The Stand Remake Casting
It was recently announced that a new adaptation of Stephen King's The Stand is in the works. And I'm pretty excited about that, even if I'm pretty sure it's going to fall apart just like the Dark Tower adaptation did (because Universal apparently failed to realize how expensive it was going to be).
My feelings toward the original miniseries adaptation are overall positive. I think they mostly made the right choices in how to condense the story, they got most of the more important characters right, and there's some really effective imagery--the opening sequence showing all the dead people on the army base set to "Don't Fear the Reaper" is not just awesome but iconic. And I don't think having a TV budget or network standards and practices hurt it in any significant way, because the success or failure of an adaptation of this particular work depends largely upon casting, second only to having enough time to tell the story. There was some good casting in the miniseries that the new adaptation would have a hard time matching, but there were also some fucking disastrous choices, and correcting the latter without being defeated by the former is going to determine whether the remake can be better than the original.
So, here are some of my ideas about some of the more crucial or difficult-to-cast roles.
Stu Redman
Original Casting: Gary Sinise.
My Assessment: I consider Gary Sinise to be one of exactly two utterly perfect pieces of casting across the whole collection of Stephen King adaptations (the other being Fred Gwynne in Pet Sematary.) He had the right everyman charm--compelling because of his ordinariness, stoic but not fearless, quietly decent, stealthily smart, out of his depth but still game and determined. It's going to be a tough performance to match, let alone surpass.
Casting Options: As soon as I saw someone else say it, I decided Timothy Olyphant was my dream choice. He's a little tall and conventionally leading-man-esque to fit as perfectly as Sinise, but if you think more of his role in The Crazies than in Justified, I think he'd be a great choice. Alternately, there's Josh Holloway, who has the same drawbacks in larger proportion, but the same assets, as well. I would suggest that they just cast Sinise again, but he'll be too old to have a relationship with 21-year-old Frannie.
Nick Andros
Original Casting: Rob Lowe
My Assessment: I was more impressed with Lowe watching it at age 10 than I am now, but he's quite a bit more effective than you would expect, and I think some of the extent to which he isn't able to convey all the depth and complexity and utter awesomeness of Nick are problems more of medium (it's harder to get into a deaf-mute character's head on screen than in text) and of writing than anything wrong with his performance. But I think his Nick was kind of blank and bland in a way that hurt the miniseries, so there's room for improvement. Also, he was too old and too handsome.
Casting Options: Well, it would be awesome if they would cast an actual deaf person, which would eliminate a little bit of what was awkward about Lowe's performance. Either way, the role requires someone more strikingly youthful than Lowe was, as well as someone with a bit more edge, a lot more gravitas, and a greater ability to convey a character's thoughts without speaking. Nick's intelligence and precociousness and power have to leap off the screen. Some hearing actors that I think have the chops and the look include Joseph Gordon Levitt and Stark Sands. And also Aaron Paul, but I have him in mind for someone else.
Frannie Goldsmith
Original Casting: Molly Ringwald
My Assessment: Ugh. Awful. Everything about this casting choice and Ringwald's actual performance is terrible. All Frannie's intelligence and her strength and her compelling anxiety about her pregnancy were lost, and the Harold/Frannie/Stu conflict, which is actually one of my favorite things in the novel despite my distaste for love triangles, is destroyed by this characters' passivity and lack of substance in the miniseries. There's almost no way they couldn't improve on this.
Casting Options: Fran's intelligence and assertiveness and self-possession need to be as striking as Nick's, and the character has to stay compelling and sympathetic in spite of some immature and selfish behavior. Also, the casting people need to remember how young she is, without losing sense of her as a grown woman. I saw someone mention Ellen Page as an option, and it clicked for me at first, but I'm not sure she has either the maturity or the sweetness, or that she can maintain her edge when it's not so much at the forefront of the character. No one really comes to mind.
Larry Underwood
Original Casting: Adam Storke
My Assessment: I think the writing hurt Larry as a character more than the performance, really--they seemed to have decided that he and his redemption arc just weren't that important, which was a shame--but Adam Storke wasn't very good, all the same. He was appropriately abrasive, but without the vulnerability needed to balance it out. Also, I spent 10 years thinking that the same actor played Larry, Louis Creed in Pet Sematary (actually played by Dale Midkiff) and Andy McGee in Firestarter (actually played by David Keith), and it distracted the hell out of me and still does.
Casting Ideas: Larry has come to be my favorite character in the novel, actually, because he has the most satisfying arc. He really does start out as an asshole, as well as someone who has just hit rock bottom and is having to face some hard truths about himself for the first time, and is vascillating between defensiveness/denial and self-loathing. He's a fascinating, challenging character. And I want Aaron Paul to play him. He'd be pretty much perfect, except for the fact that he can't sing to save his life. Which he could get away with, honestly--we wouldn't have to actually see Larry singing "Baby, Can You Dig Your Man?" or anything else in the movie(s)--but the best Larry moment in the miniseries is Adam Storke's rendition of "Eve of Destruction," and I'd feel like we were missing out just a bit. But Aaron would be worth it.
Harold Lauder
Original Casting: Corin Nemec
My Assessment: Harold Lauder is pretty much the opposite of Parker Lewis. And it's not that I think Nemec lacks range, but putting him in glasses and covering his face with fake zits didn't make him less cute, and he just didn't seem smart enough, disturbed enough, or menacing enough.
Casting Options: I think Jonah Hill would be pretty great. Cyrus proved that he can be menacing, but I actually think Harold is a lot like Hill's Superbad character with a higher IQ: hating the world because they hate him as much as he secretly hates himself, and burying his pain in superiority and condescension and meanness. Alternately, I think PJ Ransone would be good.
Randall Flagg
Original Casting: Jamey Sheridan
My Assessment: Eh. I can't say that he struck me as being particularly well-suited to the role, other than his very creepy smile, but his performance is really good and he works well. He is maybe less attractive than I'd want, but he's fun and charismatic and cool and scary.
Casting Options: I think the charisma can be upped a bit by someone more inherently, consistently magnetic, and that would be a notable improvement. But I have no firm ideas. I'd kind of love to see Bryan Cranston tackle it; he has the ability to be disarming and disturbing at the same time. Walton Goggins came to mind, too. But I'm actually most excited by the idea of Brad Pitt in Tyler Durden-mode.
Tom Cullen
Original Casting: Bill Fagerbakke
My Assessment: I can't fault his performance, but the translation of the character from the page to the screen made me uncomfortable nonetheless, I think partly because it exposed the problematic nature of the way King tends to use mentally-handicapped people in his works, but mostly because it just made me feel weird watching a neurotypical actor have to play it. Fagerbakke played it straight, but the way it felt like an extension of the dumb guy character he normally played added a troubling comical element, anyway. And I don't think he and Lowe really clicked.
Casting Options: An actual PWD would be great. If they don't go that route, I think the film needs to put more emphasis on the moments of Tom's self-hypnosis, and on "God's Tom," and to cast someone not quite so large and so obvious--in other words, someone who needs to try harder to be believable, so there'll be more obvious thought and empathy behind the performance.
Mother Abigail
Original Casting: Ruby Dee
My Assessment: She was awesome.
Casting Options: Ruby Dee. There's kind of no one else. Which is sad. I'm kind of ashamed of myself as well as disappointed in Hollywood that I can't think of another African American woman old enough for the part, but that's how it currently stands. But, anyway, I hope the remake shows the ways in which the character is more a deconstruction of the Magical Negro trope than an example of it, because the miniseries did not.
Nadine Cross
Original Casting: Laura San Giacomo
My Assessment: Some of what didn't work about the character was the way they made her an amalgamation of Nadine and Rita, but I still don't think San Giacomo helped at all. She wasn't haunted or enigmatic enough, and she had no chemistry with Adam Storke and no believable magnetism. And she just didn't have the dramatic chops to handle the going crazy part.
Casting Options: Elizabeth Mitchell was the first viable option that came to mind. No other ideas have arisen. Mitchell can be mysterious and compelling and incredibly appealling. Nadine has to be both hateful and sympathetic, simultaneously infuriating and tragic in her damnation. I think Mitchell's work on Lost makes her a good candidate.
Glen Bateman
Original Casting: Ray Walston
My Assessment: I think he was a little bit older than I imagined the character to be, but it was a very good performance. He was appropriately warm and wry and professorial.
Casting Options: The key to the character is being able to monologue well, so the first name that came to mind was Johnathan Banks. I think he has the right kind of cynicism and weariness, if he could just downplay his obvious toughness. But the field is pretty wide open for this character. And there's little reason they couldn't cast a non-white actor in the part, as well.
Trashcan Man
Original Casting: Matt Frewer
My Assessment: Man, is this a difficult character. I think Frewer is fantastic in the part, a huge surprise and one of the saving graces of the miniseries, and the only moments where his scenes feel false are problems with direction, not performance. But it's a near-impossible balance.
Casting Options: Someone who can chew the scenery without being comical. Someone who can make the character's vulnerability as off-putting as his derangement. Someone who can make him pathetic and child-like and addled without making him seem stupid or making him sympathetic. I don't know. My brother threw out Woody Harrelson as a suggestion, and it clicked for me even though I can't confidently say that he fits the criteria. Really I just kind of want Matt Frewer back.
Lloyd Henreid
Original Casting: Miguel Ferrer
My Assessment: I love Miguel Ferrer, and I like him in this part. But I think that his intelligence and gravitas come through too well, and that kind of robs Lloyd of the pathos he has in the novel in being someone too stupid and pathetic to be good. I really feel for Lloyd in the novel even as he repulses me, and that's lost in the miniseries.
Casting Options: Someone as awesome and watchable as Miguel Ferrer, but who can play Lloyd closer to how he is in the novel. The casting is pretty wide open here, too.