‘Homecoming’ alum Stephan James revisits the horror of lost memories in Apple TV+’s ‘Surface’
In “Homecoming,” Stephan James played a soldier losing his memories as a treatment for PTSD. In “Surface,” he’s on the other side of the brain fog.
The Apple TV+ psychological thriller that premiered last week stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Sophie, a woman who wakes up from an attempted suicide to find that she has no memories of who she is. As her husband and best friend fill in the blanks for her, James’ Baden, a detective who claims he’s working on Sophie’s case, only causes more confusion with his whispers about the truth no one will tell her.
Walter, James’ “Homecoming” character, faced a similar dilemma. Drugs intended to target specific trauma in soldiers so they would return to the battlefield without fear ended up wiping out names and places, the memories that make a person who they are.
“Walter was the victim to memory loss,” the 28-year-old Canadian actor told the Daily News of his “Homecoming” character. “I found it really interesting being on the other side of it in ‘Surface,’ where he’s more in the know. He’s not the subject but he’s helping to be the conduit to finding answers.”
Both Walter and Sophie lose their minds chasing their lost memories.
“It’s almost a study in understanding one’s self,” James told The News.
“It doesn’t have to take a traumatic experience like what Sophie has gone through to do some kind of digging, some of that research about our identities and figuring out who we are, because ultimately that will help us decide where we’re going.”
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