Hysteria’s Chiara Aurelia has Gremlin photos of Julie Bowen’s property
Chiara Aurelia loved witnesses Julie Bowen‘s possession transformation in Hysteria! – and she has the photos to prove it.
“It was a big transformation for her,” Aurelia, 22, exclusively shared We weekly before the Peacock show premiere on Friday, October 18. “I have some very gremlin pictures of her on my phone.”
Aurelia praised Bowen, 54, for pushing herself out of her comfort zone, adding: “People call her the mother of America. She is the most iconic [actress] after Modern family. She is fantastic, hilarious, light, airy and a beautiful lady. So it was definitely interesting to see her in a character like this.
The role of Linda felt like a departure for Bowen. “I’d never seen her do anything like that before,” Aurelia noted. “I think she had a great time. It’s obviously emotionally taxing and challenging, but in the end I think we all just had a lot of fun.
Hysteria! is set in the 1980s. revolves around the Satanic Panic of the time, in which a heavy metal band of high school outcasts realize they can capitalize on the town’s sudden interest in the occult by building a reputation as a Satanic Metal band. The plan doesn’t go as expected when a bizarre series of murders, kidnappings and reported supernatural activity sparks a witch hunt that leads straight back to them.
Bowen plays Linda — Dylan’s (Emja Antonius) mother – who begins to worry that her son is interested in the devil before something sinister begins to haunt and torment her. The show doesn’t immediately reveal whether Linda was actually possessed by a demon or if there was some other explanation, which Bowen didn’t mind while filming the spooky scenes.
“When creator Matthew Scott Kane When I first reached out to say, ‘We’d love for you to do this,’ I had only seen the pilot. So I wasn’t sure where the character was going. It was his explanation of a woman questioning her mental health and how we can all get to that place,” Bowen shared. Us. “We can all live in a bubble and get our information in a bubble. It’s really great to show how easily the hysteria of one news source can drive you crazy in a remote town in the ’80s, when everyone just got their news from the local news station.”
Bowen loved seeing the realistic perspective, adding, “It’s this idea of a woman who doesn’t know what’s real anymore. I always feel this way. …I didn’t know [the answers] when we were filming it from episode to episode. I’ve made assumptions [and] I had to go through the mental spectrum with Linda of ‘Is this real? Isn’t this real?” Instead of letting that frustrate me, I thought, “Oh, cool. She doesn’t know either, so we’re in the same place.
After more than ten years of playing Us‘favorite TV mom Modern familyBowen was excited to try something new – and to defy expectations.
“It’s funny because I’m terrified of horror and slasher stuff. I can’t watch those things. But I had such a great run on Modern Family for 11 years and the reality is that America sees me as a mother,” she noted. “The way I can change their perception of what kind of mother — or what kind of actress I can be — is to really change expectations and defy them.”
The actress was excited to “do something different,” saying, “Once you’re stuck in something and you really don’t look that good, it’s liberating. You don’t think about what you look like. You’re just completely into it.”
Aurelia, in turn, has a similar interest in horror projects. For Hysteria!she starred in the Netflix hit Fear street trilogy and narrated Us that “there is so much to love” when it comes to the genre.
“I’ve done a lot in the horror field, but I think every character I’ve played is so drastically different. So it’s such an honor that they continue to welcome me and let me do more horror,” she shared. “There are so many different things I want to do and I’m so grateful to be able to take action. It’s what I love and feel so passionately about. So I think there’s a lot of different characters and minds and stories and people I’d like to work with, and hopefully I can do it all over the course of my career. But for now, I’m enjoying the horror space.
Hysteria! is currently streaming on Peacock and the pilot is simulcast on USA Network and Syfy. New episodes air Friday evenings in the US.
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi