Bode Locke is the quintessential little brother character. Like most youngest siblings, he’s the clown of his family who lifts everyone’s spirits when life starts to feel a little too tense. He’s also got an especially sweet connection with his mom, Nina (Darby Stanchfield), for whom he was a surprise later-in-life baby. And, of course, he knows just how to push the buttons of his older brother and sister, Tyler (Connor Jessup) and Kinsey (Emilia Jones), in the most endearing ways. So — brace for major Season 3 spoilers ahead — when his body is taken over by the demon Dodge in this latest season of Locke & Key, it’s especially jarring to see the beloved Bode become pure evil. Behind the scenes, though, the transition from sweet and innocent to absolutely villainous for Jackson Robert Scott, the 13-year-old actor who plays Bode, was surprisingly seamless.
When co-showrunners Meredith Averill and Carlton Cuse first talked about adapting Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodríguez’s graphic novel series for television, they identified all of the plot points from the comics that they most wanted to feature. “One of the most obvious ones that we loved so much was Bode being possessed by Dodge,” Averill tells Tudum. Because it was such a dark storyline, however, the co-showrunners knew it would have to go toward the end of the series when the Lockes begin to recognize the sinister side of the magic keys they’ve come to possess. That wait for the final season was tough for Scott.
“From the very beginning, because he was familiar with the comics, he’d been like, ‘When does Bode get possessed? When do I get to be Dodge? When do I get to be Dodge?’ And we were like, ‘We don’t know. We don’t know,’ ” Averill shares. Scott’s enthusiasm as a fan, along with his past experience working on the 2019 film The Prodigy, proved useful when the possession finally took place in Season 3. “He was very excited to take that role on, and we thought he knocked it out of the park,” the co-showrunner continues. “He’s just so funny and scary. It was maybe a little too natural, but he’s played a psychopath in a movie before so that was good training for him, I think.”
Scott’s Locke & Key co-stars agree that his portrayal of Dodge seemed effortless. “It was just closer to his natural state,” Jessup tells Tudum jokingly. Aaron Ashmore, who plays Bode’s uncle, Duncan, adds, “I was going to say the same thing, but I was like, ‘No, I’ll let Connor take that one.’ ” Of course, just like a real family would do to the youngest kid, they’re clearly teasing. And though Scott made it look easy, he admits it was somewhat challenging to switch between the two extremely different personalities he was portraying. The actor also says he received plenty of support from director Ed Ornelas throughout the process. “Ed, who directed the episodes where I was the demon, was so amazing,” Scott shares. “I felt like I had a lot of freedom with how I wanted to play the character, and I think that was really awesome of him. He was super, super nice.”
The results of Scott’s work are several amusingly spooky episodes where fans get to see their sweet and innocent baby brother be bad. And it was a great time for the actor himself. He tells Tudum, “I think that’s probably one of the most fun times I’ve had playing a role.”
