"Damien" interviews and photo from media day at Fox Studios, Los Angeles 2/2
Interview and photo took place at Fox Studios in Los Angeles on Friday 6 May 2016.
Photo credit: Uncool Rockstar.
Daily Dead: Exclusive Interview: DAMIEN Season 1 Retrospective with Showrunner Glen Mazzara
Combined with the writing, Bradley James’ performance humanizes the Antichrist and makes him a character to root for. Can you talk about how James really became this role and made viewers empathize with him but also be scared of him?
Glen Mazzara: Bradley had a really tough job in creating this role, and when I think about any show I’ve worked on in the past, I would say this is the toughest role I’ve ever seen an actor tackle. He’s taken an iconic figure that people know and have associations with for forty years, and he has to make it his own and create a backstory that’s not being dramatized onscreen, and he has to carry the weight around. [snip] It’s a really, really complex journey. I don’t see any of the characters on TV having that kind of nuanced journey that also involves the baggage from a classic film.
It was a really complicated thing, and Bradley is classically trained. He’s a total pro. He’s the sweetest guy. Hollywood legend has it that you never name a show after your lead character, because very often those actors end up becoming difficult as time goes on. Bradley is not that guy. Bradley is one of the kindest, hardest-working actors I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with, but his work is so subtle, that I think many critics dismissed it at first. Bradley brought Damien Thorn to life in a way that I don’t think anyone expected, and he deserves a tremendous amount of credit for that.
[Click for full interview (spoilers)]
Shots were fired, loyalties were tested, and characters encountered true evil in Monday’s Season 1 finale of A&E’s Damien. With the first season now in the books, Daily Dead had a chance to catch up with executive producer/showrunner Glen Mazzara, who discussed Damien’s journey so far, working with his outstanding ensemble of actors, the intense Season 1 finale, and what to expect in future episodes if the show is green-lit for a second season.
Now that the whole first season of Damien has aired and you have a little time to reflect, what goals are you the most proud of accomplishing on this journey so far?
Glen Mazzara: I’m most proud of the writers remaining committed to the story. When you lay out a season, there’s a lot of input from different voices throughout the entire filmmaking process. We set out to develop a particular story and we focused that story on Damien. It was always a character-based story, and we took our time introducing elements around him in John Lyons, Detective Shay, his personal relationships with Amani and Simone.
We developed all of those characters, and we kept moving and developing and not really second-guessing the story that we were telling. The way that comes across when you watch it is every episode feels like it’s getting better and better, with more and more twists. After a while, it just feels like you’re on a freight train that’s going toward this climax, and yet we always have those moments where you understand the relationship between the characters.
When Ann brings a dagger to Damien, or when Amani apologizes and they’re sitting there all night drinking whiskey. We always have those character moments, and yet there’s a sense of inevitability to that final scene, to the way everything comes together. We just really focused on telling a character-based story and didn’t get distracted from that.
Was it important for you and your team to not back away from really pushing the envelope in terms of killing characters off the show?
Glen Mazzara: Yeah, that was always important. It was important that any of the deaths or the violence or the horror sequences had to support and come out of character moments. We never just killed somebody for a shocking death, or to spice up an episode, or because we felt things were dragging. I’ve worked on shows where sometimes that happens: “We need something to happen here. Our pacing isn’t working.”
We were always committed to the tone and the pacing, and so everything’s related. All of those deaths and the horror moments-everything happens for a reason. It may not be the reason that the audience anticipates or suspects at the time, but everything does play into the devil’s master plan to drive Damien to accept his role as the Antichrist.
We really wanted to push the envelope. We really wanted it to be a show that was taking chances. We have horror fans working on the show. I’m a horror fan, and we wanted to push the horror boundary. This is a very scary TV show. I’m watching it with the commercials, and I’m still agitated and on edge, and that’s a hard thing to do. It might be easier to do on premium cable. It might be easier to do certainly in a film, because you’re not interrupted, but we consistently deliver that tone, and that was something that we, as horror fans, wanted, for it to be an experience.
The show works on different levels, I think, but what was always important was that it was an emotional ride like a horror movie. It needed to be an emotional ride for the audience, and that meant more than just throwing stimuli at them. We’re trying to get their blood flowing. We want to make sure they were emotionally connected to the characters.
We wanted to make sure that they were never frustrated, but confused and unsure of what was happening. Sometimes we played with the nature of reality, particularly in episodes 5 and 6. What’s been wonderful is that you see fans online, people get it. When the show first came out, a lot of people didn’t get it because they just expected Damien to be mustache-twirling and to be very obvious and cut and dry, and if you’re going to do a show about the nature of evil, it needs to be more delicate, hidden, and serpentine.
Combined with the writing, Bradley James’ performance humanizes the Antichrist and makes him a character to root for. Can you talk about how James really became this role and made viewers empathize with him but also be scared of him?
Glen Mazzara: Bradley had a really tough job in creating this role, and when I think about any show I’ve worked on in the past, I would say this is the toughest role I’ve ever seen an actor tackle. He’s taken an iconic figure that people know and have associations with for forty years, and he has to make it his own and create a backstory that’s not being dramatized onscreen, and he has to carry the weight around. He’s been living in denial when we first meet him, and yet he suspects things. He’s complex right off the bat, and he sort of has grown up off-screen, but the audience has an expectation of who he is.
Then he goes through a process before our eyes with those five stages: death, anger, denial, bargaining, and acceptance. He goes through that process, not in that order. Bargaining and acceptance become the same thing in our last scene.
He’s lashing out, and he just keeps being constantly cornered. He thinks perhaps he’s suffering from PTSD, and he ends up encountering a demon in the hospital. He attempts suicide. That’s not a solution. He seeks psychiatric help and his therapist ends up killing a serial killer that he put in motion that he didn’t even realize existed.
The poor guy is just suffering, and yet when he lashes out at the end, he becomes a mass murderer in the final scene, and yet he has no blood on his hands in the sense that he never pulls the trigger. His hands are always oddly clean in the end, and so he goes from mass murderer to sacrificing his soul to save Simone.
It’s a really, really complex journey. I don’t see any of the characters on TV having that kind of nuanced journey that also involves the baggage from a classic film. It was a really complicated thing, and Bradley is classically trained. He’s a total pro. He’s the sweetest guy. Hollywood legend has it that you never name a show after your lead character, because very often those actors end up becoming difficult as time goes on.
Bradley is not that guy. Bradley is one of the kindest, hardest-working actors I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with, but his work is so subtle, that I think many critics dismissed it at first. Bradley brought Damien Thorn to life in a way that I don’t think anyone expected, and he deserves a tremendous amount of credit for that.
The whole supporting cast has been great at bringing the characters around Damien to life. The Walking Dead fans will recognize Scott Wilson as John Lyons, and Jose Pablo Cantillo did a phenomenal job guest-starring in Episode 5. What has it been like to reunite with familiar faces from your career on this show?
Glen Mazzara: One of the greatest nights, not just of my career, but of my life, was standing in the field behind the barn on The Walking Dead set as the barn was burning, and Norman Reedus was on a motorcycle driving around shooting at zombies. Glenn and Maggie were in a pickup truck, and I was standing to the side watching all of this chaos, just shooting the breeze with Scott Wilson, and we were trading Dennis Hopper stories. We both worked with Dennis at one point.
That was just so not what I ever thought my life would be, but I was just so happy spending that freezing evening with Scott. It was just great, and he’s so kind and thoughtful and really committed. The guy’s done a lot of different roles, and yet he wants to talk through the material. He asks questions, and he always delivers.
What I like about my job is I like editing a lot, and when you have these performances by great actors, those scenes just kind of snap together, and they really make your writing much, much better. You can find layers that the actors are bringing that you didn’t even think of as a writer. I have loved working with Scott, and created the role of Lyons so that I could get to work with him again.
