HEREDITARY Star Milly Shapiro Reportedly in Talks to Play CARRIE in Mike Flanagan's Series Adaptation
Looks like Mike Flanagan might’ve found his Carrie, and it’s a choice that will have horror fans excited.
According to insider Daniel Richtman, Hereditary star Milly Shapiro is in negotiations to take on the lead role in Flanagan’s upcoming streaming adaptation of Carrie, Stephen King’s classic novel.
Shapiro, best known for her unsettling and unforgettable performance as Charlie Graham in director Ari Aster’s Hereditary, so she has some experience with dark, emotionally intense material.
She may also be joined by Samantha Sloyan (Hush, Midnight Mass), who’s reportedly being eyed to play Margaret White, Carrie’s fanatically religious and deeply unhinged mother. Another great casting choice!
The project was first announced last October, and it reunites Flanagan with King after their recent collaboration on The Life of Chuck. Flanagan is set to serve as both showrunner and executive producer for the eight-episode limited series, which is being developed for Amazon.
If you’re wondering how this new take will stack up against Brian De Palma’s 1976 classic, there’s plenty of reason to be cautiously optimistic. That version, led by Sissy Spacek as the fragile, telekinetic teen and Piper Laurie as her terrifying mother, has long been held up as one of the best King adaptations out there.
The story’s climactic prom scene is easily one of the most iconic in horror literature and movies.
This story has been adapted a few times already and when asked in a previous interview, Flanagan explained why he wanted to retell this story again, Flanagan said:
“One of the only questions I had when it was first put on the table was ‘Why?’, and if I couldn't answer ‘Why do this again?’ for myself, then there was no point in pursuing the project. It's the same muscle.
“I will say that it's the same feeling I had when we approached The Turn of the Screw, which had been adapted dozens of times. And it's like, ‘Okay, how do we do this completely differently?’”
When asked about what Stephen King thought of the story being retold again Flanagan said: “His first question was also mine. … Steve's first reaction was, ‘Why do that again?’”
He continued: “I can't spoil our approach to Carrie only to reassure people we are not retreading the same story. It is definitely a new approach to the material, and one that Stephen King is excited about which is also important to me.”
When talking about how he earned that enthusiasm from King, he said if he didn’t get King excited about it, he wouldn’t have done it.
“It's been done and it's been done beautifully, arguably perfectly by De Palma and then done again for ‘reasons.’, Why do it again now?
“And so when he went through the proposal that I put together for it, his reaction was, oh, this is actually very exciting to him. And then I said, ‘Okay, if he's excited, then we should do this.’ But otherwise I wouldn't have done it. … It will be a very pleasant surprise for fans.”
I assume that this will be a contemporary take on the story and when teasing his initial idea for the project, Flanagan added:
“Carrie White walking through a metal detector is interesting to me. Carrie White with social media. The iconic scene in the locker room is very different when people have phones in their hands.
“So that was the first germ of an idea, like, there is room for this to actually have a lot to say that's very relevant. And I can't spoil the changes that we made in order to kind of find a story that felt like it needed to be told. But we made some pretty substantial changes.”
What do you think about the possible casting for Carrie?