what she sees. She can even write people off based on silly things, but the reality is that she both wants a relationship and is scared of one, because she’s afraid of getting hurt. I think we can all relate to that.

I also think her relationship with her parents can be super-relatable. She has a gift and it’s kind of unbelievable, and the self-acceptance, as well as the acceptance and support from her parents, is definitely a journey. I think psychics, mediums, and mystics are often portrayed as odd and kooky, so I wanted Maggie to feel extremely grounded.

She didn’t choose to be psychic, and I think she’s trying to move through the world with some sense of normalcy. I wanted to portray her as someone who is trying to accept and celebrate what’s special about her without totally letting it define her. Everyone is so funny and joyful.

For whatever reason, my scenes with Ray Ford were always shot so quickly, probably because they were so fun and enjoyable — like a ping pong match. I also absolutely loved working on Maggie’s costumes/hair and makeup. We didn’t want her to look like she dressed the part of a psychic in a stereotypical way, but we definitely wanted her to have a sartorial identity.

In one episode, Maggie gets invited to this super-exclusive party for psychics and mystics and she ends up feeling like an outcast. I decided to wear a totally different hairstyle from Maggie’s norm in that episode because I wanted to lean into the idea that she was maybe trying too hard to fit in … and it doesn’t go well. Absolutely! Why not? I’m at least wise enough to know how little I know.

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