The Devil's Hour star Jessica Raine has revealed that she was "freaked out" during filming and found her co-star Benjy Chivers' performance "chilling".
In an exclusive interview with Digital Spy, Raine, who stars in the six-part horror series from Prime Video, said she was scared when she watched the series a year after shooting it.
"I got drawn in really slowly, and then was genuinely quite freaked out by some aspects of it," she said.
Related: The Devil’s Hour star breaks down "super-intense" scenes with Doctor Who's Peter Capaldi
Raine stars as Lucy, a woman who wakes up every night at 3:33am (the titular devil's hour) to terrifying visions, but the Call the Midwife star said that part of what made the series so frightening was her on-screen son, child actor Chivers.
"Benjy Chivers, who plays Isaac, his emotionlessness and his blankness was genuinely quite chilling at times, because Benjy's not like that," explained Raine. "He's already a great actor. He can just switch it on and off. That in itself is quite impressive."
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"It was really affecting and sad and freaky when he would just monotone-repeat what you said with nothing at all behind the eyes. I found that really chilling."
Chivers' performance was so impressive to Raine that she said she couldn't work with stand-in actors – who are needed due to child actor hours being limited – as well because she would feed off Chivers' energy for their scenes together.
Related: The Devil’s Hour star Jessica Raine reveals scary thing that happened while filming
Raine told us she looked forward to filming a scene from episode one, where Lucy and her emotionless son Isaac are sharing a car and she talks to herself in an attempt to imagine his reactions.
"I was really looking forward to that scene, because I think that this is a series where any chink of humour is very useful, because it's not a humourless show.
"I feel like that is something I would do. If I had been relentlessly trying to bring something out of my son – it's been eight years. So you kind of start talking to yourself, or talking to what the imagined response would be. It felt incredibly real and human."
The Devil's Hour is available to stream now on Amazon Prime Video.
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Reporter, Digital Spy
Harriet is a freelance news writer specialising in TV and movies at Digital Spy.
A horror enthusiast, she joined Digital Spy after working on her own horror website, reviewing films and focusing largely on feminism in the genre.
In her spare time, Harriet paints and produces mixed-media art. She graduated from the University of Kingston with a BA in fine art, where she specialised in painting. She also has an MA in journalism from Birkbeck University.
After teaching in England and South Korea, David turned to writing in Germany, where he covered everything from superhero movies to the Berlin Film Festival.
In 2019, David moved to London to join Digital Spy, where he could indulge his love of comics, horror and LGBTQ+ storytelling as Deputy TV Editor, and later, as Acting TV Editor.
David has spoken on numerous LGBTQ+ panels to discuss queer representation and in 2020, he created the Rainbow Crew interview series, which celebrates LGBTQ+ talent on both sides of the camera via video content and longform reads.
Beyond that, David has interviewed all your faves, including Henry Cavill, Pedro Pascal, Olivia Colman, Patrick Stewart, Ncuti Gatwa, Jamie Dornan, Regina King, and more — not to mention countless Drag Race legends.
As a freelance entertainment journalist, David has bylines across a range of publications including Empire Online, Radio Times, INTO, Highsnobiety, Den of Geek, The Digital Fix and Sight & Sound.
