Holly Marie Combs says ‘Pretty Little Liars’ ‘more professional’ than ‘Charmed’

Holly Marie Combs has nothing but kind words for the young Pretty Little Liars cast — and a couple of digs at her twentysomething self.

On a Charmed reunion panel with Rose McGowan at Sunday’s 90s Con in Hartford, Conn., Combs described the experience of moving from the wise middle sister, Piper Halliwell, on Charmed to the loving mother, Ella Montgomery, on Pretty Little Liars as “great.”

“And you know what,” she continued, “it was kind of a mirror experience, because I got to watch the girls go through a lot of what we did, and they were far more professional than we were,” she joked.

When asked by Sabrina the Teenage Witch alum Jenna Leigh Green, who moderated the panel, how she felt about significantly aging up when she was cast four years after the Charmed finale as the mom to Lucy Hale’s Aria Montgomery on Pretty Little Liars, Combs responded that she “embraced it.”

“At that point, the network was notorious for casting young-looking parents,” she continued. “I was like, well, hey, I’d rather have people say, ‘She looks too young to be Lucy Hale’s mom,’ than say, ‘Oh, she got old.'”

Combs’ character was the mother to three children by the time Charmed went off the air in 2006. The first, Wyatt, was born on a 2003 episode, meaning her eldest was only 3 years old when Charmed wrapped. When Combs showed back up on Pretty Little Liars‘ first season just four years later as Ella Montgomery, she was the mother to a daughter of about 16.

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Combs was in good company among the parents of Rosewood, Pa., the fictional setting for Pretty Little Liars‘ seven seasons of backstabbings and betrayals. Melrose Place star Laura Leighton played Ashley Marin, mother to Ashley Benson’s Hanna Marin; fellow Melrose Place resident, actor Byron Lowe, played Combs’ character’s husband; and Days of Our Lives and General Hospital star Nia Peeples played Pam Fields, the mother to Shay Mitchell’s Emily Fields.