If you’re looking for a good example of someone who put in the work and experienced a steady climb to #1 on the call sheet, look no further than Abigail Cowen. While she has worked on a number of projects outside of Netflix, if you look at her work for the streamer alone she went from having a few lines in Stranger Things to scoring a supporting role in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina where Kiernan Shipka showed her what it means to headline a series, and now Cowen is doing just that starring as Bloom in Fate: The Winx Saga.

Just in case you need a little Winx 101, the Netflix series was inspired by the Nickelodeon animated series, Winx Club. In the live-action version, Cowen’s Bloom is a teenager from Earth (aka the First World) who discovers that she’s actually a fire fairy. She’s sent to the Otherworld where she’s enrolled at Alfea, a boarding school dedicated to teaching fairies how to master their powers.

Bloom’s thrown into the deep end, to say the least, in Season 1, needing to absorb a hefty dose of very serious Otherworld history and being tasked with accessing her full power in order to save Alfea from total destruction. However, in the process of doing that, she changes the state of the school quite drastically. When class is back in session in Season 2, Bloom needs to own up to what she’s done and figure out her place within that situation, all while dealing with an emerging threat connected to missing fairies.

Fate: The Winx Club Saga Season 1.
Image via Netflix

With Fate: The Winx Saga Season 2 now available to stream on Netflix, Cowen joined us for an episode of Collider Ladies Night to recap her journey from her earliest itches to act to headlining a popular Netflix show.

While discussing the challenge of finding confidence in one’s craft and place in this industry, Cowen admitted she still hasn’t hit that point but credited her Stranger Things experience with confirming that, no matter how things went, she at least had to try to build a career as an actor.

“I know everyone talks about impostor syndrome. It's a big part of that and then also, I've talked to a lot of other artists and they're just like, you're so self-critical. A lot of us are insanely insecure in our craft, too. I hope I get to that point of being like, ‘Wow, I'm great,’ but there still hasn't really been a moment where I'm like, 'I know for a fact I'm gonna be able to do this for the rest of my life,’ because it is such an up and down industry and you genuinely never know. I don't know if I really ever fully felt that. I do remember the feeling of, ‘I need to really pursue my dreams,’ was when I was on the set of Stranger Things. I had a really tiny little roll with a couple lines and I was driving I think back from a fitting and I remember just having this overwhelming feeling — because I was living in Florida at the time. I was like, I need to do this for the rest of my life. I need to at least try or I won't, you know, die happy. I need to know that I tried. So I think that was a big pivotal moment for me.”

Abigail Cowen in Stranger Things
Image via Netflix

Little did Cowen know at the time, there were many more big moments and achievements to come. But first, she had to move to Los Angeles and start building momentum. What would Cowen recommend to another actor out there who’s hit that particular step of the process? Here’s what she said:

“First step is, I think, always get an agent. I felt very fortunate because I had already had my agent out here, so I was able to kind of just get into the swing of things and get to auditioning. I mean, the first step is kind of have a game plan, and it's hard because you're managing your own schedule. Having a game plan of how you want to do it, what your next steps are, and I think also treating auditioning as a full-time job. And that's kind of what I did. I was like, I'm gonna treat this like it's my nine to five and if I'm not at an audition, I'm gonna be home studying for the next one and when it hits five o'clock, I'm good, but I will put as much work as I can in the process. And also learning to love auditioning. A lot of people hate it, but I think if you convince yourself — it's the same thing for me as running. I'm like, deep down, do I like it? No. Do I convince myself and tell myself I love it? Yes! So I think the learning to love auditioning and making it a fun process makes it a lot easier.”

That approach paid off big time because Cowen did go on to book a number of roles, all of which teed her up to be able to handle a rather complex character arc in The Winx Saga.

When making a (non-franchise) film, an actor is handed the full story. However, with a series, not only do actors often not know what’s to come for their character in future seasons, but they also don’t always get advance notice on what’s about to go down in the next episodes. On top of that? The material is rarely shot in order. But fortunately, Cowen has found a system that facilitated exploring Bloom’s transition from a fairy with zero control of her powers in Season 1 to becoming someone who proves pivotal to the future of the Otherworld in Season 2. Cowen explained:

“[The episodes] are not shot chronologically, so it's kind of a difficult thing to navigate, and I had to learn pretty quickly how to do that. So I will create an outline before so I can look at what happened before, like on a piece of paper with little bullet notes, so on set I can be like, ‘Okay, this just happened. I can go into this.’ But again, some of the cast members don't even have to do that and I'm so in awe of how they just pull it off.”

Abigail Cowen in Fate: The Winx Saga
Image via Netflix

Cowen also went into more detail on the specific qualities she strove to emphasize while bringing Bloom’s arc to screen in Season 2:

“In this season it's so sad. She's quite blue all the time, you know? Because she's going through so much, so I had to incorporate that along with, towards the end, having more of a bittersweet realization. And also in Season 2, I wanted her to be a little bit different than Season 1 and a little less explosive and erratic, and I wanted to show there's a shift in her and a growth in her as well with these new powers that she's honing.”

Eager to hear more from Cowen on The Winx Saga and about her journey in the industry thus far? Be sure to check out her episode of Collider Ladies Night at the top of this article or you can listen to an extended version of the conversation in podcast form below: