It’s a sentiment that’s also reflected in Johnston’s own deeply layered performance as Bear, which the Teen Wolf alum imbues with a palpable sense of yearning and quiet desperation that makes his initial decision to break the One Wish Willow feel both sympathetic and quietly damning. Because while Bear’s wish may have come from a place of genuine, unrequited love, the consequences of his actions also amount to a violation of Nikki’s agency on a level that the film refuses to let him off the hook for. And yet, perhaps most impressively, Obsession never lets Bear become a simple, cut-and-dry villain either, instead allowing audiences to sit in the morally gray, uncomfortable space of his slow reckoning with what he’s done. It’s a tonal balancing act that Barker says was at the very center of the film’s earliest conversations. “That was a huge discussion early on,” he reveals. “Bear didn’t know the wish was going to work, but also at some point Bear does become, what’s the word, like culpable, you know? Definitely aware. And I think that the challenge was keeping him grounded and relatable and likable. You need to root for him for a while.”