Just as the title NOS4A2 suggests, this series and the novel its based on features a great evil in the form a vampire. But this particular vampire bends the rules of traditional mythos to deliver something far more unique, creepy, and modern in many ways. The counterbalance to reluctant yet tough-as-nails heroine Vic McQueen, Charlie Manx presents as one dangerous, deadly foe that isn’t quite like any other villain. He’s something far more complex. And with one terrifying method of hunting prey.
Charlie Manx is a child predator. He drives his black 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith (its license plate reads NOS4A2) across the country, saving abused and neglected children from a life of sadness and bringing them back to Christmasland- a cheery world where it’s eternally Christmas. In actuality, Manx is luring children away with the promise of Christmasland and feeding off their souls until he’s regained his youth and what’s left of his victim is an unnerving, ghoulish shell of a child with pointy teeth and homicidal tendencies. Christmasland is merely his inscape where he deposits the empty human husks. He seeks out disturbed men to assist him in his kidnapping schemes; his henchman cruelly dispatches any parents that might stand in their way while Manx lures the child away with promises of presents, Christmas, and everlasting happiness. Most interesting of all, perhaps, is that he feels like he’s doing the child a great favor.
Author and executive producer Joe Hill explains how Manx doesn’t see himself as villainous at all, “In NOS4A2, Charlie is kidnapping these children and taking them away from their parents. Sometimes leaving the parents dead behind them. But it’s Charlie’s view that those parents are awful people. That those children are living lives of abuse and neglect. That they live in sorrow. If no one comes to save them, by the time they’re adults they’ll be empty shells. They’ll be abusers themselves. He’s taking them away from grief and pain and anger, and bringing them to a place where it’s Christmas every day. When you hear it that way, when the story is presented to you that way, suddenly Charlie sounds like a good guy.”
“Of course, the picture is a little more complicated than that. But Charlie sees himself as an avenging angel who’s standing up for abused children. I always think that’s a little more exciting, when you can present a bad guy who has their own moral code. His own system of beliefs.”
Make no mistake, though; as altruistic as Manx sees himself, he’s downright menacing. Hill warns that, “this rogue vampire who’s over a hundred years old, and he has very 19th century ideas about how women should behave. How children should behave. It’s real bad news if you can’t meet Charlie’s expectations.” Considering how stubborn and independent both Vic McQueen (Ashleigh Cummings) and Maggie Leigh (Jahkara Smith) are, well, they’re going to wind up on Charlie Manx’s naughty list sooner than later.
The sadistic yet complicated Charlie Manx is played by Zachary Quinto (Star Trek, American Horror Story), who was attracted to the character both because of the complexity of Charlie and the NOS4A2 world at large. Being that Manx undergoes a physical transformation as he feasts upon the souls of his young victims, he pulled in Academy Award winning makeup artist Joel Harlow (Star Trek, Hellboy) to design the five different stages of Manx’s aging process. The result is a character as visually interesting as his personality.
To see the monstrous, soul-stealing Charlie Manx and his ghoulish Christmasland children in action, tune in to AMC on June 2, 2019 for the premiere of NOS4A2.
