“My approach to Credence was someone who never got the love they needed and who was also subject to this sort of violent indoctrination that made him believe that he was bad. And that stops him from allowing the truth of who he is to rise to the surface, and it seems like the character itself is sort of an exploration of the results of that type of trauma and that sort of repression. What happens when we don’t let ourselves be ourselves; it can actually be pretty sad and scary.”
Source: Screen Anarchy