Chiara Aurelia loved witnessing Julie Bowen‘s possession transformation in Hysteria! — and she has the pictures to prove it.
“It was a big transformation for her,” Aurelia, 22, exclusively told Us Weekly before the Peacock show’s premiere on Friday, October 18. “I have some very gremlin photos of her on my phone.”
Aurelia praised Bowen, 54, for pushing herself out of her comfort zone, adding, “People call her America’s mom. She’s the most iconic [actress] after Modern Family. She is fabulous, hilarious, light, airy and a beautiful lady. So it definitely was interesting to see her in a character like this.”
The role of Linda felt like a departure for Bowen. “I had never seen her do anything quite like that before,” Aurelia noted. “I think she had a great time. Obviously it’s emotionally taxing and challenging, but ultimately I think we were all just having a lot of fun.”
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Set in the 1980s, Hysteria! revolves around the Satanic Panic of the era as a high-school heavy metal band of 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 triggers a witch hunt that leads directly back to them.
Bowen plays Linda — Dylan’s (Emjay Anthony) mother — who starts to grow worried that her son is interested in the devil before something sinister starts to haunt and torment her. The show doesn’t immediately reveal whether Linda was actually possessed by a demon or whether there was another explanation, which Bowen didn’t mind while filming the haunted scenes.
“When creator Matthew Scott Kane first got in touch with me to say, ‘We’d love for you to do this,’ I’d only seen the pilot. So I wasn’t sure where the character was going. It was his explanation of a woman who is doubting her sanity and how we can all get into that place,” Bowen shared with Us. “We can all live in a bubble and get our information in a bubble. It’s really great to show that in an isolated little town in the ’80s when everybody was just getting their news from the local news station and how easily the hysteria of one news source can make you crazy.”
Bowen was thrilled to take on the realistic perspective, adding, “It is this idea of a woman who doesn’t know what’s real anymore. I feel that way all the time. … I didn’t know [the answers] when we were shooting it from episode to episode. I made assumptions [and] I had to go through the mental gamut along with Linda of “Is this real? Is this not real?” Instead of letting that frustrate me, I was like, “Oh, cool. She doesn’t know either so we’re in the same place.”
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After over a decade of playing Us‘ favorite TV mom on Modern Family, Bowen was excited to try something new — and to defy expectations.
“It’s funny because I’m terrified of horror and slasher material. I can’t watch those things. But I had such a great run on Modern Family for 11 years and the reality is America sees me as a mom,” she noted. “The way I can change their perception of what kind of mom — or what kind of actress I can be — is to really change up expectations and defy them.”
The actress was excited to “do something different,” saying, “Once you’re tied to something and you look really not so good, it’s freeing. You’re not thinking about what you look like. You’re just completely in it.”
Aurelia, for her part, has a similar interest in horror projects. Before Hysteria!, she starred in Netflix’s hit Fear Street trilogy and told Us that “there is so much to love” when it comes to the genre.
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“I’ve done a lot in the horror space, but I think each character I’ve done is so drastically different. So it’s such an honor that they keep welcoming me back and letting me do more horror,” she shared. “There’s so many different things I want to do and I’m so grateful to act. It’s what I love and what I feel so passionately about. So I think there’s a lot of different characters and minds and stories and people I’d love to work with that hopefully over the course of my career I can do it all. But for now, I’m enjoying the horror space.”
Hysteria! is currently on Peacock, and the pilot will simulcast on USA Network and Syfy. New episodes will continue to air on USA Friday nights.
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi
