The new Peacock series Crystal Lake will welcome a new scream queen in Linda Cardellini, who will play the role of Pamela Voorhees, mother of Jason Voorhees, the infamous serial killer from the Friday the 13th films.
Ahead of the streaming series’ premiere on Thursday, October 15, Cardellini and Brad Caleb Kane, writer, showrunner, and executive producer of the series, hosted a panel on Monday afternoon at the NBC Backlot Press Day.
“We all know where Pam ends up because she starts all the killing in the first movie. So, what Brad gave me was a beautiful beginning and somewhere to go. There’s an arc there from somebody who means well and is trying to survive. She’s doing the best that she can and fighting hard for things that she thinks are right to [becoming] somebody who then turns out to do all the wrong things. That gives me a lot of places to go. I think that dissent is very necessary,” Cardellini shared.
The role of Pam has been played by multiple actresses, but the gold standard is Betsy Palmer, the first to play the serial killer mom of a serial killer, in the 1980 film Friday the 13th. Since news of the prequel series broke, there have been questions about how Cardellini will approach playing the character.
“I have, of course, seen what Betsy Palmer did. Then you see a little bit more of it in [Friday the 13th Part 2]; she kind of comes back as the severed head. The fans love her so much. We even toyed around with the idea of the short hair, but we figured she has 10 years to get there,” she said.
Adding, “You can’t duplicate what Betsy did, which was to play this devoted mother. So I can take that and sort of bring that to the early childhood years of Jason’s life. I also think that you don’t get to where Betsy is without really truly loving Jason and getting to know him. That was really important to us going in. And no, you can’t be another Betsy. But I do do a little bit of an homage with a certain sweater that makes an appearance.”
The famous sweater Cardellini is referring to is the one worn by Palmer in the original film when Pam was decapitated by a camp counselor.
Without giving too much away about the pilot episode, there’s a scene where Cardellini ends up with about a bucket’s worth of blood all over her. Trust me, it’s way more impactful when you watch the scene. The blood pours over her head and face, which, according to Cardellini, required “a lot of cleanups and redos.”
“That blood has to fall exactly in the right position for that stunt to work. So there were several ways we did it; for it to really have its full impact on my face, it took a few takes,” she said.
Added Kane, “A lot of the gags in the show are very complicated. The special effects gags are very complicated. Linda had to go through a lot, and they’re very hard to reset. We didn’t have a lot of opportunities to do that. And I’d like to give my props right now here in front of all of you to Linda; she nailed it every single time. There was never an, ‘Oh, Linda was not in the right place.’ No, she nailed it every time. So it was a pleasure working with her on these complicated gags because she’s a consummate pro.”
