Mike Flanagan Knows You're Asking 'Why Make Carrie Again?' and He Has an Answer

Though he's created acclaimed horror series like Midnight Mass and shown his skill at adapting Stephen King stories multiple times with films like Gerald's Game and Doctor Sleep, Mike Flanagan completely understands the initial skepticism about yet another version of Carrie, because he shared it too.

Speaking to TV Guide, the showrunner and frequent director of the new Carrie Prime Video series recalled that when he was first offered the project, "Initially, my reaction was the same as everybody else's, which was 'Why!?'"

Stephen King's 1974 novel focuses on a high school girl raised by an abusive, religious fanatic mother, whose offbeat demeanor results in her being relentlessly bullied by classmates. But Carrie's big secret, that she has incredible telekinetic powers, ends up colliding with the actions of those tormenting her in deadly and destructive ways. After he was offered Carrie, it was Flanagan's son's impending start of high school that got him thinking about how much things have changed for teenagers since King wrote the book more than 50 years ago. "There's actually a lot more to this that could be really interesting," Flanagan said. "I learned about this case in Albany, California that was about a bullying Instagram account that basically destroyed a whole town and I thought there's something very new and vital to do with Carrie."

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A Different Kind of Carrie

Knowing Brian De Palma's 1976 Carrie movie, starring Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie, was still beloved, and that there had been multiple adaptations since, Flanagan decided to give the story a bigger overhaul than it had ever received. With Stephen King's blessing, he asked, "What if I took the thing apart and started flipping things upside down and trying to build something new out of it? Because we were talking about bullying and normalized cruelty and normalized school violence and what that does to our discourse. And then, with social media, I feel like there's a lot of new things to do that felt completely already separate from all of the other versions that had come before."

A big difference in Flanagan's version of Carrie is that Carrie White (Summer H. Howell) was raised in secret inside her home by her parents and — in the wake of being discovered by the authorities — is not only just now starting school for the very first time, but being exposed to the world at large. Flanagan was inspired by the real-life 2018 Turpin case and the abused, isolated children affected, pondering "What would it be like for one of them to come into our current society as it is [today], and have to figure it out?"

Howell admitted she too wondered why Carrie was getting yet another version when first auditioning for the title role, but then was impressed by Flanagan's updates. She described her Carrie as "optimistic and bright and kind, and just wanting to learn and get out into the world. I'm really grateful because Mike wrote it in a way where [Carrie and her mother] were isolated together, and Carrie really is just like an alien stepping out into a new realm."

For Flanagan, "Carrie has always been a character who's denied context and information; that's always been baked in. But what if it's about everything outside of her house? And then we get to experience what we've declared normal, what we've all accepted, but through the eyes of someone who's never had to process that before. Carrie turns into a mirror for us in a lot of ways. It means whereas before she could come off naive, this version of her, I don't think she can, because she's not naive. She just simply hasn't been given the information."

Margaret's on the Gram

Carrie's mother, Margaret White, is always a crucial character in the story, usually portrayed as a fanatical, domineering, and ultra-religious woman, whose treatment of Carrie is a key factor in everything going so spectacularly wrong. There is clearly plenty wrong with how Carrie was raised in the new series, but Margaret (Samantha Sloyan) also is given a major overhaul. Here, she shows genuine protectiveness and love towards her daughter, even as she's making ill-advised decisions and escalating situations in reckless ways.

Said Flanagan, "We got to take a character who is defined in every other version by fear and hatred of her daughter, and we got to render this version of her that is motivated entirely by love for her daughter and a desire to protect her, and Margaret having to take this very interesting belief system that she's cultivated within this house and venture out into the world."

As Howell referenced, Margaret was just as isolated as Carrie up until the show's start. "She's a fish out of water, but she's smart and she's curious, and she's going to use the tools at her disposal," Flanagan notes. Those tools ultimately include social media, which Flanagan said he felt "has become a weapon. It's become an ideological weapon, and Margaret is an ideological character who's looking for a platform and looking to inflict her opinions on certain people with a very specific goal, so of course she would use social media."

