{"id":559823,"date":"2026-08-05T14:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T14:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/559823\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T14:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T14:24:08","slug":"wizards-beyond-waverly-place-jennifer-stone-on-playing-harper-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/559823\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Wizards Beyond Waverly Place’: Jennifer Stone On Playing Harper Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from the final season of Wizards Beyond Waverly Place<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If there was one role that might bring Jennifer Stone back to the small screen, it would be Harper Finkle.<\/p>\n

After saying goodbye to Wizards of Waverly Place, Stone went to nursing school. She\u2019s been largely working in the field since. She didn\u2019t expect to be reprising the role nearly 15 years later with former co-stars Selena Gomez and Gregg Sulkin, even after the series was rebooted two years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen\u00a0Wizards Beyond\u00a0first came out, I had a conversation with David, and he was kind of like, \u2018Hey, if it makes sense down the line, maybe you\u2019ll be on for an episode.\u2019 So I kind of, to be honest, mourned it and was like, \u2018Okay, I put Harper to bed like 15 years ago. She can live back in the original show,’\u201d she remembered. \u201cI was pleasantly surprised when I got the call to come back.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Wizards Beyond has welcomed original characters back to the franchise, their roles have been limited, as the ethos of the show has been to focus on the next generation of characters at the center of the story. <\/p>\n

That is, beyond David Henrie\u2019s Justin Russo, who is a pivotal part of the series. By the final season, audiences have learned that Billie \u2014 the wizard protege Alex dropped off with her brother and his family in Season 1 \u2014 is actually her daughter. In the Season 2 finale, Alex throws herself through a dimensional rift in order to save the rest of her family, and viewers find out her fate in the second episode of the four-part series conclusion.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where Harper comes in. Alex has somehow ended up in an alternate universe. A limbo, if you will. Here, she\u2019s still living with her best friend and dating her former flame Mason Greyback (Gregg Sulkin). Alex is very confused, but Harper is positively gleeful as she tries to hide from Alex that she believes Mason is on his way over to propose. She, unsurprisingly, doesn\u2019t succeed for long.<\/p>\n

While it is an extremely brief appearance, Stone tells Deadline it was not only nostalgic to be back in that world, it also allowed her to explore some of the Wizards ideas that had been left on the cutting room floor many years ago. She recalls \u201crumblings\u201d of potential spinoffs when the original series ended, including a series \u201cwhere Harper and Alex lived in their own apartment, the Wizards apartments,\u201d just as they do in this little fantasyland. They explain that they use a gag wand to convince other tenants she\u2019s magic.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it was cool on multiple levels. One, it got to entertain the \u2018what if\u2019 in this alternate reality, if that had happened. And, two, I love that not only have the characters matured, but the relationship has, too,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Stone has a firm idea of who Harper would be at this stage of life. She had to consider the possibility for episodes of Wizards that depicted her character in the future. The biggest change about her is \u201cshe\u2019s just more focused with her creativity and that confidence,\u201d the actress adds.<\/p>\n

In the end, Alex and Harper aren\u2019t reunited for long. We learn that, in fact, Mason is dead. Harper is (probably) not real either. He\u2019s really there to guide Alex back home. The scene is painfully short, but it is a warm nod to the original franchise and a positive sendoff for the three-season continuation.<\/p>\n

And anyway, Stone now knows she could never forget Harper.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was eerie. I was literally saying, \u2018It\u2019s so weird because I haven\u2019t played this character in 15 years or something.\u2019 It was like muscle memory. It was literally like riding a bike. You just jump right into it,\u201d she described. \u201cIt was so cool, but also just strange. Wonderfully weird is the best way I can put it\u2026to see all of us slip right back into the dynamic we had when we were 15 or 16.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from the final season of Wizards Beyond Waverly Place. If there was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559824,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,2398,22481,156,111,139,69,275504],"class_list":["post-559823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-disney","tag-disney-channel","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-wizards-beyond-waverly-place"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}