The latest Stephen King adaptation comes in the form of a Hulu series, "Castle Rock", which will be combining various King works into a single arc spanning ten episodes which will premiere in 2018. Despite still being midway through filming, series stars and producers paid a visit to New York Comic Con where a new trailer was revealed and they gave a panel and Q&A to promote this anticipated new show.
The show is also particularly notable for having both Sissy Spacek and Bill Skarsgård in their line-up, as both have given memorable performances in prior adaptations of King novels. Spacek played the titular role in "Carrie" (1976) and Skarsgård's popularity has sky-rocketed due to his portrayal of Pennywise the Dancing Clown in the 2017 "It" film. Skarsgård received the bulk of the questions during the audience Q&A portion of the "Castle Rock" panel. Originally from Sweden, Skarsgård shared that when researching King's books, he reads them in English as opposed to Swedish. "I like to read, if I can read, the author's own words without it being translated. Swedish books in Swedish and English books in English." Skarsgård was under strict orders to reveal practically nothing about his character or the plot that he will be portraying. This is not only his second time acting in a Stephen King adaptation, but the second time he will be acting in a television series adapted for a streaming platform following three seasons as Roman Godfrey on Netflix's Hemlock Grove.
"We're doing an anthology show, ten hours of one story. I kind of grew up seeing television become what it is today. I remember being 15, watching Sopranos, and that major shift happened to what it is today. For writers, the TV show format is the only thing that can compete with the novel itself. You can really delve deep into characters and developments as opposed to just two hours or and hour and a half movie. I've always been intrigued by it. I especially like the miniseries format because there's a conclusion to this mystery that we've started. Some shows tend to just prolong that misery until they seem very confused to what it is in the first place. It just becomes diluted towards the end. We have something here that, it's a beginning, it's a middle, it's an end. There's a progression, huge character development for my character, I can tell you that much. He starts in one place and ends up somewhere completely different. It really is for an actor, such an amazing format to really delve deep. Two episodes is a feature film so we're essentially making five feature films here in terms of material and it's great."
"We're doing an anthology show, ten hours of one story. I kind of grew up seeing television become what it is today. I remember being 15, watching Sopranos, and that major shift happened to what it is today. For writers, the TV show format is the only thing that can compete with the novel itself. You can really delve deep into characters and developments as opposed to just two hours or and hour and a half movie. I've always been intrigued by it. I especially like the miniseries format because there's a conclusion to this mystery that we've started. Some shows tend to just prolong that misery until they seem very confused to what it is in the first place. It just becomes diluted towards the end. We have something here that, it's a beginning, it's a middle, it's an end. There's a progression, huge character development for my character, I can tell you that much. He starts in one place and ends up somewhere completely different. It really is for an actor, such an amazing format to really delve deep. Two episodes is a feature film so we're essentially making five feature films here in terms of material and it's great."
Watch the full "Castle Rock" panel here:
