In the show - which has been developed by The Walking Dead's Glen Mazzara - it's 25 years after the events of that film, and Damien, now turning 30, is forced to come to grips with the fact that he has a much greater destiny than he ever suspected: leading the world towards Armageddon as the Antichrist.
Empire Magazine's site has spoken to James about his portrayal of Damien, and what follows is an excerpt from that interview.
QUESTION: What made you feel that
Damien was a project you wanted to do?
BRADLEY JAMES: You pretty much hit the nail on the head straight away, in the sense that it was the script, which sort of got nudged in my direction. I was up in Vancouver working on another project, and I was somewhat ending with that. All these scripts came through at once and I didn't have time to put much focus on them. Then Damien got a little nudge from my agent who was saying, "Hey, just make sure you give this one a look." You can't always say this with scripts that you read, but they don't always grab you. This one did straight away. When you read a script and the idea's kind of swimming around in your mind as soon as you finish it as to what you could do with it, and when it captures you when you're reading it and it becomes a page turner... well, that is very much when you get excited as an actor. So, yeah, I very quickly grew a passion for it.
QUESTION: What made it a page turner?
BRADLEY JAMES: I keep saying that Glen Mazzara has a very warped mind, but it's also a very honest mind. It's not so warped for the sake of being weird; it's honest in weird situations. I liked the fact that he'd written a great deal of humanity to this character who wasn't just sort of a cut and dry, "This guy's the Antichrist and therefore he's bad." He'd written all these different colors to this character I just didn't see certain things coming. Then, eventually when I met Glen I fell for it even more because he's a great collaborator, and that can be a bit of a rarity, certainly to the degree that he takes it. It was a very enjoyable experience.
QUESTION: Part of this character's dilemma is holding on to his humanity despite a growing knowledge that he is the Antichrist. As that pressure builds, I would think THAT'S where you would see more cracks in the armor of his humanity. But there can't be a full blown change in him, can there, when you have the possibility of multiple seasons to deal with?
BRADLEY JAMES: Having talked to Glen, the comforting thing is that at no point does he feel like he's stretching things out. He's got a lot of ideas and stories he wants to tell about that development. And while he has a very clear vision, there's still room for maneuvering. As an audience, once the waves hit the shore, it's going to affect ideas about the show, but Glen has a very clear idea of how he wants to tell the story and how he wants the character to grow. That, in turn, is very comforting for an actor, because you feel like you're in safe hands. Also, being the Antichrist doesn't mean turning into a devil with horns and turning the Earth into molten lava and fire and brimstone and what have you. I certainly don't think it's going to be a case of Damien clicking his fingers and everything goes swimmingly. I think that is how people's idea of just being the Antichrist is, it's all going like, "Oh I want, I need something and you just snap and that and then done". Glen is much more intelligent than that. People will be on their toes and not be able to predict which way it's going.
For the full interview, please
CLICK HERE.