Director Nick Paley channels childhood fears in new thriller 'Phony'

A teenager wakes up after a traffic crash convinced his mother has been replaced by an imposter -- but almost no one believes him.

The plot of "Phony," the show that debuted this week on Hulu, stems from a childhood fear long held by creator and writer Nick Paley.

"I had this core fear when I was a kid of losing my mom," he told AFP. "I just was obsessed with things, bad things happening to her, and just getting separated from her."

"That was sort of an emotional thing that I wanted to explore."

"Phony" stars Sam Nivola as Sonny, a teenager with a close bond to his single mother, Ellen (Connie Britton).

When he regains consciousness following the accident, Sonny doesn't recognize the woman claiming to be Ellen -- in terms of looks, but also because she no longer has a grasp on the insider codes of their relationship.

And Paley -- who co-wrote the Oscar-nominated "Marcel the Shell with Shoes On" -- lets "Phony" bleed across genre.

"It's like a thriller that feels real to life, and to me, like real to life is things are funny, things are scary, things are dramatic, and they kind of all work together," he said.

Paley noted that Britton was instrumental in heightening the suspense and horror elements, portraying the alleged imposter with a warmth that confuses both Sonny and the audience.

He said he spoke frequently about "how to play both sides of this."

"How can it seem like she's a possibly, a worried mom who's helping her son who's losing his mind, or an imposter who is something really dark and is doing something that's like, you know, scary," he continued.

"Like, she's not a person to be trusted."

For Paley, Britton -- who starred in series including "Friday Night Lights" and "The White Lotus" -- was an obvious casting choice.

"She's like, very much an America's mom in a certain way," he said.

The series is set in a small, fictional community in Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest of the United States.

The area is characterized by its dramatic mountains and forested landscapes, which, for Paley, complemented the storytelling: "There's such drama to the mountains and the fog, and it just gives you this feeling that magic and strangeness is afoot."

The show touches, if tangentially, on conspiracy theories and alternative versions of the truth that can spring up on social media.

"We're living in a world that looks a lot like the world we know, but it's actually quite different," Paley said.

"And often, like based on our algorithms -- our individual information feeds -- we are seeing things slightly different than other people, and it's difficult to identify the mechanisms that are separating us," the show's creator continued.

"So there is a really good, you know, allegory in the main character's experience."