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Damien :: Afterlife

March 04th to 12th, 2021 (Special release for bradleyjames.fanclub and bradleyjames.ru)
Glen Mazzara’s Twitter: @glenmazzara 

As “Damien” has been added to FOX UK network I was browsing through the old interviews with the cast and crew. And one thing has attracted my attention – in his interview to Collider the showrunner Glen Mazzara said that Damien could go for five seasons or more. Although the show has been cancelled after the first season, which was a great disappointment to all fans, it seemed that not a single word has been ever said about any possible plot development in any of those interviews. After doubts and hesitation, I’ve made a post on Twitter where I asked Glen Mazzara if he could answer some questions. I would like to thank him once more for his dedication and kindness, as he was able to share some information. Our exchange of questions and answers you can read below. 

WARNING: THIS TEXT CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR “DAMIEN” (2016) TV SHOW!

?: One of the topics which is largely discussed amongst fans is – whose hand we see reaching out from the grave? My bet it could be Amani’s, as I had a thought Damien might need a trusted companion in a “new life”, however, sister Greta is a tough one, so you never know.  

GM: I had planned that it would be Greta’s hand. She was going to return and fight the Vatican assassins on Damien’s behalf. She would have objected to the Church sending a hit team to kill someone who she saw as a victim of the devil. I had also planned that  Damien was going to raise Amani from the dead. Amani would then become his loyal 

enforcer. I also wanted John Lyons to survive the Rottweiler attack. He was going to be maimed and horribly disfigured. He’d plead for Damien to heal him but Damien wouldn’t. That was his way of punishing him. 

?: Would that mean that in future John would not have had any influence on Damien’s life at all? It looks like the position of power has shifted and John’s connections would not be needed anymore for Damien. 

GM: Ann’s connections would have been all Damien needs. He would have kept John alive just to keep him suffering. ?: And that led me to the question if after ep10 Damien was fully converted into his dark self – or is there still an essential human part left – and we were to see more struggles, only when then he would understand more about the power in himself or the powers supporting him? GM: I think there was still an essential human part to him. He would become more and more evil over the five seasons. 

?: Were there any plans for Damien’s flashbacks – apart from the childhood memories of “The Omen” movie? We can only see bits through some short dialogues with Cray and some interaction with Charles, but that’s not really enough to build the full background of the character. 

GM: No, we were not going to do more flashbacks. We actually did something no show had even done before — edit footage from an original film. There are Director’s Guild rules against doing that but we paid a fee and got permission to do so for only the first two episodes. The story of Damien at school with Cray was supposed to be told in a Damien video game. My assistant at the time, Tania Lotia, wrote a fantastic script for that. 

?: Was that game ever in development? 

GM: The entire script was completed. It was an RPG in which you were a student in the school who is approached to find out if Damien is really the Antichrist. There was a very cool scene in which you had to sneak into Damien’s bedroom while he’s sleeping to see if the 666 was under his hairline. Of course, you got chased by a Rottweiler. Really fun. 

?: With Damien there’s a lot of references to the figure of Jesus Christ rather than the Antichrist as per Book of Revelations. Was it planned to confuse people (both – in Damien’s universe as well as the viewers) and deploy the idea of the second coming or maybe even a twist similar to what we have seen in ep06 when Damien was confused with “proofs” of him not being an Antichrist? 

GM: Some people would think Damien was actually the messiah, not the Antichrist. That was the plan for Detective Shay. He was going to preach the word of Damien, sort of like a St. Paul, even though St. Paul never met Christ before he was resurrected. 

?: Who was the old lady in black and girl with the stitches on her left eye? 

GM: Those were actually demons. The Old Woman was called Abaddon and the Little Girl was Vassago. 

?: As Ann Rutledge has two out of seven daggers and the Holy church has four, what has happened to the seventh dagger? Was it supposed to appear sometime later in the series? 

GM: The 7th dagger was missing. Yes. The plan was that it would appear at the end of S4 or in S5. I hadn’t decided exactly who had it yet. I think it would have to be some new character. Each dagger was named for one of the seven early Churches listed in the Book of Revelation. We had even worked out which dagger would need to be placed where on Damien’s body to kill him. We bought the daggers from a fan who made them on his own. I bought an extra set and gave one to each of my producers. I kept the one that would go in Damien’s heart. That one is called Ephesus. I keep it in a special box that Tania had made as a gift.

?: Would you be able to share any story or maybe a plot twist or two which you planned for S2 (or later)? Or maybe a canvas for the show itself? According to the Christian tradition, Antichrist will be defeated and will die in the end. What was your idea for the real finale of the show? I understand this is a lot to ask for… but that’s what any fan would do if they know they are not to see it ever. 

GM: The premise of the show is that Damien was building his evil church over three years. Christ built his ministry with his disciples over three years and I wanted to do a dark version of that. So S1 was about Damien agreeing to take on that journey. 