When he called me and told me he was killed off The Walking Dead I said, “Oh, okay, great. I’ll write a role for you,” and I like to do that when an actor impresses me, or I have a great experience. I will find something for them. I either write a role and bring somebody in who I’ve worked with, not just because I’m comfortable that they could do the job, but because I feel loyalty is important. Jose Cantillo and I have done four shows together, and so he’s my go-to guy. Robin Weigert and I have done three shows together, so when this role [of Sister Greta Fraueva] was available, we never auditioned anybody else. I just called Robin and said, “I would love for you to do this role of Greta.” I like to do that. I like to do that with writers, directors, editors, certainly [composer] Bear McCreary. I called him immediately, and I only got to know him on The Walking Dead, but as an artist you have to really develop a sense of trust with the people you’re working with.
In the final scene of Damien‘s season finale, there’s definitely enough that happens to satisfy fans, but there are also some things we might not find out until later, particularly who’s alive and who’s dead, and what Simone will be like now that she’s absorbed the Antichrist’s blood. Should we not rule anything out in regards to who is still alive until we hopefully see what happens next?
Glen Mazzara: Yeah, it had a high body count, but unless you actually saw a body, I would not assume that anyone is dead. Did we see Lyons’ body? He’s pretty mauled by those dogs, but we never go back and have that last shot. There was a hand coming out of the grave, and it’s intentionally ambiguous whose hand that is and what that implies. I thought those small moments were enough to keep people invested, and also, I didn’t want to just pile up the bodies. I didn’t want it to be bleak. There is a risk when you’re doing a type of horror like this that it could become sadistic or cruel, and I think you can see that that’s not what we are looking to do. We want to be a horror show that also has a lot of humanity, a lot of heart.
The scene that really affected me in the finale was Greta and Amani in the grave. I’m really proud of the work [director] Nick Copus and the actors did. That’s a tough scene to shoot and on a thoughtful, intellectual basis, you have to think, “Is Amani committing evil by putting her [Greta] in a grave? Is he complying with murder or not?” And then he’s betrayed and he falls into the grave. And she’s compassionate. She puts her arms around him and then she says this line that Catholics say when they are about to receive communion. So she sees her death as a communion with God, so her faith is right there at the end. Even though there’s a moment when humans can betray each other, she doesn’t believe God betrayed her. She believes this is God’s will. And then you put Bear McCreary’s gorgeous score on top of it and you just have these images-what’s worse than being buried alive with somebody in a mass grave? There are so many different levels that came together in this heartbreaking scene. It felt real, it felt grounded, but I don’t think it felt like it was just piling up the bodies for the sake of doing so. That’s not what we do here.
Although it hasn’t officially been announced yet, is there anything you can tease about what viewers can expect from the show if it moves forward in a second season?
Glen Mazzara: I’m very hopeful for a Season 2. I watched the [season finale] with the cast and the writers at my house and everyone’s dying to get back to work. What I would want to address-when we first meet Damien, he’s stepping out of the shadows of his life and it’s a very personal story. It initially starts small and is centered around him, and these other elements are dragged into his orbit. Now he finds himself as the head of a dark church that he didn’t even really know existed. Who were those people stepping out of the shadows? Are they of one mind or do they have many agendas. We see that the Vatican hit squad is in motion. That’s bringing a lot of power. Things have escalated, and there’s a certain amount of scope and scale surrounding Damien being a leader on a world stage. I would look at him really starting to build the church. We know he has some disciples around him, it appears that Detective Shay has a moment of conversion when he sees the miracle at the end. This is how a church starts to get built. So I would look at that journey to take place in the next season, given the opportunity.
SciFi Bulletin Damien: Interview: Glen Mazzara (post-finale) part 1
SciFi Bulletin Damien: Interview: Glen Mazzara (post-finale) part 2
We talked last time about how Bradley became involved with the show. How much discussion did you have with him through the season about how much Damien is balancing his humanity and the Power around him?
It was interesting. I spent a lot of time with Bradley early on in the process, defining his character and I would check in with him, if he had questions on a particular script. He went through his process and I would tell him what he needed to have at that time. I never gave him the full arc, didn’t tell him where he was going to until very very late - during episode 9 I think I told him what was going to happen in episode 10. That was the one time that I had done that. He wanted to arc the ending of the season. [snip]
Most of my time was spent in Los Angeles with the writers, so I saw him as a leader on set [in Toronto]. He would call and we would talk things through. It was amazing how much work he put into his character, how well he understood the character and how he shaped Damien.[snip] He gave a really incredible performance because, think about it: this is an Anti-Christ who in our finale ends up committing mass murder and promising his soul to the Devil to commit even more mass murder… and your heart is breaking for him. That is just unbelievable that he could get you on his side. I think he deserves a lot of credit and I think his performance is totally outstanding.
[Click for full interview pt 1 (spoilers)]Glen Mazzara has done a lot of talking about the finale to Damien, his ten-part A&E series that chronicles the life of the Anti-Christ Damien Thorn after his 30th birthday. A Q&A after the screening of the episode on the Fox lot, followed by a conference call with journalists; a 30 minute #AskDamien Twitter session that went on for over double that length - and then a further hour chatting with Paul Simpson, during which it’s clear none of his enthusiasm for discussing the show has diminished…
NB This interview discusses events in all ten episodes of Damien; it also references back to the original interview five weeks earlier which can be read here.
One area we didn’t tackle last time were the changes that happened when the episode order switched from six episodes to ten: was episode 10 pretty much what episode 6 would have been, or did you completely rebreak the story?
No, the first five episodes laid out exactly as we aired - for the most part. We did add some material. Episode 10, which culminates in what we call the Faustian bargain (Damien promising his soul; signing the contract with the Devil in his own blood, accepting his fate as the Anti-Christ) was always going to be the end of episode 6.
When I had the writers for the back half of the season, we talked about that. “Do we make episode 7 what happens next, or do we push that Faustian bargain to episode 10 and risk filler?” We ended up deciding that it was a big enough moment and it was a great character arc that we could push into even deeper and develop the characters. We would spend all that [extra] time on two things - further developing the characters and bringing them all together in an interesting way, and building out the world.
It was at that point that we introduced Sister Greta. We went back and filmed her scenes and put them into episode 2 and episode 5. Sister Greta was someone that had been developed in the series bible that I had written before I sold the show but she had to be cut when we only had six episodes. Now that we were given ten episodes, we could take that element and thread it through the show, and fortunately we had the time to do that.
So originally we’d have had none of those amazing scenes with Sister Greta and Amani?
No, all of that came about as we started developing the back half of the season. I’m glad. I think we used that time wisely.
I think the first half of the season sets up these different threads but then the back half of the season pulls them all together. You can see how all the elements are leading Damien to make that choice, that final sacrifice at the end - the way that the Greta/Amani scene comes together and Ann screams out “No”. She then throws Lyons under the bus, which prompts Damien to use this power (and of course the Rottweilers are great in any scene), and goes after Lyons.
Shay stepping forward, having gone off the deep end, taking a shot at Damien and hitting Simone, and Damien promising his soul to bring Simone back to life - that was always the plan. We just had to find the right spot for it.
It was a matter of how much story could we fit, given ten episodes, and I think the story expanded to fit those ten episodes. Those last few episodes, those additional episodes, do not feel like filler. It feels like a freight train barrelling towards that end.
Was I off beam in the review as seeing Shay as a sort of Doubting Thomas figure? He sees Simone killed, and sees the power of Damien and then becomes a believer…
I would I see him more as a possible Saint Paul.
Thomas was a disciple who followed Christ for three years and when Christ returned from the dead, Thomas did not believe what he was seeing. Now, the truth is that when the Gospels were written, there were some followers of Thomas who had certain thoughts about Jesus, and there were other followers who did not agree with those thoughts, so they went back to discredit Thomas. The Gospels were written later and there is some thought that the Doubting Thomas story was a bit of a hatchet job to discredit the followers of Thomas. There’s actually a lost Gospel of Thomas, not included in the Catholic canon - it’s more of a Gnostic gospel.
