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A&E ‘Damien’: Bradley James Talks About Being The Antichrist–What He Wants You To Know Before Tuning In Tonight

By Chrissie Williams
Published on: 10:14 PST, Mar 7, 2016

A&E’s newest show, Damien, airs tonight and promises to shock and keep you guessing about what will happen next. The show picks up when Damien Thorne is 30-years-old. If his name sounds familiar, it is because Damien was the pint-sized demonic child from the 1976 movie, The Omen. The series will loosely follow the film, only as a historical reference. The other two sequels that followed The Omen aren’t referenced at all.

TV Fanatic sat down with Bradley James about Damien, and he shared insight into his new role. Damien is a field photographer that specializes in war stories. Damien doesn’t remember much about his childhood and hasn’t learned his fate as the Antichrist. While working in Syria, he worked on a story about the recent violence that plagued the country. He encounters an older woman that flips his world upside down. The woman tells Damien that all the destruction and fighting is for him. She hopes that he appreciates it, and asked if he was pleased with it.

Bradley explained that Damien is an average man living in extraordinary circumstances. He realizes that there is an element of darkness that seems to follow him around, and he is perplexed by it. Damien learned to accept it, but even at 30-years-old, it is something he cannot get used too.

“He is a normal guy in extraordinary circumstances, really. He has a darkness that seems to follow him around that doesn’t seem to happen to everybody else. He’s not really clear why that is. He’s led as normal a life as he’s been able to, but by being on the run from that darkness. He gets to the stage where he can no longer outrun the darkness, it’s sort of catching him up and that is where our journey starts. We see how he reacts to extraordinary circumstances as one of us.”

James explains that when things start to happen that he cannot explain, he seeks God’s help to try to figure it out. Damien has some good in him, and he genuinely wants to do the right thing; however, he is prone to living his life in darkness. Damien, like many characters on the show, is on both sides of the spectrum–good and bad.

“I think there will be people all the way through that spectrum, so I it won’t be an all out, you know, one side or the other, good and bad, but would be various shades of gray, which is how I describe Damien.”

Bradley explains that Damien starts the show being in the middle–not necessarily right or wrong; however, he wants to be a better person. He struggles for a little while in the series, until he settles into darkness as he accepts it is his destiny. The audience will watch as he comes to terms with fate and how he chooses to change the world around him.

“We all have that within us, how honest we are about that is a different story. But we all have that good and evil within us. That expresses itself in our choices, and I think that tug of war that goes on through the show is in the choices that Damien makes, and sometimes he makes what people would construe as the wrong ones, and sometimes he makes decisions when he’s backed into a corner and feels like he can’t do anything else.”

Thorne must come to terms with the fact that his presence in others’ lives spells nothing but doom for them. He is the prince of darkness and is in charge of the violent war going on. The plot is dark and scary, but would you expect anything less from the producers of The Walking Dead?

The St. Louis Post noted that Damien is dark and dreary, but that was the point of bringing The Omen to a TV show. Come back later to The Inquistr for more Damien spoilers, news, and updates. Watch Damien’s premiere immediately following Bates Motel at 8 p.m.

[Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images]

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