The series is now streaming on Peacock
Chiara Aurelia is quickly emerging as one of young Hollywood’s must-watch stars. Aurelia was nominated for a 2022 Critics Choice Award as Best Actress in a Drama Series for her leading role as Jeanette Turner in the Freeform series Cruel Summer, making Aurelia the first actor in the history’s platform to receive this distinction. Her breakout performance also garnered Aurelia Best Actress nominations from the Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the Women’s Image Network Awards. The series, executive produced by Jessica Biel and Michelle Purple, was also Freeform’s highest-rated multi-platform series premiere and Best Cable Series, Drama, by the HCA.
Aurelia can currently be seen starring in the Peacock series Hysteria!, now streaming. When a beloved varsity quarterback disappears during the “Satanic Panic” of the late 1980s, a struggling high school heavy metal band of outcasts realize they can capitalize on the town’s sudden interest in the occult by building a reputation as a satanic metal band, until a bizarre series of murders, kidnappings, and reported “supernatural activity” triggers a leather-studded witch hunt that leads directly back to them.
Aurelia performs and sings in the series. However, she said the audition process didn’t involve performing music.
“When I originally got the script for the show, I was like super interested in the story and the horror and the metal of it all and the satanic panic in the 80s,” she tells us. “I mean, it really kind of covered all of the gamuts of the things that I’m interested in at least. Music was a huge part of it, but I think they thought maybe they would have someone kind of, you know, dub the singing if necessary, or I honestly, I don’t know what their original plan was, but they definitely asked me if I could sing and I said yes, and they asked me if I could play instruments and I believe I said yes, although that was like definitely not true at all.”
Along with Aurelia, Emjay Anthony and Kenzii Curtis star as Dylan and Spud, respectively, as the trio of outcasts.
“I auditioned for the show and signed on and as soon as they kind of had me and MJ and Kenzii as, you know, Jordy and Spud and Dylan, we were put into a band camp and we did eight weeks of, or six weeks, I’m always exaggerating, but it was like a lot of weeks of training in order to get ready to be performing on the show.”
Two-time Emmy Award-winning actress Julie Bowen also stars in the series.
Aurelia will next be seen starring with Mila Kunis in the highly anticipated Netflix feature Luckiest Girl Alive, based on the best-selling novel of the same name, directed by Mike Barker and produced by Bruna Papandre.
