Prue Halliwell - Casting and Development

Casting and Development

Piper: That's not her fault. She practically had to sacrifice...

Phoebe & Piper: ...her own childhood to help raise us.

Phoebe: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

In 1998, the Warner Brothers Television Network began searching for a drama series, and looked to Spelling Television, which had produced the network's most successful series 7th Heaven, to create it. Expanding on the popularity of supernatural-themed dramas, the production company explored forms of mythology to find mythological characters they could focus on with contemporary storytelling. In order to create the series, Constance M. Burge was hired as the creator as she was under contract with 20th Century Fox and Spelling Television after conceiving the drama Savannah.

The character of Prue Halliwell was conceived by Burge, who wrote the pilot script for Charmed. The pilot script was based around three mismatched sisters who are initially based on Burge and her two older sisters, Laura and Edie Burge. Prue is based on Burge's older sister Laura. On creating Prue, Burge states "my older sister, Laura, is very strong, very driven and so I attributed the characteristics that my sister Laura has to the character Prue." Executive Producer Brad Kern claims Prue is written into the series as "the older sister, the kick-ass sister. She was the tough one. She was probably the most skeptical about the magic up top, but ultimately became the most powerful of ."

When the series was in its first development stages, former Picket Fences actress Holly Marie Combs auditioned for the role of Prue while Shannen Doherty, an actress from a previous Spelling Television series, Beverly Hills, 90210, originally auditioned for the role of Piper Halliwell. By the time the roles were officially cast, the actresses had switched characters. Doherty played the role of Prue in a 28-minute test pilot (the "unaired pilot", never aired on network television) alongside Combs and actress Lori Rom who played the youngest sister Phoebe Halliwell. By the time the series aired on The WB, Rom had been replaced by the former Who's the Boss star, film and TV actress Alyssa Milano.

In May 2001, it was officially announced that Doherty would be departing from the series. The producers originally considered recasting the role 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." This leaves Doherty as the only actress to portray Prue as an adult on-screen.