(Photo Credit: USA Network)
ComingSoon spoke to Hysteria stars Emjay Anthony, Chiara Aurelia, and Kezii Curtis about their roles and learning to play instruments for the new drama series. Hysteria is now streaming on Peacock, while USA Network airs episodes each Friday.
“When a beloved varsity quarterback disappears during the ‘Satanic Panic’ of the late 1980s, a struggling 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, until a bizarre series of murders, kidnappings, and reported ‘supernatural activity’ triggers a leather-studded witch hunt that leads directly back to them,” says the synopsis of Hysteria.
Tyler Treese: Emjay, I love your character, Dylan. I very much felt a kinship with him being very manipulated for his love and easily influenced. What did you like most about that character and how he is at the beginning, sort of bumbling through this world and getting himself deeper and deeper into it?
Emjay Anthony: Yeah, definitely. One of my favorite parts about Dylan was just his love for music and guitar. We both liked the same music, which was really cool. I actually didn’t play guitar before I did this role, but I got to learn. So that’s something I really liked.
Dylan’s very misunderstood. He’s very naive. Just like you said, just kind of bumbling through life, trying to work it out, and very easily manipulated. But I think that my heart’s in the right place the whole time.
That’s really cool that you learned guitar for this role in Hysteria. Is that a passion that you’re still keeping up with?
Anthony: A hundred percent. I actually bought the exact same guitar that I have in Episode 1, so I have a real one of those now in my house that I play like every day.
Chiara, one aspect that really impressed me about Hysteria is just the whole trio of you three. You all feel like actual friends. How was it kinda, you know, working out that relationship because you guys just play off each other so naturally?
Chiara Aurelia: I think that it honestly fell kind of immediately into place from the minute we met each other at the chemistry read and then getting to Atlanta and doing band camp and improv classes. I do think production did a really good job at setting aside some time for us to really get to know each other before the cameras were rolling.
Within our character storyline, we were kind of able to develop our own friendships and relationships, which I think only makes it so much more fun to watch and more fun to film, just being so comfortable with one another and getting to play like you would if you were a normal friend group. Especially being in a band, there’s a bit of comradery that comes with that as well. I think us all bonding while learning our instruments, learning the songs that we had to perform, there’s a lot of closeness that’s involved with something like that.
Kezii, your character is Spud, and he’s just a lot of fun. Naturally, he’s the drummer. It just fits his personality so well. How was that experience actually drumming? Did you have any preexisting skills as a musician?
Kezii Curtis: Yeah, I have been around drums. My older brother played, so I’ve been around them, but I had to learn like a whole different, like genre, of drumming for this. It is just more heavy metal; it’s more physical, but it was a blast. I had so much fun. My teachers were great. They gave me a play-by-play every day, so I just took what they gave me and ran with it.
You guys all look natural during those music scenes too. So all your hard work really paid off.
Emjay, you have two really cool on-screen parents in this show, Julie Bowen as your mom and then voice acting legend Nolan North as your dad. How was it working with those two?
Anthony: Well, it was really cool working with Julie because I had worked with Sofia Vergara in the past on Chef. She was my mom in that, so both the modern family moms were my mom. Then Nolan North, I have never fangirled so hard in my life than when he did the Richtofen voice [from Call of Duty]. To me, it is just like… I can’t even tell you. Like, thinking about it now, it still gets me like he’s just the coolest guy ever, and he’d always do the voice and stuff on set, and he’s just an awesome guy. I’m definitely very blessed.
Chiara, one aspect of the show I really like is your character’s against this at first. Eventually, she comes around, but the group’s really just taking advantage of this Satanic panic to propel their heavy metal band. Could you speak to that aspect? It is such a fun way to feed into this fear that the town really has.
Aurelia: Totally. I think that there’s something in terms of the misrepresentation of self-expression. When you look at someone from an outside perspective, you might view them in one way, but there’s actually something completely different going on. I think playing with the fact that people look at DethKrunch and they look at this band and they see them in one light, which couldn’t be further from the truth.
That being said, using the way that they represent themselves when it benefits them and kind of creating this fan following for their band through the happenings of the town is definitely an interesting way to go about it. That being said, I, as Jordy, personally think it was a dumb idea, but I think that everything will work out in the end or it won’t, but you gotta wait and watch and find out.
Kezii, what did you like most about Hysteria taking place in the late eighties and that time period? It’s a real throwback and I love all the music references. Some great bands are shouted out throughout the series.
Curtis: Yeah. It was surreal. I’ve always just been completely infatuated with the eighties, and when I booked it, I was [excited], but I couldn’t prepare myself for what being on set was. Because it’s like completely [1989. You don’t even know where you’re at. You just blink and then you’re just like, “Oh, 1989. We’re in the school hallway right now.” Shout out to all of our set decks and everyone who made that world come to life because, for me as an actor, it was so easy to slip into being 1989. It was not even funny.
Emjay, you share some really great scenes with Bruce Campbell, who’s just like the coolest guy alive. So, how was it working with him and how was he as a scene partner?
Anthony: It was amazing. I’ll never forget, um, the first scene that we had together. Like, we sat down and like, he just, he has like this like little speech that he gives and he is just like, he’s just such a veteran. I wish you could have heard it. It was just so inspirational, and he was just such a great scene partner. He was just telling me everything and just definitely very, very amazing to work with, and it elevated everybody’s scenes when he was around.
Chiara, Jordan Vogt-Roberts directs the first and last episode of Hysteria. He is a really talented director. How was it working with him?
Aurelia: It was great. I think kind of the entire cast and crew and Jordan, his team, we’re all coming together in order to collaborate on this project and hopefully bringing everyone’s visions to life and kind of encapsulating everything about this story as best as we can. So, yeah, doing the prep and having the opportunity to go into band camp and do improv, which was kind of Jordan’s suggestion, helped us really to connect with one another and hopefully make the show even better in the end.
Thanks to Emjay Anthony, Chiara Aurelia, and Kezii Curtis for discussing Hysteria, which is now streaming.
The post Hysteria Cast Talks Dethkrunch, Learning Instruments for Rock Band appeared first on ComingSoon.net – Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More.