Paul was someone who was persecuting the early Christians, and he had a moment of conversion [on the road to Damascus]. I would say that that is closer to how I see Detective Shay. He’s persecuting Damien and now he has this moment of conversion. It would be very interesting if he suddenly became someone who was preaching the word of Damien in a future season. That would be very interesting!
And his son having the insights about the Devil would feed into that…
That is something we’ve talked about. I would think that that character would be torn in a lot of directions, and they would certainly have a huge effect on his personal life. That’s something I’ve given a lot of thought to for a season 2 and I have specific ideas that I would offer to a writing team and start working on it.
That’s the way I like to work - I like to come up with a sketch of what I think it should be and then everybody contributes, and you throw bits out and find a better piece. Any time I run a show I try to give the writers something to work with. I don’t really like when writers are expected to come into the room and have no direction from the showrunner. I like to give them a rough idea of what I want the season to feel like. With season 1, I definitely had that sense. With season 2 I don’t know exactly what happens, but I do have a sense of what it would feel like.
I think my job as a showrunner is to be the keeper of the tone. I would say that the tone of Damien is something that makes you uncomfortable, something that makes you think, something that pushes you out of your comfort zone, and something that keeps you guessing - that is, it’s unexpected. A sense of agitation, the sense that you’re never really sure what’s going on or where it’s going. Then when you get to the ending, and it seems very inevitable, like there’s some evil force… You feel like you’re a participant in the show itself. You feel what the characters feel…
That’s different. It’s something we’re trying to do on the show that I’ve never had on another show.
How much did the actors know at the start of filming what the arc of their characters was going to be? Or were they finding out as scripts arrived with them?
They found out as scripts arrived. They asked a lot of questions about the material, and we talked about their characters, about what the characters want, what the characters understand, what the characters think. I was very careful to make sure that they always understood their perspectives. Sometimes there might be an issue that came up that something wasn’t working, and I would reach out to the actors.
I had a long conversation with Megalyn about Simone. Originally Simone is many steps behind Damien, and I was worried that she was perhaps too far behind, that she maybe felt a little too investigative. It didn’t feel as if she was as tied into the action as everyone else. She knew a lot less and yet she was having her own experience.
I spoke with Megalyn and talked about how she was feeling about the character and then she said something particular that impressed me. When I brought it back to the writers’ room we started talking - and that’s when we realised that Greta needed to seek Simone out. Once we could put those two together that would then tie everyone together in a nice way. That would be worlds colliding in a surprising way, and that made a lot of sense. I was very grateful to have that relationship with my actors, and in fact Megalyn said to me, “I’ve never had a producer ask me what I thought before”.
So I would ask them more questions, as part of my process; they would never offer a particular scene, or say, “My character would do this.” It doesn’t work like that. It’s more, as they’re creating their character, I’m asking them what their process is and then I’m using their skills and their material and feeding it into the writing process.
That’s something I learned on The Shield. That’s how we wrote The Shield, and it was very collaborative. I’ve not really done that on other shows - I’ve not been able to do that on other shows. You need to have a certain type of actor who’s willing to do that, to take risks, who’s willing to experiment, and I would say that the Damien cast and The Shield cast were cut from the same cloth.
Sister Greta is one of the most “shades of grey” character in the series; do you think by the end the conflict between the Church and the Anti-Christ means the Church has to get its hands dirty?
Yes, I think by the end the Church feels that this is a threat that they need to dispatch, but I think that they think they’re going to be able to dispatch it relatively quickly. Greta calls out one of the cardinals in episode 5; she talks about Rome’s hubris, and all of that.
The Church is made up of over a billion people, so if you want to talk about the Roman Catholic Church, the hierarchy, it’s a place of multiple viewpoints. There’s a diversity of viewpoints throughout the show.
There would be a Church bureaucracy that would have a certain way of looking at the Anti-Christ problem but Sister Greta is the kind of worker bee that the Church needs and is built on. She’s the foundation; she’s the person who does get her hands dirty. She’s the person who’s there when they need her - she has travelled to South America and performed an exorcism, and now she’s supposed to go and investigate something else, then she’s called back to Rome, and she’s not even listened to when she’s there. Now she has to take matters into her own hands because she understands the problem before Rome does.
She’s really trying to make a difference. And she’s personally connected - whatever her intentions are, she is affected by Damien in several ways. She’s compassionate; I love that she hugs him and says “My poor man”, when she sees the 666 scar. But then when Damien is just asking questions about God, she suddenly thinks this is Satan trying to dissuade her from her faith, and when she’s in that grave at the end, you see she is really holding onto that faith, even though her faith has been shaken. In that conversation with Ann, when Ann says “Satan is God”, Greta is horrified by this - but she also cannot understand why she fails, if she’s a servant of God. Why did she fail to eliminate the Anti-Christ? Her faith can only get her so far, and that’s what she holds on to at the very end. That’s what brings her some solace in the grave.
What’s important about the show, and maybe what’s different about the show, is that it’s not just one answer for one group of people. If we had ten people from the Church, those people would have ten different viewpoints on the Anti-Christ problem. On Damien’s side, everybody has their own point of view. I think that’s why the characters feel alive - they have individual points of view. They may be on the same side but everyone is still coming at it from their own angle. That’s different.
People expect this to be a very black and white show, in which everyone on Damien’s side all feels the side, and everyone on the other side all feels the same, and maybe they have questions of power, about who’s in charge. No - these people are having philosophical conversations about the meaning of reality, and spirituality! It’s very complex but I think the only way you can do it in a believable way is to have the characters as individualised as possible.
In the same way - and I don’t want to put us on the same level as this show, I don’t want to imply that - as a fan when I look at Deadwood, all of those characters were individual characters. That’s sort of a model for what we’re trying to do here, but in a very different genre.
In Part 2, Glen Mazzara goes further behind the scenes of the whole season…
[Click for full interview pt 2 (spoilers)]
Damien: Interview: Glen Mazzara (post-finale) part 2
There’s a lot of Christian iconography in the series, such as Simone washing Damien’s feet in episode 10; how much of that element did you have in mind going into the series? Were they ideas developed in the writers’ room or images you had as part of the show’s development?
There were certain images that I had - the staging of the last scene, a lot of that was worked out - and obviously it becomes clearer as you start to work on it and you start to develop it. It’s amazing how that last scene was pretty much sketched out - I won’t say it was drawn out completely. Then you start to inhabit the world and start to know what the show feels like, so as you go on, the washing of the feet, for example, is very consistent with who Simone is. We had that opportunity so it made sense to do that.
It made sense in the moment when we were writing those scenes, but it’s not like we ever said anywhere before we got to the actual scene, “we need to have her wash his feet”. Those moments came out organically. The idea of Damien being tied down with thorns and then the vines raping Veronica in episode 9, the washing of the feet; a lot of images came together when we were writing, but when you step back and look at it, you say, “Oh there must have been some magic happening, something within us as writers that was leading us.”
There’s got to be some part of our brains that’s working overtime, because for Sister Greta to be introduced performing an exorcism where she’s above a grave, and then at the end she’s in a grave episodes later feels by design. It also feels like a fortuitous accident to some degree.
Damien’s 666 is bleeding at the end of episode 1; it’s bleeding at the end of episode 10. We knew we needed to do it, then we forgot about it, and then we came back to it. Amani tells a story about how he met Damien, how he was laid out in a mass grave and he was going to be executed - look where he ends up in the end.
All these things, you have your colour palette and you keep drawing from it and hopefully it will all make sense. I think a lot of credit goes to the actors and the writers - we had two different sets of writers, but everybody was really focused on tone and consistency. It was really lovely to work with incredibly talented people.
It’s quite surprising to learn there were two different sets, given how much of a consistent feel it has…
Yeah - but two of the writers were on both sets. My number two is Mark Kruger, a big horror fan and horror writer, so he was with me throughout the whole process. Then there was this other writer, K.C. Perry, who wrote episode 5 and co-wrote episode 9: she’s just brilliant. She was there for both sets. Then [for the second half] I had two more experienced writers, because I was now writing while I was in production. The rest of the writers were staff writers in the first half, but once you start production, and deadlines are tighter, there’s just different needs, so I brought in Richard Hatem and Sara Thorp, who I had worked with. They could not have done the work if the first team had not done all the heavy lifting.
It was a bizarre process, very unique, but exciting because like the show itself, working on the show you never know what you’re going to get. Every day was different - it felt like we were on a tightrope - and somehow that energy got into the creative process and ended up on screen in some way.
We also had great editors, and the whole post department. A lot of the show came together in post in a way that I haven’t experienced on other shows. Making Damien was very different than anything I had done before, but I would say it was the most relaxed, the most fun, the most comfortable I’ve ever been.
Maybe it feels like two seasons in one - I don’t know how to describe it. It really changed a lot of how I look at who I am as a writer, as a producer, how I approach my job. I think the experience of putting the show out there [was different]. I said this in my Twitter Q and A earlier - you’re dealing with supernatural forces, you’re dealing with a mythology referencing a forty year old film. There were a lot of questions and I resisted every step of the way giving any obvious answers. I did not want the show to do anything that was expected. I did not want the show to spoon-feed the audience in any way. I won’t say I made the show obtuse or confusing, but I did not want the show to be dumbed down for a TV audience, and I resisted a lot of those notes. I feel like the audience responded.
Whether or not the ratings are there, that doesn’t make a difference to me, to be honest - I hope obviously that I get a season 2, but the people who connected with the show got it. They got what we were trying to say, and they appreciated it. That’s incredibly rewarding. You do this to connect with people on an emotional level, and people did: it wasn’t just [them saying] “I didn’t see that shocking twist coming”, people really were affected by the show in an emotional way. That’s something I don’t take lightly - it’s really special.
You commented in the Q&A that the opening scene in episode 1 was originally meant to be in Jerusalem, and the execs got cold feet; were there many changes like that? We talked about episode 5 last time, but across the board were there a lot of things you had to fight for?
After episodes 6 and 7, pretty much no; the studio and network were happy with what they were seeing, they were happy with the material. I did not have to fight. Once in a while they would give notes, or ask to clarify things, but people were then comfortable with the show creatively, so there was no digging in. All of those discussions were up front, which I think is fair. They’re investing a lot of money and manpower and talent and any questions you ask the creator of a show forces that creator to either sharpen their material, or defend it, or justify it or explain it. I think that’s a valuable part of the process. They always trusted me; they may not agree, but they understood that I understood the show, that I had something in mind that I was going for.
I like to try out a lot of different things. I think flexibility is key - really experimenting with material and trying it out. Maybe it doesn’t work or it leads to a better idea. I need my writers and directors and editors and executives to be as fluid as possible. You can see how the show is mercurial. The show changes a lot. That’s what I want to do as a writer, and as a filmmaker. I demand a lot from people to be able to put up with a lot of different versions of things until we settle on it.
Here’s the thing: I’m not one of those writers who goes off and broods and broods and broods and then comes out with the answer. I like to write a script this way, and then we try it that way, and I’m constantly rewriting - so much so that it’s exhausting when I’m putting out three or four versions of a script every day with different scenes. After a while people can’t keep up with what we’re shooting but I have in my mind what I’m going for, and it might take me multiple drafts to get there. They have to trust that my process is going to work.
My process is a bit chaotic or frightening to people who have to adhere to schedules and budgets and all that. But we came in on schedule and on budget - this all comes from my training in an emergency room. You need to be as flexible as possible.
We talked last time about how Bradley became involved with the show. How much discussion did you have with him through the season about how much Damien is balancing his humanity and the Power around him?
It was interesting. I spent a lot of time with Bradley early on in the process, defining his character and I would check in with him, if he had questions on a particular script. He went through his process and I would tell him what he needed to have at that time. I never gave him the full arc, didn’t tell him where he was going to until very very late - during episode 9 I think I told him what was going to happen in episode 10. That was the one time that I had done that. He wanted to arc the ending of the season.
It’s a really complex role: he had to create the baggage for this iconic character, grow up off screen. He had to find his way, play many things and find a process for what he was dealing with in the season: withdrawal, researching, fighting, lashing back, attempting suicide, seeking treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. He goes to see his therapist and she ends up killing somebody. The guy can’t catch a break! He really did have a very complex job.
We would talk when he felt that there were production issues. He never called me and said he was lost with his character; I think he always understood the script but he would call and say “this doesn’t feel right”, or “Is this what we’re going for? Why is this happening on set? Why is this director saying this? Why does the set look this way?” Most of my time was spent in Los Angeles with the writers, so I saw him as a leader on set [in Toronto]. He would call and we would talk things through.
It was amazing how much work he put into his character, how well he understood the character and how he shaped Damien. Because a lot of his work is so subtle, I think a lot of critics missed it. They didn’t understand it and didn’t see what he was doing. He gave a really incredible performance because, think about it: this is an Anti-Christ who in our finale ends up committing mass murder and promising his soul to the Devil to commit even more mass murder… and your heart is breaking for him. That is just unbelievable that he could get you on his side. I think he deserves a lot of credit and I think his performance is totally outstanding.
Without his and Barbara Hershey’s performances as the two lynchpins, the show could have become slightly shlocky very easily…
Yes, it’s a risk. It’s a risk for any show, particularly a horror show. I felt that we needed to avoid that by grounding it in characters.
I always saw the show as a cable character drama. That’s what grounded the show and I think what put us in that territory, rather than just jump scares and shlock and something that was hyperviolent without any ramifications. There were a lot of traps here and I think I was very lucky to find the right people to come in - the writers, the directors, the actors, everybody. Everybody came into the process and everybody embraced the show and the tone and the risk-taking of the storytelling. People collaborated and challenged each other in a professional way. As the showrunner I get credit - or blame, whatever you want to give me - but there are a tremendous amount of unsung heroes involved with a show and I think what you’re seeing is the fact that people were comfortable enough to ask questions and look for answers together as we tried to make a very difficult show.
I believe I read you’ve written a five season bible for the show…
That’s what I originally wrote in our series bible.
Is that laid out in terms of signposts to hit along the way or is it very detailed?
It’s surprisingly detailed. It’s more detailed than any show that I’ve worked on that’s not based on pre-existing material - in the sense we’re in new story, so there’s no Damien novels that were adapted or comic books or anything like that. It’s pretty detailed, and I would say it’s very detailed according to the emotional sign points.
Plot can change. There’s always a better idea. But the way you approach a story is through the emotional development of the characters, and that I have a good sense of and have shared that with the writers. We know how we want all of these characters to affect each other. And obviously there are new characters we want to bring in and obviously anything can change at any moment, but Damien is on a very clear emotional journey.
Do you have any idea when you may know about the future?
I think it may take a few weeks. I will say this: viewing patterns have changed. People watch things when the show airs and obviously on DVR and On Demand and streaming off the website and off the app and iTunes. We’re launching in Latin America this month. There are a lot of different ways that people view the shows and I think that the studios and networks are in a transitional period where they’re not really sure how to track all that. These are big conglomerates that have a lot of big divisions. They have to haul all this information together and crunch numbers and budget and blah blah blah - it’s a business.
I do know creatively A&E and Fox love the show; they had a good experience making it, and I did, obviously. So I’m very hopeful. I hope things happen. Our ratings have not been exactly where anybody would like them to be, but the online enthusiasm and the buzz that we’re receiving from websites like yours and others, and the Twitter feed - that adds value as well, so the entire picture needs to be put together.
DamienThat’s true for any young show - it’s not just Damien. Maybe I’m the one showrunner talking about it! It’s tricky, and so I don’t know if there’s quite an existing model that properly evaluates the success of any show right now. There’s just so many different bits of information.
I hope everything adds up. I would love those numbers to add up to 666….
Damien can be accessed in the US via the A&E website and the app
Follow the hashtag #RenewDamien for news on the show’s future
[Click for more Damien interviews with Glen Mazzara (spoilers)]
Blastr: Exclusive: Damien showrunner Glen Mazzara on that devilish season finale, what comes next
Bleeding Cool: What’s Next For The Antichrist? - Damien Showrunner Glen Mazzara Discusses Season Two Possibilities
Talk Nerdy With Us: “Damien” Finale Screams Smart Horror TV An Interview with Showrunner Glen MazzaraDre
Dread Central: Glen Mazzara Talks Damien’s Season Finale and What’s Next!
Photo credit: Uncool Rockstar.
Daily Dead: Exclusive Interview: DAMIEN Season 1 Retrospective with Showrunner Glen Mazzara
Combined with the writing, Bradley James’ performance humanizes the Antichrist and makes him a character to root for. Can you talk about how James really became this role and made viewers empathize with him but also be scared of him?
Glen Mazzara: Bradley had a really tough job in creating this role, and when I think about any show I’ve worked on in the past, I would say this is the toughest role I’ve ever seen an actor tackle. He’s taken an iconic figure that people know and have associations with for forty years, and he has to make it his own and create a backstory that’s not being dramatized onscreen, and he has to carry the weight around. [snip] It’s a really, really complex journey. I don’t see any of the characters on TV having that kind of nuanced journey that also involves the baggage from a classic film.
It was a really complicated thing, and Bradley is classically trained. He’s a total pro. He’s the sweetest guy. Hollywood legend has it that you never name a show after your lead character, because very often those actors end up becoming difficult as time goes on. Bradley is not that guy. Bradley is one of the kindest, hardest-working actors I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with, but his work is so subtle, that I think many critics dismissed it at first. Bradley brought Damien Thorn to life in a way that I don’t think anyone expected, and he deserves a tremendous amount of credit for that.
[Click for full interview (spoilers)]
Shots were fired, loyalties were tested, and characters encountered true evil in Monday’s Season 1 finale of A&E’s Damien. With the first season now in the books, Daily Dead had a chance to catch up with executive producer/showrunner Glen Mazzara, who discussed Damien’s journey so far, working with his outstanding ensemble of actors, the intense Season 1 finale, and what to expect in future episodes if the show is green-lit for a second season.
Now that the whole first season of Damien has aired and you have a little time to reflect, what goals are you the most proud of accomplishing on this journey so far?
Glen Mazzara: I’m most proud of the writers remaining committed to the story. When you lay out a season, there’s a lot of input from different voices throughout the entire filmmaking process. We set out to develop a particular story and we focused that story on Damien. It was always a character-based story, and we took our time introducing elements around him in John Lyons, Detective Shay, his personal relationships with Amani and Simone.
We developed all of those characters, and we kept moving and developing and not really second-guessing the story that we were telling. The way that comes across when you watch it is every episode feels like it’s getting better and better, with more and more twists. After a while, it just feels like you’re on a freight train that’s going toward this climax, and yet we always have those moments where you understand the relationship between the characters.
When Ann brings a dagger to Damien, or when Amani apologizes and they’re sitting there all night drinking whiskey. We always have those character moments, and yet there’s a sense of inevitability to that final scene, to the way everything comes together. We just really focused on telling a character-based story and didn’t get distracted from that.
Was it important for you and your team to not back away from really pushing the envelope in terms of killing characters off the show?
Glen Mazzara: Yeah, that was always important. It was important that any of the deaths or the violence or the horror sequences had to support and come out of character moments. We never just killed somebody for a shocking death, or to spice up an episode, or because we felt things were dragging. I’ve worked on shows where sometimes that happens: “We need something to happen here. Our pacing isn’t working.”
We were always committed to the tone and the pacing, and so everything’s related. All of those deaths and the horror moments-everything happens for a reason. It may not be the reason that the audience anticipates or suspects at the time, but everything does play into the devil’s master plan to drive Damien to accept his role as the Antichrist.
We really wanted to push the envelope. We really wanted it to be a show that was taking chances. We have horror fans working on the show. I’m a horror fan, and we wanted to push the horror boundary. This is a very scary TV show. I’m watching it with the commercials, and I’m still agitated and on edge, and that’s a hard thing to do. It might be easier to do on premium cable. It might be easier to do certainly in a film, because you’re not interrupted, but we consistently deliver that tone, and that was something that we, as horror fans, wanted, for it to be an experience.
The show works on different levels, I think, but what was always important was that it was an emotional ride like a horror movie. It needed to be an emotional ride for the audience, and that meant more than just throwing stimuli at them. We’re trying to get their blood flowing. We want to make sure they were emotionally connected to the characters.
We wanted to make sure that they were never frustrated, but confused and unsure of what was happening. Sometimes we played with the nature of reality, particularly in episodes 5 and 6. What’s been wonderful is that you see fans online, people get it. When the show first came out, a lot of people didn’t get it because they just expected Damien to be mustache-twirling and to be very obvious and cut and dry, and if you’re going to do a show about the nature of evil, it needs to be more delicate, hidden, and serpentine.
Combined with the writing, Bradley James’ performance humanizes the Antichrist and makes him a character to root for. Can you talk about how James really became this role and made viewers empathize with him but also be scared of him?
Glen Mazzara: Bradley had a really tough job in creating this role, and when I think about any show I’ve worked on in the past, I would say this is the toughest role I’ve ever seen an actor tackle. He’s taken an iconic figure that people know and have associations with for forty years, and he has to make it his own and create a backstory that’s not being dramatized onscreen, and he has to carry the weight around. He’s been living in denial when we first meet him, and yet he suspects things. He’s complex right off the bat, and he sort of has grown up off-screen, but the audience has an expectation of who he is.
Then he goes through a process before our eyes with those five stages: death, anger, denial, bargaining, and acceptance. He goes through that process, not in that order. Bargaining and acceptance become the same thing in our last scene.
He’s lashing out, and he just keeps being constantly cornered. He thinks perhaps he’s suffering from PTSD, and he ends up encountering a demon in the hospital. He attempts suicide. That’s not a solution. He seeks psychiatric help and his therapist ends up killing a serial killer that he put in motion that he didn’t even realize existed.
The poor guy is just suffering, and yet when he lashes out at the end, he becomes a mass murderer in the final scene, and yet he has no blood on his hands in the sense that he never pulls the trigger. His hands are always oddly clean in the end, and so he goes from mass murderer to sacrificing his soul to save Simone.
It’s a really, really complex journey. I don’t see any of the characters on TV having that kind of nuanced journey that also involves the baggage from a classic film. It was a really complicated thing, and Bradley is classically trained. He’s a total pro. He’s the sweetest guy. Hollywood legend has it that you never name a show after your lead character, because very often those actors end up becoming difficult as time goes on.
Bradley is not that guy. Bradley is one of the kindest, hardest-working actors I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with, but his work is so subtle, that I think many critics dismissed it at first. Bradley brought Damien Thorn to life in a way that I don’t think anyone expected, and he deserves a tremendous amount of credit for that.
The whole supporting cast has been great at bringing the characters around Damien to life. The Walking Dead fans will recognize Scott Wilson as John Lyons, and Jose Pablo Cantillo did a phenomenal job guest-starring in Episode 5. What has it been like to reunite with familiar faces from your career on this show?
Glen Mazzara: One of the greatest nights, not just of my career, but of my life, was standing in the field behind the barn on The Walking Dead set as the barn was burning, and Norman Reedus was on a motorcycle driving around shooting at zombies. Glenn and Maggie were in a pickup truck, and I was standing to the side watching all of this chaos, just shooting the breeze with Scott Wilson, and we were trading Dennis Hopper stories. We both worked with Dennis at one point.
That was just so not what I ever thought my life would be, but I was just so happy spending that freezing evening with Scott. It was just great, and he’s so kind and thoughtful and really committed. The guy’s done a lot of different roles, and yet he wants to talk through the material. He asks questions, and he always delivers.
What I like about my job is I like editing a lot, and when you have these performances by great actors, those scenes just kind of snap together, and they really make your writing much, much better. You can find layers that the actors are bringing that you didn’t even think of as a writer. I have loved working with Scott, and created the role of Lyons so that I could get to work with him again.
When he called me and told me he was killed off The Walking Dead I said, “Oh, okay, great. I’ll write a role for you,” and I like to do that when an actor impresses me, or I have a great experience. I will find something for them. I either write a role and bring somebody in who I’ve worked with, not just because I’m comfortable that they could do the job, but because I feel loyalty is important. Jose Cantillo and I have done four shows together, and so he’s my go-to guy. Robin Weigert and I have done three shows together, so when this role [of Sister Greta Fraueva] was available, we never auditioned anybody else. I just called Robin and said, “I would love for you to do this role of Greta.” I like to do that. I like to do that with writers, directors, editors, certainly [composer] Bear McCreary. I called him immediately, and I only got to know him on The Walking Dead, but as an artist you have to really develop a sense of trust with the people you’re working with.
In the final scene of Damien‘s season finale, there’s definitely enough that happens to satisfy fans, but there are also some things we might not find out until later, particularly who’s alive and who’s dead, and what Simone will be like now that she’s absorbed the Antichrist’s blood. Should we not rule anything out in regards to who is still alive until we hopefully see what happens next?
Glen Mazzara: Yeah, it had a high body count, but unless you actually saw a body, I would not assume that anyone is dead. Did we see Lyons’ body? He’s pretty mauled by those dogs, but we never go back and have that last shot. There was a hand coming out of the grave, and it’s intentionally ambiguous whose hand that is and what that implies. I thought those small moments were enough to keep people invested, and also, I didn’t want to just pile up the bodies. I didn’t want it to be bleak. There is a risk when you’re doing a type of horror like this that it could become sadistic or cruel, and I think you can see that that’s not what we are looking to do. We want to be a horror show that also has a lot of humanity, a lot of heart.
The scene that really affected me in the finale was Greta and Amani in the grave. I’m really proud of the work [director] Nick Copus and the actors did. That’s a tough scene to shoot and on a thoughtful, intellectual basis, you have to think, “Is Amani committing evil by putting her [Greta] in a grave? Is he complying with murder or not?” And then he’s betrayed and he falls into the grave. And she’s compassionate. She puts her arms around him and then she says this line that Catholics say when they are about to receive communion. So she sees her death as a communion with God, so her faith is right there at the end. Even though there’s a moment when humans can betray each other, she doesn’t believe God betrayed her. She believes this is God’s will. And then you put Bear McCreary’s gorgeous score on top of it and you just have these images-what’s worse than being buried alive with somebody in a mass grave? There are so many different levels that came together in this heartbreaking scene. It felt real, it felt grounded, but I don’t think it felt like it was just piling up the bodies for the sake of doing so. That’s not what we do here.
Although it hasn’t officially been announced yet, is there anything you can tease about what viewers can expect from the show if it moves forward in a second season?
Glen Mazzara: I’m very hopeful for a Season 2. I watched the [season finale] with the cast and the writers at my house and everyone’s dying to get back to work. What I would want to address-when we first meet Damien, he’s stepping out of the shadows of his life and it’s a very personal story. It initially starts small and is centered around him, and these other elements are dragged into his orbit. Now he finds himself as the head of a dark church that he didn’t even really know existed. Who were those people stepping out of the shadows? Are they of one mind or do they have many agendas. We see that the Vatican hit squad is in motion. That’s bringing a lot of power. Things have escalated, and there’s a certain amount of scope and scale surrounding Damien being a leader on a world stage. I would look at him really starting to build the church. We know he has some disciples around him, it appears that Detective Shay has a moment of conversion when he sees the miracle at the end. This is how a church starts to get built. So I would look at that journey to take place in the next season, given the opportunity.
SciFi Bulletin Damien: Interview: Glen Mazzara (post-finale) part 1
SciFi Bulletin Damien: Interview: Glen Mazzara (post-finale) part 2
We talked last time about how Bradley became involved with the show. How much discussion did you have with him through the season about how much Damien is balancing his humanity and the Power around him?
It was interesting. I spent a lot of time with Bradley early on in the process, defining his character and I would check in with him, if he had questions on a particular script. He went through his process and I would tell him what he needed to have at that time. I never gave him the full arc, didn’t tell him where he was going to until very very late - during episode 9 I think I told him what was going to happen in episode 10. That was the one time that I had done that. He wanted to arc the ending of the season. [snip]
Most of my time was spent in Los Angeles with the writers, so I saw him as a leader on set [in Toronto]. He would call and we would talk things through. It was amazing how much work he put into his character, how well he understood the character and how he shaped Damien.[snip] He gave a really incredible performance because, think about it: this is an Anti-Christ who in our finale ends up committing mass murder and promising his soul to the Devil to commit even more mass murder… and your heart is breaking for him. That is just unbelievable that he could get you on his side. I think he deserves a lot of credit and I think his performance is totally outstanding.
[Click for full interview pt 1 (spoilers)]Glen Mazzara has done a lot of talking about the finale to Damien, his ten-part A&E series that chronicles the life of the Anti-Christ Damien Thorn after his 30th birthday. A Q&A after the screening of the episode on the Fox lot, followed by a conference call with journalists; a 30 minute #AskDamien Twitter session that went on for over double that length - and then a further hour chatting with Paul Simpson, during which it’s clear none of his enthusiasm for discussing the show has diminished…
NB This interview discusses events in all ten episodes of Damien; it also references back to the original interview five weeks earlier which can be read here.
One area we didn’t tackle last time were the changes that happened when the episode order switched from six episodes to ten: was episode 10 pretty much what episode 6 would have been, or did you completely rebreak the story?
No, the first five episodes laid out exactly as we aired - for the most part. We did add some material. Episode 10, which culminates in what we call the Faustian bargain (Damien promising his soul; signing the contract with the Devil in his own blood, accepting his fate as the Anti-Christ) was always going to be the end of episode 6.
When I had the writers for the back half of the season, we talked about that. “Do we make episode 7 what happens next, or do we push that Faustian bargain to episode 10 and risk filler?” We ended up deciding that it was a big enough moment and it was a great character arc that we could push into even deeper and develop the characters. We would spend all that [extra] time on two things - further developing the characters and bringing them all together in an interesting way, and building out the world.
It was at that point that we introduced Sister Greta. We went back and filmed her scenes and put them into episode 2 and episode 5. Sister Greta was someone that had been developed in the series bible that I had written before I sold the show but she had to be cut when we only had six episodes. Now that we were given ten episodes, we could take that element and thread it through the show, and fortunately we had the time to do that.
So originally we’d have had none of those amazing scenes with Sister Greta and Amani?
No, all of that came about as we started developing the back half of the season. I’m glad. I think we used that time wisely.
I think the first half of the season sets up these different threads but then the back half of the season pulls them all together. You can see how all the elements are leading Damien to make that choice, that final sacrifice at the end - the way that the Greta/Amani scene comes together and Ann screams out “No”. She then throws Lyons under the bus, which prompts Damien to use this power (and of course the Rottweilers are great in any scene), and goes after Lyons.
Shay stepping forward, having gone off the deep end, taking a shot at Damien and hitting Simone, and Damien promising his soul to bring Simone back to life - that was always the plan. We just had to find the right spot for it.
It was a matter of how much story could we fit, given ten episodes, and I think the story expanded to fit those ten episodes. Those last few episodes, those additional episodes, do not feel like filler. It feels like a freight train barrelling towards that end.
Was I off beam in the review as seeing Shay as a sort of Doubting Thomas figure? He sees Simone killed, and sees the power of Damien and then becomes a believer…
I would I see him more as a possible Saint Paul.
Thomas was a disciple who followed Christ for three years and when Christ returned from the dead, Thomas did not believe what he was seeing. Now, the truth is that when the Gospels were written, there were some followers of Thomas who had certain thoughts about Jesus, and there were other followers who did not agree with those thoughts, so they went back to discredit Thomas. The Gospels were written later and there is some thought that the Doubting Thomas story was a bit of a hatchet job to discredit the followers of Thomas. There’s actually a lost Gospel of Thomas, not included in the Catholic canon - it’s more of a Gnostic gospel.
Paul was someone who was persecuting the early Christians, and he had a moment of conversion [on the road to Damascus]. I would say that that is closer to how I see Detective Shay. He’s persecuting Damien and now he has this moment of conversion. It would be very interesting if he suddenly became someone who was preaching the word of Damien in a future season. That would be very interesting!
And his son having the insights about the Devil would feed into that…
That is something we’ve talked about. I would think that that character would be torn in a lot of directions, and they would certainly have a huge effect on his personal life. That’s something I’ve given a lot of thought to for a season 2 and I have specific ideas that I would offer to a writing team and start working on it.
That’s the way I like to work - I like to come up with a sketch of what I think it should be and then everybody contributes, and you throw bits out and find a better piece. Any time I run a show I try to give the writers something to work with. I don’t really like when writers are expected to come into the room and have no direction from the showrunner. I like to give them a rough idea of what I want the season to feel like. With season 1, I definitely had that sense. With season 2 I don’t know exactly what happens, but I do have a sense of what it would feel like.
I think my job as a showrunner is to be the keeper of the tone. I would say that the tone of Damien is something that makes you uncomfortable, something that makes you think, something that pushes you out of your comfort zone, and something that keeps you guessing - that is, it’s unexpected. A sense of agitation, the sense that you’re never really sure what’s going on or where it’s going. Then when you get to the ending, and it seems very inevitable, like there’s some evil force… You feel like you’re a participant in the show itself. You feel what the characters feel…
That’s different. It’s something we’re trying to do on the show that I’ve never had on another show.
How much did the actors know at the start of filming what the arc of their characters was going to be? Or were they finding out as scripts arrived with them?
They found out as scripts arrived. They asked a lot of questions about the material, and we talked about their characters, about what the characters want, what the characters understand, what the characters think. I was very careful to make sure that they always understood their perspectives. Sometimes there might be an issue that came up that something wasn’t working, and I would reach out to the actors.
I had a long conversation with Megalyn about Simone. Originally Simone is many steps behind Damien, and I was worried that she was perhaps too far behind, that she maybe felt a little too investigative. It didn’t feel as if she was as tied into the action as everyone else. She knew a lot less and yet she was having her own experience.
I spoke with Megalyn and talked about how she was feeling about the character and then she said something particular that impressed me. When I brought it back to the writers’ room we started talking - and that’s when we realised that Greta needed to seek Simone out. Once we could put those two together that would then tie everyone together in a nice way. That would be worlds colliding in a surprising way, and that made a lot of sense. I was very grateful to have that relationship with my actors, and in fact Megalyn said to me, “I’ve never had a producer ask me what I thought before”.
So I would ask them more questions, as part of my process; they would never offer a particular scene, or say, “My character would do this.” It doesn’t work like that. It’s more, as they’re creating their character, I’m asking them what their process is and then I’m using their skills and their material and feeding it into the writing process.
That’s something I learned on The Shield. That’s how we wrote The Shield, and it was very collaborative. I’ve not really done that on other shows - I’ve not been able to do that on other shows. You need to have a certain type of actor who’s willing to do that, to take risks, who’s willing to experiment, and I would say that the Damien cast and The Shield cast were cut from the same cloth.
Sister Greta is one of the most “shades of grey” character in the series; do you think by the end the conflict between the Church and the Anti-Christ means the Church has to get its hands dirty?
Yes, I think by the end the Church feels that this is a threat that they need to dispatch, but I think that they think they’re going to be able to dispatch it relatively quickly. Greta calls out one of the cardinals in episode 5; she talks about Rome’s hubris, and all of that.
The Church is made up of over a billion people, so if you want to talk about the Roman Catholic Church, the hierarchy, it’s a place of multiple viewpoints. There’s a diversity of viewpoints throughout the show.
There would be a Church bureaucracy that would have a certain way of looking at the Anti-Christ problem but Sister Greta is the kind of worker bee that the Church needs and is built on. She’s the foundation; she’s the person who does get her hands dirty. She’s the person who’s there when they need her - she has travelled to South America and performed an exorcism, and now she’s supposed to go and investigate something else, then she’s called back to Rome, and she’s not even listened to when she’s there. Now she has to take matters into her own hands because she understands the problem before Rome does.
She’s really trying to make a difference. And she’s personally connected - whatever her intentions are, she is affected by Damien in several ways. She’s compassionate; I love that she hugs him and says “My poor man”, when she sees the 666 scar. But then when Damien is just asking questions about God, she suddenly thinks this is Satan trying to dissuade her from her faith, and when she’s in that grave at the end, you see she is really holding onto that faith, even though her faith has been shaken. In that conversation with Ann, when Ann says “Satan is God”, Greta is horrified by this - but she also cannot understand why she fails, if she’s a servant of God. Why did she fail to eliminate the Anti-Christ? Her faith can only get her so far, and that’s what she holds on to at the very end. That’s what brings her some solace in the grave.
What’s important about the show, and maybe what’s different about the show, is that it’s not just one answer for one group of people. If we had ten people from the Church, those people would have ten different viewpoints on the Anti-Christ problem. On Damien’s side, everybody has their own point of view. I think that’s why the characters feel alive - they have individual points of view. They may be on the same side but everyone is still coming at it from their own angle. That’s different.
People expect this to be a very black and white show, in which everyone on Damien’s side all feels the side, and everyone on the other side all feels the same, and maybe they have questions of power, about who’s in charge. No - these people are having philosophical conversations about the meaning of reality, and spirituality! It’s very complex but I think the only way you can do it in a believable way is to have the characters as individualised as possible.
In the same way - and I don’t want to put us on the same level as this show, I don’t want to imply that - as a fan when I look at Deadwood, all of those characters were individual characters. That’s sort of a model for what we’re trying to do here, but in a very different genre.
In Part 2, Glen Mazzara goes further behind the scenes of the whole season…
[Click for full interview pt 2 (spoilers)]
Damien: Interview: Glen Mazzara (post-finale) part 2
There’s a lot of Christian iconography in the series, such as Simone washing Damien’s feet in episode 10; how much of that element did you have in mind going into the series? Were they ideas developed in the writers’ room or images you had as part of the show’s development?
There were certain images that I had - the staging of the last scene, a lot of that was worked out - and obviously it becomes clearer as you start to work on it and you start to develop it. It’s amazing how that last scene was pretty much sketched out - I won’t say it was drawn out completely. Then you start to inhabit the world and start to know what the show feels like, so as you go on, the washing of the feet, for example, is very consistent with who Simone is. We had that opportunity so it made sense to do that.
It made sense in the moment when we were writing those scenes, but it’s not like we ever said anywhere before we got to the actual scene, “we need to have her wash his feet”. Those moments came out organically. The idea of Damien being tied down with thorns and then the vines raping Veronica in episode 9, the washing of the feet; a lot of images came together when we were writing, but when you step back and look at it, you say, “Oh there must have been some magic happening, something within us as writers that was leading us.”
There’s got to be some part of our brains that’s working overtime, because for Sister Greta to be introduced performing an exorcism where she’s above a grave, and then at the end she’s in a grave episodes later feels by design. It also feels like a fortuitous accident to some degree.
Damien’s 666 is bleeding at the end of episode 1; it’s bleeding at the end of episode 10. We knew we needed to do it, then we forgot about it, and then we came back to it. Amani tells a story about how he met Damien, how he was laid out in a mass grave and he was going to be executed - look where he ends up in the end.
All these things, you have your colour palette and you keep drawing from it and hopefully it will all make sense. I think a lot of credit goes to the actors and the writers - we had two different sets of writers, but everybody was really focused on tone and consistency. It was really lovely to work with incredibly talented people.
It’s quite surprising to learn there were two different sets, given how much of a consistent feel it has…
Yeah - but two of the writers were on both sets. My number two is Mark Kruger, a big horror fan and horror writer, so he was with me throughout the whole process. Then there was this other writer, K.C. Perry, who wrote episode 5 and co-wrote episode 9: she’s just brilliant. She was there for both sets. Then [for the second half] I had two more experienced writers, because I was now writing while I was in production. The rest of the writers were staff writers in the first half, but once you start production, and deadlines are tighter, there’s just different needs, so I brought in Richard Hatem and Sara Thorp, who I had worked with. They could not have done the work if the first team had not done all the heavy lifting.
