Damien series creator/executive producer Glen Mazzara isn’t sure when A&E will announce whether the series has been renewed, but he’s got a lot of story left to tell and is hoping for more seasons of being able to delve into Damien Thorn (played by Bradley James). In addition to Bradley James as the Antichrist, the series features Barbara Hershey, Scott Wilson, Omid Abtahi, and Megalyn Echikunwoke. Airing on Mondays at 10pm ET/PT, Damien season one consists of 10 one-hour episodes and Mazzara took time prior to the airing of episode seven to discuss the series which serves as a sequel to The Omen.

Glen Mazzara Interview:

I have really been enjoying this season although I find it really strange to be rooting for Damien still so far into the season.

Glen Mazzara: “You will always root for Damien.”

I was just going to ask that very question.

Glen Mazzara: “What we’ve done is we take the nice guy and we put him in a horrible situation, make him as desperate as possible, so that when he lashes out and he fights back and he starts to commit atrocities and he goes down a path that will hopefully, if we have the chance to tell the whole story, could bring about the end of the world, you’ll be rooting in the front seat the whole way, in the front row. But, let’s not forget that the Antichrist as promised in the Book of Revelation is supposed to be a savior, a messiah, and people will follow him because they love him, so all the ingredients for the entire arc are already there. I think a lot of people just think he’s supposed to be an evil tyrant right off the bat. That is not what’s promised in the Book of Revelation.”

No one would follow him.

Glen Mazzara: “Right. That’s the whole point.”

Bradley James plays the character so well, it would make it difficult to flip and stop rooting for Damien.

Glen Mazzara: “You’ll see, but the point is to make sure that the audience is always rooting for Damien and rooting for all of these characters. I know a lot of people are rooting for Ann Rutledge and John Lyons and they’re considered evil, and it’s interesting because if anything I think some people are rooting against Detective Shay, and Shay is absolutely right as to what’s going on and he’s on the force of good, so everything that you think about morality gets flipped on its head in this show.”

Were you keeping track of how people were reacting to the dream episode on Twitter?

Glen Mazzara: “First of all I want to give a shout out to our writer, Richard Hatem. Richard pitched that episode to me from start to finish in the writer’s room. I was just so confused as to what he was telling me, and then when he explained the revelation. I loved it and I just said, ‘Go write that.’ I think that was really the one script that I, in the four times I’ve been a showrunner, did not polish. I think I just gave notes to him but I did not put any pen to paper. I thought he just did such an outstanding job with that script. It was just terrific.

As far as on Twitter, when I watch the show I do watch the live Twitter feed and I will say people were freaking out, but nobody saw that twist coming as far as I know. There were three consecutive tweets on the Damien feed that people said, ‘Something’s going on, I wonder if this is real,’ but nobody mentioned the word ‘dream’ until afterwards. It was really kind of interesting because I thought there were so many tells along the way. People were really satisfied. They loved it. Sometimes that kind of episode can feel like a cheat, but because it was really an episode about showing Damien’s emotional inner state and his need for wish fulfillment and all those things that he was finally getting because we love him at this point, he was finally getting the things he wants, and then to have that ripped away and to find out that his real life is a living hell and that he’s trapped in hell, which is where we see him at the end, it was an emotional ride. So it didn’t play as just an intellectual game. It played as a real emotional tale.”





How big of a lasting effect is that dream going to have on him? He believes some of what he dreamed is actually the truth.

Glen Mazzara: “Yeah, I think what you see now is Damien realizing he has to trust his gut, that Damien realizes that certain things are a given in the world, in his world, and he can’t run from them anymore. He can’t deny them, so he has to try to take control of them or fight them or push back or what have you, but I think he realizes that he can’t trust anybody except himself. The emotions that he felt in that dream are emotions that he’s now going to take seriously and act upon, and that may or may not be the right thing to do, but that’s where he is now.”

Does that mean Simone and Amani are going to be in more danger now because he’s no longer completely sure of their motivations?

Glen Mazzara: “Yeah, I think it puts them at risk. I think anybody in Damien’s world is at risk, even if you’re on his good side. Because don’t forget, people suffer not necessarily because they are jeopardizing the Devil’s plans for Damien, but a lot of the deaths… I haven’t talked about this. Let me see if I can articulate it. A lot of the deaths are not necessarily simply eliminating threats to the larger plan. A lot of the deaths are there to force Damien to take certain actions. A lot of the deaths are there to box him in. There is a larger plan. Every death makes sense in the larger plan, but they’re not as clean as they were in the original movie. If someone was suspicious of Damien and about to expose him, they were killed and eliminated.”

