Angélica Celaya Confirmed As Zed For Constantine

It was only a few days ago that we found out about the departure of Lucy Griffiths and her character, Liv Aberdine, from NBC’s Constantine.  Today, we have confirmation from the show’s Facebook page that Angélica Celaya will be playing Mary “Zed” Martin in the upcoming supernatural series.  Griffiths’s Aberdine is said to still be in the pilot.  But soon after, Celaya’s Zed will be taking over the responsibilities of sidekick to John Constantine (Matt Ryan), exorcist and demonologist extraordinaire.

American-born Angélica Celaya’s television debut was on the Mexican soap opera Ladrón de Corazones playing the part of Renata.  Her first English-speaking role was on the USA Network’s spy-drama Burn Notice, starring Jeffrey Donovan, Gabrielle Anwar, and Bruce Campbell.

The sidekick change was implemented after executive producer Daniel Cerone became concerned that the character of Liv Aberdine was too much of a novice compared to Constantine:

"When you put a wide-eyed innocent into that world, she’s just very reactive … The nice thing about Swamp Thing, when he first teamed up with Constantine, was that Swamp Thing had abilities, Swamp Thing had skills. Constantine needed those skills. One of the coolest things about Constantine he doesn’t have any ‘powers.’ He came out of a time with all these superheroes with their garish colors and flashy powers, and he just comes out with a rumpled coat, wearing browns and greys, and he just knows a lot magic and spells, but it’s all knowledge-based. Anything he can do is based in knowledge and his own studying. Zed is actually one of the first women Constantine meets in the comic books, and she has various psychic powers. We felt ultimately she’s going to service the first season better as someone to pair Constantine up with. She can get in his face a little bit and have some of her own realizations and skills and really push him. But if whoever Constantine is working with is constantly on her heels, that just wouldn’t service the show really well."

Zed is a familiar character to Hellblazer fans.  First introduced as a recruit for an extremist Christian group, Zed later becomes Constantine’s partner.  Along with her multiple psychic abilities, she is often found butting heads with our titular hero.

NBC will premiere Constantine on Friday October 24, 2014 at 10:00PM EST.