It was a bizarre process, very unique, but exciting because like the show itself, working on the show you never know what you’re going to get. Every day was different - it felt like we were on a tightrope - and somehow that energy got into the creative process and ended up on screen in some way.
We also had great editors, and the whole post department. A lot of the show came together in post in a way that I haven’t experienced on other shows. Making Damien was very different than anything I had done before, but I would say it was the most relaxed, the most fun, the most comfortable I’ve ever been.
Maybe it feels like two seasons in one - I don’t know how to describe it. It really changed a lot of how I look at who I am as a writer, as a producer, how I approach my job. I think the experience of putting the show out there [was different]. I said this in my Twitter Q and A earlier - you’re dealing with supernatural forces, you’re dealing with a mythology referencing a forty year old film. There were a lot of questions and I resisted every step of the way giving any obvious answers. I did not want the show to do anything that was expected. I did not want the show to spoon-feed the audience in any way. I won’t say I made the show obtuse or confusing, but I did not want the show to be dumbed down for a TV audience, and I resisted a lot of those notes. I feel like the audience responded.
Whether or not the ratings are there, that doesn’t make a difference to me, to be honest - I hope obviously that I get a season 2, but the people who connected with the show got it. They got what we were trying to say, and they appreciated it. That’s incredibly rewarding. You do this to connect with people on an emotional level, and people did: it wasn’t just [them saying] “I didn’t see that shocking twist coming”, people really were affected by the show in an emotional way. That’s something I don’t take lightly - it’s really special.
You commented in the Q&A that the opening scene in episode 1 was originally meant to be in Jerusalem, and the execs got cold feet; were there many changes like that? We talked about episode 5 last time, but across the board were there a lot of things you had to fight for?
After episodes 6 and 7, pretty much no; the studio and network were happy with what they were seeing, they were happy with the material. I did not have to fight. Once in a while they would give notes, or ask to clarify things, but people were then comfortable with the show creatively, so there was no digging in. All of those discussions were up front, which I think is fair. They’re investing a lot of money and manpower and talent and any questions you ask the creator of a show forces that creator to either sharpen their material, or defend it, or justify it or explain it. I think that’s a valuable part of the process. They always trusted me; they may not agree, but they understood that I understood the show, that I had something in mind that I was going for.
I like to try out a lot of different things. I think flexibility is key - really experimenting with material and trying it out. Maybe it doesn’t work or it leads to a better idea. I need my writers and directors and editors and executives to be as fluid as possible. You can see how the show is mercurial. The show changes a lot. That’s what I want to do as a writer, and as a filmmaker. I demand a lot from people to be able to put up with a lot of different versions of things until we settle on it.
Here’s the thing: I’m not one of those writers who goes off and broods and broods and broods and then comes out with the answer. I like to write a script this way, and then we try it that way, and I’m constantly rewriting - so much so that it’s exhausting when I’m putting out three or four versions of a script every day with different scenes. After a while people can’t keep up with what we’re shooting but I have in my mind what I’m going for, and it might take me multiple drafts to get there. They have to trust that my process is going to work.
My process is a bit chaotic or frightening to people who have to adhere to schedules and budgets and all that. But we came in on schedule and on budget - this all comes from my training in an emergency room. You need to be as flexible as possible.
We talked last time about how Bradley became involved with the show. How much discussion did you have with him through the season about how much Damien is balancing his humanity and the Power around him?
It was interesting. I spent a lot of time with Bradley early on in the process, defining his character and I would check in with him, if he had questions on a particular script. He went through his process and I would tell him what he needed to have at that time. I never gave him the full arc, didn’t tell him where he was going to until very very late - during episode 9 I think I told him what was going to happen in episode 10. That was the one time that I had done that. He wanted to arc the ending of the season.
It’s a really complex role: he had to create the baggage for this iconic character, grow up off screen. He had to find his way, play many things and find a process for what he was dealing with in the season: withdrawal, researching, fighting, lashing back, attempting suicide, seeking treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. He goes to see his therapist and she ends up killing somebody. The guy can’t catch a break! He really did have a very complex job.
We would talk when he felt that there were production issues. He never called me and said he was lost with his character; I think he always understood the script but he would call and say “this doesn’t feel right”, or “Is this what we’re going for? Why is this happening on set? Why is this director saying this? Why does the set look this way?” Most of my time was spent in Los Angeles with the writers, so I saw him as a leader on set [in Toronto]. He would call and we would talk things through.
It was amazing how much work he put into his character, how well he understood the character and how he shaped Damien. Because a lot of his work is so subtle, I think a lot of critics missed it. They didn’t understand it and didn’t see what he was doing. He gave a really incredible performance because, think about it: this is an Anti-Christ who in our finale ends up committing mass murder and promising his soul to the Devil to commit even more mass murder… and your heart is breaking for him. That is just unbelievable that he could get you on his side. I think he deserves a lot of credit and I think his performance is totally outstanding.
Without his and Barbara Hershey’s performances as the two lynchpins, the show could have become slightly shlocky very easily…
Yes, it’s a risk. It’s a risk for any show, particularly a horror show. I felt that we needed to avoid that by grounding it in characters.
I always saw the show as a cable character drama. That’s what grounded the show and I think what put us in that territory, rather than just jump scares and shlock and something that was hyperviolent without any ramifications. There were a lot of traps here and I think I was very lucky to find the right people to come in - the writers, the directors, the actors, everybody. Everybody came into the process and everybody embraced the show and the tone and the risk-taking of the storytelling. People collaborated and challenged each other in a professional way. As the showrunner I get credit - or blame, whatever you want to give me - but there are a tremendous amount of unsung heroes involved with a show and I think what you’re seeing is the fact that people were comfortable enough to ask questions and look for answers together as we tried to make a very difficult show.
I believe I read you’ve written a five season bible for the show…
That’s what I originally wrote in our series bible.
Is that laid out in terms of signposts to hit along the way or is it very detailed?
It’s surprisingly detailed. It’s more detailed than any show that I’ve worked on that’s not based on pre-existing material - in the sense we’re in new story, so there’s no Damien novels that were adapted or comic books or anything like that. It’s pretty detailed, and I would say it’s very detailed according to the emotional sign points.
Plot can change. There’s always a better idea. But the way you approach a story is through the emotional development of the characters, and that I have a good sense of and have shared that with the writers. We know how we want all of these characters to affect each other. And obviously there are new characters we want to bring in and obviously anything can change at any moment, but Damien is on a very clear emotional journey.
Do you have any idea when you may know about the future?
I think it may take a few weeks. I will say this: viewing patterns have changed. People watch things when the show airs and obviously on DVR and On Demand and streaming off the website and off the app and iTunes. We’re launching in Latin America this month. There are a lot of different ways that people view the shows and I think that the studios and networks are in a transitional period where they’re not really sure how to track all that. These are big conglomerates that have a lot of big divisions. They have to haul all this information together and crunch numbers and budget and blah blah blah - it’s a business.
I do know creatively A&E and Fox love the show; they had a good experience making it, and I did, obviously. So I’m very hopeful. I hope things happen. Our ratings have not been exactly where anybody would like them to be, but the online enthusiasm and the buzz that we’re receiving from websites like yours and others, and the Twitter feed - that adds value as well, so the entire picture needs to be put together.
DamienThat’s true for any young show - it’s not just Damien. Maybe I’m the one showrunner talking about it! It’s tricky, and so I don’t know if there’s quite an existing model that properly evaluates the success of any show right now. There’s just so many different bits of information.
I hope everything adds up. I would love those numbers to add up to 666….
Damien can be accessed in the US via the A&E website and the app
Follow the hashtag #RenewDamien for news on the show’s future
[Click for more Damien interviews with Glen Mazzara (spoilers)]
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