If this were the movie, Detective Shay would be dead already.

Glen Mazzara: “We go much farther than that. It’s a much more complicated game.”

We haven’t seen much of Veronica (played by Melanie Scrofano), but she seems to have a lot going on behind the scenes. Are we going to find out more about her in the upcoming final season one episodes?

Glen Mazzara: “You will. You will, and that’s a type of storytelling that I’m embracing on this show because I know the audience has a lot of questions about her and about the mythology and the conspiracies and all of that stuff, and a lot of times I would hold back as a writer and as a showrunner because I would say, ‘We don’t have to spoon-feed the audience, the audience will like some mystery. The audience will go along with this as long as we pay things off by the end.’ I feel like that’s what’s important is to pay things off by the finale, that some questions are left but you want to show people that it was a tightly knit season. I think a lot of the questions about Veronica will be answered and going forward a lot of things will be set up in future seasons.”

Is there a supporting character who has become more popular with fans than you anticipated, that maybe will play a larger role in the second season because of the reaction from the audience?

Glen Mazzara: “It’s been interesting to see how people react to characters. Obviously Barbara [Hershey’s] been doing a phenomenal job and Ann is a lot of people’s favorite character. It’s been interesting, but I don’t want to give anything away by saying anything about future characters, but it is funny how people do respond emotionally to the characters. So for example in episode two Amani was talking to Simone at Kelly’s wake and people said, ‘I don’t like Amani. He’s scamming on Simone at the funeral,’ and then two episodes later he is at a job interview for Damien and he stands up for Damien about what a good guy he is and everybody says, ‘I love Amani, he’s the best. He’s the greatest friend ever.’ So it’s really kind of funny to watch how people get so invested in these characters.”

It’s also amazing you have done this whole season one pretty much up to this point with very few CGI effects. Are we going to see that remain the same way throughout the rest of the season one episodes?

Glen Mazzara: “Yes, that’s something that we are very careful to make sure that the show feels grounded in this world. If anything I think it’s like our world punctured by evil. That’s how we’ve described it here at the show. The film was a direct influence on us in that way, so I never wanted to push this into a show that has fiery portals into different layers of hell or something like that. We’ll push it once in a while. You saw the demon at the end of episode four, but then the next time we see a demon it’s a voice possessing seven wounded soldiers in episode five. So, we will push that boundary, but it’s a show that needs to feel, without sounding silly by saying this, it needs to feel realistic. I think the horror needs to feel like it’s in our world, and that’s something that we definitely draw upon the feature film, The Omen.

Do you still believe at this point that 10 episodes was the right amount of episodes for a first season?

Glen Mazzara: “I do. I don’t think we have any filler. I think we took our time introducing the characters and getting everyone on stage and then just as people got comfortable we threw them a couple curve balls with episode five and six, and then I think seven through 10 still introduce new storylines and stuff, but it just races to the finale. I am very confident that the finale will play well. I will put my entire career on that, because that finale just answers the questions. It’s exciting, it’s a thrill ride, and I think it’s one of the most exciting finales I’ve been a part of. I really love that episode. There are four [including episode seven] very good episodes, four great episodes coming on, but that finale will satisfy fans, I think.”

Was that finale exactly what you had in mind when you started working on Damien? Was that what you were shooting towards the whole time?

Glen Mazzara: “Yeah. The climactic moment for the finale was something that I conceived of before we sold the show. Yeah, it was part of my pitch as I went around town.”

So A&E hasn’t dropped any hints as to when the announcement will come?

Glen Mazzara: “I think they want to look at the entire season and I am confident that because the finale ties everything together in a way that will be satisfying to genre fans, that people will talk about the show and will probably get a boost then. And, I think people will then go back and binge watch. I think viewing habits have changed and so some people I know are catching up because they’re hearing good things about the show. But sometimes people say, ‘Well, I want to hear if the whole season comes together before I check it out,’ and I think it will be a very satisfying conclusion. Hopefully we will get a jump in numbers as people stream the show and all that stuff, so they probably want to have all their information before [announcing]. But as of now, I hope they announce soon. We’re dying to get back to work.”

I know you’ve said it before, but do you still think that five seasons is what you’d really like?

Glen Mazzara: “Yeah, I think I could do it in five seasons. I think so. If it was really going well and they wanted more, but yeah, in my mind I have a story that is probably five seasons.”