[Editor's note: The following contains spoilers through the season finale of The Haunting of Bly Manor, "The Beast in the Jungle.”]

Some stories may call for a mustache-twirling bad guy who’s evil through and through, but that’s not what interests Oliver Jackson-Cohen, and his dedication to highlighting the human qualities in a character like Peter Quint contributes big time to making The Haunting of Bly Manor and standout show.

With Bly Manor now available to watch on Netflix, Jackson-Cohen joined us for an episode of Collider Connected to talk about his experience in Hollywood thus far and how that paved the way to Bly. Turns out, while creator Mike Flanagan was still pitching the idea for Bly, he was actually considering Jackson-Cohen for one of two roles, the valet or the groundskeeper who wound up being played by Amelia Eve. Here’s how Jackson-Cohen put it:

“I remember Mike calling me about it. This was way, way before when he was pitching the idea. And he said, ‘I’m gonna ask Victoria to play the au pair and in the book, there’s two characters that you could play. You could either play the groundskeeper or you could play the valet, the evil valet.’ And I went, ‘Oh, okay.’ And he said, ‘So we’ll sort of figure that out.’” 

Of course, when they did figure it out, Jackson-Cohen wound up with the role of the valet and when he got the news, he had one burning question for Flanagan. That question and Jackson-Cohen's drive likely had something to do with evolving Peter from a straight-up villain, as was the plan at the very beginning, and turning him into a more complex character:

“And he came to me and he said, ‘It’s gonna be Peter, and he’s the villain.’ And my first thing was, why? Why is he a villain? Similar with Invisible Man, you know, Leigh [Whannell] and I did not want a mustache twirling [villain], or Lizzy [Moss]. We didn’t want any of that. It was someone that was incredibly human that made it more dangerous, more terrifying because they were so human, and I think the same with Peter. I was interested with Mike, both of us were, in how do we take this person who’s supposed to be a villain and have these horrendous qualities and do these horrific things and make them real?”

The answer to that question becomes quite apparent in Episode 7 when Peter keeps slipping back into the same exact memory.

“And I do have this theory, and maybe I’m wrong, and hopefully it’s clear in the show, that Peter had this incredibly rough upbringing and it damaged him to a point that his will to good and his will to sense has been permanently damaged. And so we wanted to get across the idea of someone that was fully formed that wasn’t just the one note villain, and I think that the only way you can do that is by giving someone heart. I do feel like it’s a thing that I sort of feel like I have to do as an actor with these characters. And maybe, I feel like there are certain jobs that I haven’t got because it’s not the right thing. But I feel that with Peter Quint, it was very, very important that we show the human aspect of him and the fact that he has come from something so horrific and has never experienced any kind of safety in his life. And then the moment he finds someone that he feels safe with and that he loves deeply, he dies. And so what does that do to someone? He’s suddenly in prison for the rest of his life. He was just about to start his life. He was just about to get out. He had all of this excitement and hope and it was shattered. And so, hopefully we kind of cover that in the show and it’s clear in the show.”

Peter does horrendous things. There’s absolutely no denying that. But the show does challenge one to consider how much of this selfishness and evil was sparked by Peter’s parents. Here’s what Jackson-Cohen said when I mentioned that during our chat:

“I’m so glad because I feel like Mike and I spoke about that a lot, and about the idea of we wanted it to be ambiguous, we wanted an audience to decide and we wanted an audience to be confused. And we wanted them to jump from, even in the middle of an episode to going, ‘Oh god, he’s a piece of shit,’ to ‘Oh, fuck. That poor man.’ And I think that’s kind of what we do in life; there’s only so much sympathy - the fact is, he does something horrific; he kills the person that he loves. It makes sense to him. And then he attempts to kill these children, and it makes sense to him because of his desperation for what it is he’s seeking.”

The Haunting of Bly Manor is now available to stream on Netflix. If you’d like to hear more from Jackson-Cohen on Bly, working with Drew Barrymore on Going the Distance, what it was like for him when The Haunting of Hill House amassed such a huge fanbase, and more, keep an eye out for his full Collider Connected interview dropping Sunday, October 11!