Damien Thorn may have saved a little boy from a terrible fate in last week’s Damien episode, but here’s why actor Bradley James says you shouldn’t necessarily think the “good choices” his character makes are the right ones.
He may be the antichrist, but you’d be a fool for thinking Damien’s just one thing. In fact, one of the things that keeps us coming back for more of A&E’s newest horror series is the multifaceted nature of his character. But despite the darkness that lurks just below the surface, it’s easy to see the good in Thorn.
For one, he’s not exactly taking his newfound destiny lying down, and if last week’s episode with the young boy on the tracks is anything to go by, he’s clearly still got a conscience. But is he really making the right choices? Or are Damien’s “good actions” merely a matter of perception?
You’ve got none other than Bradley James to thank for that food for thought. And after chatting with him over the weekend at WonderCon 2016 in Los Angeles, it’s definitely got us questioning everything we thought we knew about Mr. Thorn.
“Say Damien is a human being. He’s multifaceted in terms of how he responds and reacts, but it just gets harder for him because he has baggage that no one else has,” James told Hypable.
So what happens as the darkness grows stronger? According to James, choosing to do what Damien thinks is the right thing is only going to get more difficult.
“[The Darkness is] closing in on him, making it tougher to have those moments where you can just make the easy, good decision, or what is perceived to be the good decision,” explained the actor. “You mentioned the boy on the tracks — who’s to say he’s not going to turn out to be Hitler 2.0?”
In short, the one thing we learned from chatting with James is that there are really two ways to look at everything and in Damien’s case in particular, what we deem to be the goodness in him could just be a matter of perception.
James may have a firm grasp on the workings of Damien’s internal struggle, but the actor fully credits showrunner Glen Mazzara for giving him such a substantial character to sink his teeth into.
“Glen’s been very clever — you couldn’t easily just do a show about the antichrist where he turns up and he’s just bad.” As James puts it, that’d be interesting for the audience, but only for a few episodes. “[He’s] essentially showing a very honest journey through some horrendous circumstances.”
For better or worse, we’ll be sticking with Damien to find out how he comes to terms with the sinister destiny that currently lays upon his shoulders.