Sissy Spacek says sorry for the ‘Carrie’ tattoos
>> Sissy Spacek was in her 20s when her title role in Carrie brought her stardom and an Oscar nomination. Now, over four decades later, she has returned to the world of Stephen King with Castle Rock.
The series, which debuted on Wednesday on Hulu, is an original story set in Castle Rock, Maine, one of the author’s favourite fictional towns. It is also set within the larger King multiverse: Spacek’s character, Ruth Deaver, lives with Scott Glenn’s Alan Pangborn, whom King fans know as the hero of The Dark Half and Needful Things, two of many stories the author has set in Castle Rock over the decades. (Orange, Massachusetts, stands in for the town in the series.)
Their relationship is complicated by Ruth’s son, played by André Holland, and her dementia. The show’s creators, Sam Shaw and Dustin Thomason, framed Ruth’s story as “the horror within the horror,” a tantalising premise for an actor who already had warm feelings about King and his works, the occasional linguistic obstacle notwithstanding.
“I was doing a Maine accent and this little Southern tongue of mine just didn’t know what was going on,” she said. “So I guess I’ll get to see whether it worked.”
Spacek remains best known for her roles in films like Carrie, Coal Miner’s Daughter and In the Bedroom, but more recently she has also starred in several TV series, including Big Love and Bloodline. In a phone interview for a feature about Castle Rock, she discussed — in her native soft Southern lilt — the series, frigid bridges and the tribute she would just as soon not receive. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Q: Why were you drawn to ‘Castle Rock’? A: When I met with the two creators, Sam and Dustin, they talked to me specifically about this character and the fact that she has dementia. I was pulled in by that idea: Which is more horrible? What’s happening coming from the outside, the Stephen King kind of horror? Or what’s happening in your head?
Q: Back when you were working primarily in movies, did you ever think you’d do television?
A: Television’s changed. Now in film, it’s either very low budget films, which is great for young filmmakers, or there’s the big, hundred million dollar ones. There’s no in-between. The thing I don’t like about television is the fact that you have to wait for the scripts. That’s difficult, when you don’t know where it’s going.
Q: Did you ever know where the story was going with ‘Castle Rock’? It seems pretty twisty.
A: No, I didn’t. But I did have an idea of where things were going with Ruth. She lived in her own world, inside of the Castle Rock world. There are many things that Ruth didn’t need to know and wasn’t privy to. And so I felt like any of those things that she wasn’t privy to and didn’t need to know, I, as the actor, didn’t need to know. I just focused on what was going on in her head and in her world. Q: Have you seen the show yet?
A: The only things that I have seen are what I’m doing. There’s a point in the show when you start to bite your nails down to your elbows. You’re just a worry. The more I’ve seen, the more excited I’ve gotten.
Q: How was it returning to the Stephen King universe?
A: I adore Stephen King. I think we’re both probably indebted to each other for the experience that we had with Carrie. This show is a homage to Stephen King, and it was just fun.
Q: Although instead of Maine, it was shot mostly in Massachusetts.
A: So I got to experience some of that wonderful, famous Boston weather. Did you go up to that town of Orange?
Q: No, I was only on the soundstage.
A: Well, that was probably a good move, because it was colder than hell up there. But it was a beautiful town. Those towns up there are so beautiful, and they’re so old. But there was a moment I was standing on a bridge, and it was 8 degrees. It was nighttime, and I was doing this really intense, emotional scene, and I was thinking, why do I do this? Why did I think this was going to be fun? But it’s like childbirth; you forget those things.
Q: You’ve had a long, acclaimed career. Do you ever think about your older roles like Carrie?
A: Yeah, she’s like an old friend of mine that I knew back when. And she means a lot to so many people. Your characters do feel almost like your children — you loved them all, but differently. Maybe not all of them, but — I don’t know if that was such a good way to describe that. But yeah, I do. We’re a product of the choices we make in our lives. And so I loved the experience of Carrie. It’s vivid in my imagination. I remember it fondly.
Q: Do people still want to talk to you about it?
A: Oh yeah. Once I had a beautiful young girl, she was a teenager. She came running up to me and showed me her arm. And there was the most beautiful tattoo of Carrie, with the crown and the flowers and her prom dress. No blood. It was a beautiful tattoo. But I was horrified. Because she was a beautiful young girl that should never have gotten that tattoo. And I said to her: “Does your mother know? And does she blame me?”
That happened about 20 years ago. But then when I was in Florida shooting Bloodline, I was in a Whole Foods. And the checkout girl screamed when she saw me and pulled her pants legs up and showed me a tattoo that she had of Carrie on her shin. And it was Carrie with blood all over her. I would love to take this opportunity right now to say, please, young people across America, do not get tattoos of your favourite movie character. Buy a painting or a drawing of it instead. Oh my gosh. There are two beautiful young women out there in the world who are walking around with Carrie tattoos that I’m terribly sorry about. My apology to their parents.