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Hysteria! Star Julie Bowen Talks Doing Her Own Stunts, Shoulder Pads & Cutting Off a [SPOILER]?!
Learn why the Modern Family alum earned the nickname "Sturdy" on the set of Peacock's new '80s-inspired series.
**SPOILER WARNING! The following contains minor spoilers for Hysteria!**
While Julie Bowen is playing another mom in Peacock's new Satanic Panic series, Hysteria! (all episodes are now streaming right here), don't expect her to act or sound anything like Modern Family's Claire Dunphy. This new character, hairdresser Linda Campbell, is a suburban matriarch who begins to question her grip on reality when strange things begin to happen in the sleepy Michigan town of Happy Hollow. Are supernatural forces really at work, stoked by Satanic worshippers, or is it all in her head?
"I never want to escape Claire Dunphy, but I also wanted to try to do something different. And boy, is this different," Bowen, a two-time Emmy-winner, tells USA Insider. "[Linda] is a woman who’s sanity is on the line. That wasn’t something I’d done before."
"We didn’t hire Julie to be Claire Dunphy," adds co-creator, showrunner, and executive producer Matthew Scott Kane. "Everyone that came onto the show, we used against type."
Thankfully, Bowen seems totally free of demonic influence as she hops on a Zoom call with us to discuss everything from shoulder pads to snipping off fake ears...
Julie Bowen talks doing her own stunts and cutting off body parts in Peacock's new Satanic Panic series, Hysteria!
The ‘80s are so popular right now. What do you think is the reason behind the nostalgia for that specific decade?
Julie Bowen: Cell phones and computers were really limited, if they existed at all. So everybody had to kind of be in the moment they were in, which makes this storytelling possible — where bad information can spread like wildfire. We see it now on the internet, but to have it in person with no other resources, it was really powerful.
What was it like immersing yourself in the retro time period?
It was definitely different. Shoulder pads, man. That was the whole jam. You put those on and you get that hairspray. You can’t touch your head because it’s so stiff. It was a real commitment to a look, but I really had fun. It was a blast. We were in a really small town in Georgia, so it felt like the land that time forgot, anyhow. It was very easy to go right back in there.
Your character goes through the ringer on this show. Was it a challenge to tackle such a physical role?
That was actually where I felt the most confident, believe it or not. Our director, Jordan Vogt-Roberts, comes from a big feature film background, so he was very detailed with all of the charts and storyboards. Everybody was worried [about putting me in a harness] and I said, ‘I’m very sturdy!’ So they kept calling me ‘Sturdy’ for the rest of the shoot. But I knew I could do physical stuff. I knew they could beat me up. I didn’t know if I could do crazy, but it turns out… maybe I can.
Any fun behind-the-scenes anecdotes from filming?
I have three teenage boys [in real life], so I would fly home whenever I wasn’t working. I may have missed a lot of the shenanigans, if there were any, on or off set. I felt like more of a den mother. We’d all go to dinner and I was worried about who was sitting where. If there was wildness or craziness, I don’t know if I was much a part of it. I will say this, Nolan North is one funny dude. That was just a joy. We’d be doing the heaviest, most dramatic, most psychologically challenging scenes. [Then] they’d say ‘Cut!’ and I would just laugh and laugh and laugh. That man deserves some sort of honor for making me laugh as much in tough situations.
What was it like "cutting off" someone’s ear?
So hard! It was really hard! I forgot about that until you just said it. It was very challenging because they made the [fake] ear very cuttable. But the glue that they used to stick it on to the actual person’s ear is not cuttable. So you’ve got this amazing ear hooked up to blood, the whole nine yards, and I [couldn’t get through it]. We do it so many times and not because the ear wasn’t made properly, but because the glue wouldn’t cut. You never know what the challenges are gonna be on a set, but I love that. With so much being CGI and visual effects now, I love that things are still handmade like that.
All eight episodes of Hysteria! debuted exclusively on Peacock Friday, October 18. Episodes will also air weekly, every Thursday night at 10:30 p.m. ET on USA Network.
