Hysteria!’s Julie Bowen Wants to Defy Expectations After Modern Family

Julie Bowen is ready to move away from being a typical TV mom by pushing boundaries with a more surprising — and spooky — role on Peacock’s Hysteria!

“It’s funny because I’m terrified of horror and slashers. I can’t watch those things,” Bowen, 54, admits in the newest issue of Us Weekly. “But I had such a great run on Modern Family for 11 years and the reality is America sees me as a mom.”

Bowen was determined to try something new after being known for portraying Claire Dunphy on the hit ABC sitcom, which aired from 2009 to 2020.

“The way I can change their perception of what kind of mom — or what kind of actress — I can be is to really change up expectations and defy them,” she notes. “I didn’t really do [slasher Totally Killer and now Hysteria!] on purpose back to back. But I can see how you would come to that conclusion.”

The actress is just trying to “do something different,” telling Us, “I don’t think anybody wants [and] I don’t want to play Claire unless I get to be Claire Dunphy. So I don’t want to just do another version of Claire. I want to really change it up.”

Hysteria! was the perfect shift for Bowen after more than a decade on Modern Family. Set in the 1980s, Hysteria! revolves around the era’s Satanic Panic as a heavy metal band of high school outcasts realize they can capitalize on the town’s sudden interest in the occult by building a reputation as a Satanic metal band. The plan doesn’t go as expected when a bizarre series of murders, kidnappings and reported supernatural activity triggers a witch hunt that leads directly back to them.

Bowen plays a mother who starts to question whether her son is involved in something sinister.

“[Our creator and showrunner] Matthew Scott Kane first got in touch with me to say, ‘We’d love for you to do this.’ I’d only seen the pilot so I wasn’t sure where the character was going. And it was his explanation of a woman who is doubting her sanity and how we can all get into that place,” she tells Us. “Hysteria! is not meant to be a political commentary, but we can all live in a bubble and get our information in a bubble.”

Bowen adds: “It’s really great to show an isolated little town in the ’80s where everybody was just getting their news from the local news station and how easily the hysteria of one news source can make you crazy. I found that really attractive — this idea of a woman who doesn’t know what’s real anymore. Because I feel that way all the time.”

The horror series, which started streaming on Friday, October 18, leans into the unknown, which presents a fascinating challenge for Bowen.

“Hysteria! is very accessible, but it does ask more questions. It answers a lot, but we also ask a lot of questions and I was definitely left [wanting to know more]. I would be very curious to hear how the audience feels. I’ve got questions,” Bowen explains. “I didn’t know when we were shooting it from episode to episode [what was going on]. I made assumptions, but I had to go through the mental gamut along with Linda of, ‘Is this real? Is this not real?’ Instead of letting that frustrate me, I was like, ‘Oh, cool. She doesn’t know either.’ So we’re in the same place.”

Bowen also appreciates getting to push herself with more physically-involved scenes on Hysteria! as Linda starts getting tormented by an unseen force.

“Once you’re tied to something or [you] have all that makeup and you look really not so good, it is kind of freeing,” Bowen says. “You’re not thinking about what you look like. You’re just completely in it and that’s really fun. I’ve always had more confidence in my physical abilities than in my acting abilities. I always feel like I couldn’t tell a joke, but I could fall on the stairs just fine. This is sort of an extension of that.”

Hysteria! is currently streaming on Peacock, and the pilot will air Friday, October 18, on USA Network and Syfy. New episodes will continue to air on USA Friday nights.

For more from Us‘ exclusive interview with Julie Bowen, pick up the new issue of Us Weekly, on stands now.