‘Crystal Lake’s Linda Cardellini Used Pam Voorhees’ Grief As “Fuel For Her Rage,” Reveals Her Favorite Kill Scenes: “Feels A Little Too Good”

SPOILERS: This post contains details about the Peacock series Friday the 13th

With the Friday the 13th prequel series Crystal Lake, longtime fans are treated to a backstory for the mother of all slashers.

Linda Cardellini, who plays Jason Voorhees’ grieving mother Pam in the Peacock series from Brad Caleb Kane, which is now available to stream, explained to Deadline that she used the maternal character’s grief as “fuel for her rage,” which ultimately pushes her to take murderous action months after her son Jason (Callum Vinson) drowns in the titular lake.

“It’s an interesting line that I walk as Pam because there’s part of her that doesn’t believe he’s totally gone, so there’s a real grief and a real longing that happens, but also hidden in there is a real hope that he might still be out there somewhere,” she explained. “So, that’s a really fun thing to play, because sometimes it can be total grief, and sometimes it can be in pain, and sometimes it can be grief hidden with a little bit of hope for who might be around the corner. And I think as that starts to pick up with her, that grief turns.”

Cardellini continued, “But I think the real grief is how people have treated him, because he’s such a sweet vulnerable kid when we first meet him, and she loves him so much. Watching the world treat him poorly is terrible for her, and the idea of that continues to just spiral out of control and it goes to the place that she fears the most, fuel for her rage. And I think that that rage is relatable. I think that it overtakes her though. I think finally releasing that rage overtakes her, and it feels a little too good to her, so there’s a switch that comes on after that.”

Set several years before the events of Friday the 13th (1980), the prequel series gives Pam her first taste for blood as a pair of mysterious men come poking around about her past. She uses a familiar weapon to get rid of them.

“The first one with the machete, I enjoy. That was big,” said Cardellini. “We shot that for a week, that whole sequence, so we really took time with it, which was nice.”

As she grieves the loss of her son, Pam takes a maternal interest in Jason’s friend Grace (Gwendolyn Sundstrom), whom she notices has a neglectful mother. While confronting Grace’s mom at the fast-food restaurant where she works, Pam takes the squabble a little too far.

“There is some anger that comes out when I have a mallet in the fast food restaurant,” recalled Cardellini. “And that seething anger, before that kill really happens, was I think somewhere, that something needed to come out of her. So, that was a fun one for me.”

Now streaming on Peacock, Crystal Lake stars Cardellini as Pam Voorhees, who struggles to grieve after her son Jason drowned the summer before. As two strangers begin digging into her mysterious past, Pam goes to murderous lengths to keep her secrets buried and find her son, whom she’s convinced is still alive after his body was never recovered.