HORROR AND JOY
Elsie Fisher’s new normal underscores Season 2 of ‘Castle Rock’
SEASON 2 of Hulu’s horror anthology “Castle Rock” will reveal the past life of one of Stephen King’s most infamous villains: Annie Wilkes.
The central character in King’s 1987 novel “Misery,” Wilkes is a former nurse and obsessive fan who kidnaps and terrorizes her favorite author. She was played by Kathy Bates in the 1990 film adaptation of “Misery,” for which Bates won an Oscar.
Premiering Wednesday on Hulu, the second season of “Castle Rock” introduces a younger Annie before the events of “Misery,” when she’s a pill-stealing nurse (played by Lizzy Caplan, “Masters of Sex”) who lives a nomadic life with her daughter, Joy (Elsie Fisher, “Eighth Grade”). “Joy and Annie have some turmoil going on for sure. They’ve got problems,” says Fisher, 16. “But deep down their relationship is super-loving, and Lizzy is such a delightful person [that] she made it easy — and it made the hard stuff even more emotional.”
While it’s not required to watch Season 1 of “Castle Rock” before diving into Season 2, the series is set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine, where spookiness is afoot. Although it’s not a direct adaptation of any specific King work, it weaves in characters (such as Wilkes) and locations (such as Shawshank State Penitentiary) from several different King stories.
It doesn’t take long for the show to veer into murder and mayhem, once Annie and Joy find themselves in Castle Rock after a car crash. Despite having a mom who doesn’t have a firm grasp on sanity, Joy is a relatively normal teen girl. She begins the series wanting to stay in Castle Rock and make friends, while her mother isn’t so sure about putting down roots.
“A lot of the other cast members — especially Lizzy — went back and re-read the books the characters came from,” says Fisher. “But since Joy is a new character, I purposefully kind of stayed away from re-reading Stephen King’s work. I feel like she has an innocence about her you don’t see in a lot of Stephen King characters. I think the beauty of my character is she’s a normal teenager. It kind of shows how the town itself can mess people up.”
Insecure teen girls have become something of a specialty for Fisher, who rose to fame (and earned a Golden Globe nod) last year for “Eighth Grade,” a coming-of-age movie about a socially awkward teen.
“I think we have so many teenage girls [in pop culture] that are vulnerable, but in a sort of marketable way,” says Fisher. “And it’s something they can just fix. Like the nerdy girl with glasses, and she takes them off and lets down her hair — and oh my god she’s so perfect now!
“I like the characters I portray because I feel like their insecurities and problems are part of who they are —and not something that can just be fixed,” she says. “[‘Eighth Grade’ protagonist] Kayla struggles with anxiety and social media addiction. Joy struggles with living a crazy life on the road, not really knowing how to interact with other people.
“I think it’s really special to portray teen girl characters like that, who are multifaceted and have some depth.”