Jami O’Brien addressed the title of her upcoming AMC horror series, “NOS4A2,” arguing that she doesn’t think it’s all confusing for those who aren’t familiar with Joe Hill’s novel of the same name on which the series is based.
“We are going to do our best to educate folks about it,” O’Brien said Saturday during the Television Critics Association press tour. “One of the wonderful things about the book is that there are a lot of word games in it.” For example, one of the main characters is a librarian who uses Scrabble tiles as if they were an Ouija board.
In both Hill’s book and on the show, “NOS4A2” is the license plate on Charlie Manx’s (Zachary Quinto) 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith. Manx is a seductive immortal who feeds off the souls of children. He then deposits what is left of the children in Christmas Land, a twisted Christmas village of Manx’s imagination where every day is Christmas and unhappiness is against the law.
O’Brien said that there is a deeper meaning to the title, though they may not get to what that is during the first season. “Manx talks about it deeper in the book than where we get in the first season, but it’s a joke. And it’s also a puzzle,” she continued. “Both of those things speak to the humor of the book and the humor of the character.”
And the fact that “NOS4A2” when said out loud, sounds a lot like “Nosferatu” the title of F. W. Murnau’s classic 1929 silent film about the vampire Count Orlok, is part of the joke. Because Manx is like a vampire… but also not.
“It’s kind of a fun twist on the vampire genre. Charlie Manx is a kind of vampire but he’s not any kind of vampire that we’ve seen before,” she said. “He doesn’t suck blood, he sucks souls. It’s a little irreverent and I’m glad that we have it because I think it’s a lot of fun.”
“NOS4A2” will premiere this summer on AMC.