Matthew Lillard says Mike Flanagan's upcoming TV show Carrie is not only book-accurate, but more than worth the wait.
“Carrie is great. Mike Flanagan, who I worked with on Life of Chuck, is just the biggest force of nature in this industry,” Lillard told GamesRadar+. “We rehearsed for three weeks. He thought through every frame of the entire film. He thought of everything down to the minute in terms of the amount of time it would take to shoot. He developed an app so you can see where they are on set. I mean, he's so prolific and deep and such a great storyteller. So that's the first thing.”
The character was first created by the late Stefan Gierasch and met a gruesome end in the 1976 film. Its ending plays a little more like the novel in the 2002 remake (with a severely underrated script written by Bryan Fuller), although it appears that Flanagan's Carrie (like his previous King adaptations) will follow the 1974 novel to a T. Instead of packaging the 304-page book into a film, the story is told over eight episodes in miniseries format – and is part of Flanagan's new deal with Prime. Video.
“Secondly, the cast is incredible. These are three different parts. This is the story of Carrie, written by Stephen King. This is truly a pure adaptation of the book. [more] than it was in the original film,” explains Lillard. “The De Palma movie really focuses on one aspect, but in the book a lot of things happen that were presented in the series. And there are three different levels – teachers, parents and students. Teachers and parents are university-level actors, you know, old ones. It's just a way to call out old actors. And then the kids… the kids are fucking brilliant.”
