There's a new Voorhees family on the block as Linda Cardellini and Callum Vinson bring Jason and Pamela Voorhees to life in Crystal Lake, the latest in the famed Friday the 13th franchise. Crystal Lake is the first installment in the franchise in over 15 years, and the television prequel sheds new light on the Voorhees before they became the infamous killers they're known as in pop culture.
Crystal Lake also expands the lore of the slasher franchise by introducing a host of new characters, some familiar from the movies and others brand-new to the story. While at New York Comic-Con 2026, The Direct participated in roundtable interviews with executive producer Brad Caleb Kane and cast members Linda Cardellini (Pamela), Callum Vinson (Jason), William Catlett (Levon), Gwendolyn Sundstrom (Grace), Cameron Scoggins (Dorf), and Devin Kessler (Briana) about injecting new life into the franchise.
For more of The Direct's Crystal Lake coverage, check out our interviews with the cast at this year's Toronto International Film Festival.
Crystal Lake Reveals New Sides to Pamela and Jason Voorhees
"You’re on Pam’s Side, Even Though She’s Misguided...”
- Question: "Pamela is a victim and a monster. What side of her did you want to dive into more?"
Linda Cardellini: "I think it's important to have both because I think it explains why she can be a monster, and then you can relate to her in some ways. I think if you are a victim in that way, you can go one of a few ways, and one of those ways is to be vengeful, and that's what's happened to her, and something along the way–it's broken. Whether it was purposely done to her or not, or if she's a victim of her circumstances. I think that she represses that rage, and I think for me it was really fun to play that rage. I don't often get to play that amount of rage.
...So all of the backstory gives that rage a real place to come out of, and sort of justifies it for her. You're on Pam's side, even though she's misguided."
- Question: "Callum, what was the most exciting part of finding your own interpretation of Jason?"
Callum Vinson: "I feel like bringing myself to the character was a very big part because he never really had a background in anything. We never saw him besides the one clip of him drowning, and I just feel like me bringing humanity to this character said a lot, and just helping people see that he has a good connection with his mom, and seeing that he's just a normal kid."
- Question: "We get to see the actual scene of Jason drowning in the lake in this series. Can you talk a bit about filming that and what the experience was like on the day?"
Callum Vinson: "That was so awesome to film. We were kind of in this massive pool, and you could change the color of the water and change how rough it is. Michael, one of the directors, was in the pool with me actually, and he was kind of guiding me through that drowning scene. And there weren't really words to it, so I kind of just did my own thing, and I thought it turned out well."
- Question: "You're writing a female antihero, and in the modern age of TV we often seem to get a lot of backlash towards female characters who do violence and who are not quite fitting the mold. I was wondering if you were trying to write in a modern environment and were aware of all that?"
Brad Caleb Kane: "I just write what I want to see. I come at things from a thematic place. I definitely think I wanted to write Pamela as a well-rounded woman who had the full breadth of human experience, and obviously, Linda and all my writers helped with that, helped flesh her out, helped bring new dimensions to her and other layers that I wouldn't have figured out on my own. I want to write real humans and not just archetypes, but I rely on all of the people around me, whether they're my writers, my actors, to help me do that. We don't do any of this in a vacuum."
Living Up to Friday the 13th Fans' Expectations
- Question: "It's been over a decade since a new installment in this franchise was released. How do you feel this series will meet fans' expectations and how do you think it will surprise them?"
Will Catlett: "Brad [Caleb Kane] is a super fan, and he's coming into it wanting to get it right for the fans. That's been his whole thing. Even when on set, we'll get the thumbs up because we match something with the original films. So I think, you know it's been 16-17 years, but now the fans get a lot of answers to the questions that they never got with the original films."
Cameron Scoggins: "And [Brad] expands upon the world of that. Like he takes the 'Friday the 13th' franchise, which can be a little sex, kill, sex, kill, sex, kill, and he adds a lot of character development, which makes the kills even more effective. So it's just really exciting to work on something like that, that's taking something and adding so much color to this franchise."