The next three seasons were about building the dark Church on three pillars, if you will. S2 was about Damien expanding his cult of personality. We had a scene in which he spoke out during a TV interview in the pilot but cut it. S3 was about him gaining political power through utilizing the power of Ann Rutledge’s company, Armitage. They would turn out to be involved in arms dealing and pressuring nations to go to war. S4 would be about Damien entering a dark underworld — global conspiracies, mafia, drugs, trafficking — the sick underbelly of the world. After he built that Church and installed a US president to serve as his puppet, he would end up killing Ann (or really, she would sacrifice herself). It would be heartbreaking for Ann to realize she was not going to witness the apocalypse. 

In S5, Damien would wage war on the world eventually using nukes to destroy it and bring about the apocalypse. He would be alone in his bunker. At that point, we would reveal that Simone would give birth so life could carry on. Damien would learn of that pregnancy and think that child is the new messiah but actually, Simone would be revealed to be the messiah, the saviour, the new Christ. The last scene would be after Damien commits suicide. Simone enters the street and feeds the starving masses by nursing them. God as Mother. Christians eat Christ’s body. I loved the idea of a Black woman saving the world and nourishing it with her own body. ?: That could actually be a great book. I wonder if you ever thought about releasing this as a novel maybe? GM: Yes, I’ve thought of it. Maybe someday. ?: In some interviews both Bradley and yourself mentioned that he was given the script bit by bit and only closer to the finale he requested to be provided with the idea of how the things would turn. But did he ask it for the entire plot or just for S1? GM: Bradley got the scripts as we published them. He’s saying he didn’t want to know ahead of time what was going to happen. That’s how I run all my shows so it’s not unique to Damien. 

?: And the scenes that were cut out… Were there many scenes filmed that were never released as a part of S1? Do you think there might be a chance the fans would be able to see that someday? 

GM: There were a few scenes but not many. No chance fans will ever see them. I want people to see the show as is. 

?: As you’ve mentioned that the series were picked up for 6 episodes first, were you prepared to have the full season (plot) in those 6 episodes or has the story been changed to have it extended? I believe, it wasn’t known by the time you have finished filming S1 that the show is to be cancelled – please correct me if I am mistaken on that – but was the final scene in ep10 made as a conclusion to the show or just a “transition” scene, which would be keeping people excited? 

GM: We built out the story but that last scene was pretty much worked out for the end of episode 6. When we were picked up for ten, we really debated if we keep it at the end of 6 or move it to 10. I believe we made the right decision. 

?: If you were given a choice to continue Damien set 5 years later after S1 how different or similar with what you have in mind for a S2 (and more) 5 years ago it would be? 

GM: I think we had a pretty good plan. It would still hold up except for the fact that Scott Wilson passed away. I miss him terribly. Two things that really bothered me when the show came out:        
- Some fans complained that Damien was a war photographer instead of a senator, which was so obvious and cliché. They couldn’t imagine him gaining any power if he wasn’t already in politics. But look at Trump, a political outsider. And think about how powerful certain images are, like that image of that Syrian boy on the beach or that other boy in an ambulance after an airstrike. Our plan would have worked but fans can get angry if they don’t get what they expect. 
- ALL of our Church teachings, quotes, theories, etc. meticulously researched, I had priests write to me to say how accurate they were. Yet some critics dismissed our stuff as gibberish. They had no idea what they were talking about. That’s really hurtful when you’re trying to get a show up and running. And just wasn’t true. 

?: If we pick Damien at the start of Season 1 out of context (let’s call him Damien A) and then compare him to Damien we see at the end of Season 1, also out of context (let’s call him Damien B), those will be two quite different characters. Now let’s imagine for a minute that somewhere out there is a parallel universe that is almost the same as ours, with only difference being the fact that in parallel universe TV show Damien has not been cancelled after Season 1, but rather finished after parallel Glen Mazzara said “Ok, the story is told, this is how it ends”. And let’s call Damien at the end of that story Damien C. Can you tell us something about Damien C? In other words, what was the intended final destination for character development? 

GM: I’m not sure I understand this question exactly but I wanted Damien to go all the way — to bring about the apocalypse and destroy the world. But in the end, for what reason? He would realize he had lost his humanity and without that, life is not worth living. And then when we revealed that Simone was the true saviour, the audience would go back and say, wait a minute, it was her story the whole time! I think that would have been pretty cool and groundbreaking. ?: Do you think – and I know that fans ask you all the time about it, and they did ask you about it on Twitter when “Damien” was back on FOX UK – there’s still a chance to continue the story, or would I rather say – would you agree to work on all these seasons if there’s an opportunity and the actors would agree? Or do you think it might be too late, as it’s been 5 years already? GM: A lot of the actors are working on other shows so I’m not sure it’s possible to bring everyone back. But if there was a way, I would certainly be interested in finishing the story. ?: Do you write/work on something new at the moment? GM: Yes, I’m always working on new things. I may have an announcement about my next project soon but I can’t say anything about it right now. ?: Thank you very much for your answers. GM: Thanks so much for your interest and time. I’m glad you enjoyed the show.