Paige Matthews - Casting and Development

Casting and Development

Phoebe: "Defiant, clever, and independent." That kinda describes Paige, don't you think?

Piper: Yeah, along with stubborn, stubborn, and more stubborn.

The character of Paige Matthews was conceived by executive producer Brad Kern as a replacement character for Prue Halliwell. In May 2001, it was officially announced that actress Shannen Doherty would be departing from the series Charmed. The producers originally considered recasting the role of Prue with a different actress. Executive Producer Aaron Spelling even approached actresses Tiffani Thiessen, who replaced Doherty on his previous series Beverly Hills, 90210, and Jennifer Love Hewitt to take on the role as Doherty's replacement. Spelling revealed to Entertainment Weekly, "Tiffani was our first choice to take over for Shannen - even before we asked Jennifer, but Tiffani told us she wants to do a half-hour comedy." Hewitt also declined the role.

Producers then decided to kill off the character of Prue and replace her with a long-lost younger sister in favor of having "a fresh face" join the series. Spelling stated, " going to be the long-lost sister Alyssa and Holly never knew had. And wait until you see what we came up with to explain why she's been lost: Nobody ever knew she even existed."

Film actress Rose McGowan was later revealed to be cast in the role of Paige (last name later revealed as Matthews), her first role as a series regular on a television series. Kern later participated in an interview to give details about the new character stating, "From Paige's point of view, you go to bed one night, and you think you're a single child, and no one understands you. Then you wake up the next morning, and you find out you've got sisters who are witches, who've got supernatural powers, who have a destiny that you must now share and embrace, and you must learn your new powers." He later elaborated saying, "When we meet her, she will have been searching for many years, both for her birth parents, but also for an answer to that feeling that she's had inside of her that there's something special, there's something else that nobody has yet been able to understand and explain."

On casting McGowan in the role of Paige, Kern admitted, "Our personal hope was to find somebody that would be of Shannen's calibre, that would have the sexiness, the edge and the range. That, for the age range we were looking for, is hard to find. We said, 'We don't want somebody conventional. We don't want a shrinking violet. We don't want just another pretty face that smiles and has great teeth. We want somebody who has an attitude.' I think Rose definitely has an attitude, and that's an energy that we can take advantage of for the betterment of the show."