'Carrie' Stars Samantha Sloyan and Matthew Lillard Discuss The Nuance and Empathy Behind Mike Flanagan's Reimagining
sloyan and lillard discuss their protective roles in the latest, and most empathetic adaptation of the beloved stephen king novel.
The Carrie story has rightfully become a modern legend, with the themes of Stephen King’s novel reverberating through different generations of high-schoolers, and the story at large becoming a favourite of many cinephiles, thanks to Brian DePalma’s now classic film adaptation of the story, which vividly embodied Carrie White’s angst, righteous anger and bloody revenge. Though the story has seen several adaptations since, the tone and formal tenacity of the DePalma film has ostensibly remained the defining take on the source material in the public eye, so much so that during Halloween, you’d be hard pressed not to find someone walking around dressed as Carrie White, in her blood-soaked prom dress.
This latest adaptation takes a radical new approach to the Carrie story, subverting the central theme of revenge to be one of empathy, for even the more famously ‘evil’ characters in the story. For anyone familiar with the work of Mike Flanagan, this great sense of empathy and depth should come as no surprise. Flanagan’s take on Carrie finds immensely compelling new arcs for the adults in the room, namely, Carrie’s mother, Margaret White, and her school principal, Henry Grayle. To inhabit these roles, Flanagan (in a customary, but always welcomed fashion) entrusted a pair of his past collaborators, longtime standout Samantha Sloyan, and Flanagan sophomore Matthew Lillard.
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Sloyan is no stranger to turning heads with dramatic turns in Flanagan projects, but her interpretation of Margaret White is a new level of riveting, so much so that Flanagan has called Margaret “the role [Samantha] was born to play”. Sloyan reflected on how her rapport with Flanagan allowed her to tap into the complicated role of Margaret White, who in this series, is depicted as a deeply religious and insular woman who spent most of her life sheltered from the complexities of modern society, claiming, “Part of what allows me to just really focus on the character I'm building is thatI feel so secure in the environment that's created on our sets. Every crew member, everyone in the cast, and Mike, everyone is just so focused on telling this story. I feel like that provides me such a solid foundation that when it's time to become Margaret and to work on that insularity, I just feel like I'm set up for success in that way”.
Lillard has built a reputation for playing eccentric and kooky characters across his career, and while he excels in those roles, it has been great to see his recent collaborations with Mike Flanagan unearthing a more earnest, vulnerable and emotionally grounded side of him as a performer. Lillard’s scenes in The Life of Chuck were very subtly moving, and his role as Principal Grayle continues that understated gravitas. To prepare for his role as a principal, Lillard spoke with real educators to tailor his performance to the many real-world social concerns of a high school environment, many of which find themselves at the centre of this new Carrie adaptation. “For me, the question I had for them was, what can I imbue this character with? How can I be a spokesperson for the things that you want people to understand? T resounding message that came back was that the teachers do what they do out of the sense of love. They could easily enter the workforce, make more money, but they've made a choice to be at frontlines in helping to grow our kids, and impacting their lives…I think that that ends up being a through line for Grayle, and for the whole show in general”.