Delving into the depths of Stephen King’s multiverse, viewers can uncover the origin story of Misery’s, Annie Wilkes (Lizzy Caplan) – the soon to be needle and sledgehammer-wielding psychotic nurse from hell and her daughter, Joy’s (Elsie Fisher) settlement into the mysterious and tension-filled town of Castle Rock.
We caught up with series co-creator, Dustin Thomason, and cast: Lizzy Caplan (Annie Wilkes), Elsie Fisher (Joy Wilkes), Tim Robbins (Reginald “Pop” Merrill), Paul Sparks (John “Ace” Merrill), Matthew Allen (Chris Merrill), Yusra Warsama (Dr. Nadia Omar), Barkhad Abdi (Abdi Omar) who star in the upcoming TV series Castle Rock, slated to premiere on October 23rd.
The Knockturnal: So you were approached to play Annie Wikes, and [Elsie] her daughter Joy; can you describe to me what your reaction was when you got the role?
Lizzy Caplan: “I was really intimidated by the prospect of taking on this role and that usually means that I’m gonna’ do it, because I feel like its really easy to do the safe thing or you know, kind of the boring easy roles but the ones that I think that scares me the most tend to be the most fulfilling. So, I thought ‘oh! I can’t possibly do this’, which meant of course I was gonna’ at least attempt to do it.”
The Knockturnal: Well I think you did an excellent job.
Lizzy Caplan: “Thank you – I haven’t seen it so I’ll take your word for it!”
Elsie Fisher: “I know!”
The Knockturnal: [Elsie], how did you feel?
Elsie Fisher: “Yeah, I mean, for me I was super excited because I hadn’t seen the first season of Castle Rock but, I was doing award season that year and stuff and I saw it got many accolades, and I’d never done TV or anything long-form like this before so that was really awesome to like, just have a project you stay with and really build a character. So I was so excited to come on, and I’m so glad I did.”
Lizzy Caplan: “Me too!”
The Knockturnal: You guys, I can really see the chemistry between your characters is really, really great – but circling back to what you said about maybe having some hesitation; you were playing a role that was originally given to Kathy Bates in the ’90s, can you describe that trepidation you had going into that role?
Lizzy Caplan: “Sure, I think that Kathy Bates is Annie Wilkes; she nailed it beyond, beyond, obviously – like she won an Oscar. But, to me what she did so well, because the difference between the book and the movie which have now kind of blended together so much in my mind is that in the book it’s very much Paul Sheldon’s point of view and Annie comes across as just straight-up evil a lot of the time – but what Kathy Bates brought to it in the film; I think what makes her one of the most menacing characters of all time is that she actually has this warmth and this kindness —“
Elsie Fisher: “Yeah!”
Lizzy Caplan: “And we got to play around with a lot of that, especially in our relationship — “[Annie had] kind of a wonderful bedside manner; there were just so many different facets to this woman and Kathy Bathes just, she completely paved the way! I am raising my hand now and saying, ‘I know that she is the greatest Annie Wilkes of all time’, and I’m just here for a minute dipping my toe in the ocean created by the goddess Kathy Bates.”
The Knockturnal: Well how did you feel you were able to own that role and really make it your own?
Lizzy Caplan: “Well, our story takes place before through a prequel, so you get a lot of Annie’s backstory. Again, the book and the movie, it’s so much [of] Paul’s point of view that we don’t really get to know Annie and I know just on some of the research that I’ve done that Kathy Bates kind of created her own backstory for the character, which doesn’t match up so well with the backstory that we show in ours but [it’s] open to interpretation. And so, I think all I wanted to really do is to have this version of Annie; for her to feasibly be able to become that Annie. That Annie is extremely isolated, extremely alienated from everything; our Annie has to move in the world and interact with other people so that immediately changes things anyway. You don’t really see [Annie] in the film or movie be very scared by anything, so we just put her in all these different scenarios so that it had to feel like my own, because I’ve never seen that Annie experience any of these things so, hopefully just organically it became my own thing.” (knocks on wood)
The Knockturnal: Very cool; it’s very good to see that origin story. Speaking of origin stories, throughout the series, because I was able to see the first five episodes which were really great; talk to me about that dynamic between [Elsie’s] character as a daughter with the mother because there was a struggle with [Joy] just wanting to be a regular teen, but also [trying] to just keep her mother hallucinations under control.
Elsie Fisher: “Yeah, I mean I think Joy loves her mother very dearly; but like, it is that struggle when Annie has a problem letting things go – you know (laughs), but yeah and Joy has always wanted to be this normal regular teenager and Castle Rock really presents her with that opportunity, and it’s just kind of the dynamic of going back and forth like, ‘Oh! I love you, but like I wanna’ be myself’, oh, you know all these awful things are happening and maybe I don’t know, bad stuff, good stuff, back and forth all of that. So it’s very traumatizing for her at points, but in the end, there is still something like it’s really genuine and sweet between them.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bytPaQ5I8U