He knows that for old school Carrie fans, "Watching Margaret White interact with Instagram, this is one of those things where we're in completely uncharted territory. But I think it feels completely accurate to what that character would really do [in today's world]."

Sloyan agreed, remarking that when it comes to her character embracing social media, "She uses it in such a Margaret way, right? She talks to Carrie about [her late husband] Ralph saying 'You take your enemy's tactics and you use it against them.' And I think what's fun for us as an audience member is how she gets the hit of that drug and she's intoxicated by it and she falls for it in just the same way and just feeling important and feeling listened to and feeling empowered… The power of people liking her posts and creating this tiny little armor, she just gets addicted to it."

Howell was grateful for the three weeks of rehearsal they had on Carrie, saying for her and Sloyan, "We had the chance to get to know each other and build a trust [as actors] and also within our characters as well, because it is rooted from love. And so that makes it all the more terrifying when you start seeing the shifts in behavior and the power dynamics are slowly changing throughout the episodes."

Sloyan noted that in this version of Carrie, "We're seeing the betrayals of Margaret in real time, whereas in the other ones, so much damage has already been done to that relationship. Now we're seeing the cracks happen as we go, which I think is more heartbreaking as a viewer."

Expanding the World

The extended run time of eight episodes allows for deeper exploration and different takes on all of the familiar characters, including Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton), whose cruel tormenting of Carrie escalates to the pig's blood incident at the prom that famously pushes Carrie over the edge.

In this version, we get to understand Chris in a different way, seeing the home life turmoil she's going through herself, but how, unfortunately, she's taken all the wrong lessons from her abrasive father (Michael Trucco) and is aiming her anger at the most convenient target: Carrie.

Said Thornton, "Mike, from day one, told us that there are no monsters in the show, and everyone just comes from a place of pain or hurt. And the writing was so beautiful. Being able to see Chris' home life and her lack of emotional support at home really informed a lot of why she does what she does to me."

Besides her father, another terribly negative influence comes into Chris' life in the form of Billy Nolan (Arthur Conti), an older and notably dangerous guy she begins to date. Said Conti, of his dark character, "It can be cathartic to play around in that kind of evil, anarchic space. There is something fundamentally broken in him; he basically just sees other human beings as characters in a video game that he can manipulate for his own amusement and gains."

Even as Chris is cruelly manipulating her, Carrie does receive genuine kindness from classmates like Sue Snell (Siena Agudong) and Tommy Ross (Joel Oulette). Oulette feels that as opposed to those who scorn her because they see her as odd, "Tommy is really curious about her. He wants to know why she's the way she is, and wants to help her when he really thinks that she needs it."

But then there's other kids like Tina (Josie Totah), who sometimes lets her guard down, but too often goes along with whatever Chris wants. Said Totah, "I think it's so relatable playing someone who just desperately wants to fit in and doesn't know who she is, and each week is kind of trying on new personas. We kind of did that with her outfits, which is a fun thing to track. In every episode, Tina chooses a different persona."

We also see how Carrie's presence impacts the school faculty, including Rita "Miss D" Desjardin (Amber Midthunder). Midthunder appreciated portraying Miss D both clearly trying to help Carrie but also having her own frustrations, explaining "She obviously discusses 'I want to protect her,' and yet there's something about [Carrie] that she knows needs to change, and I think that that is a really interesting perspective. It seems easier to change Carrie than to ask the world around her to change, even to the things that I think we should adapt more to."

Principal Grayle (Matthew Lillard) meanwhile finds himself increasingly dealing with Margaret White and her anger at seemingly everything about what her daughter is being taught. "I think that early on, he looks at her as if you know she's a little off a rocker," Lillard said. "But I think what Mike does in a really great way is each character has a point of view, a very distinct point of view, and each point of view you can relate to. As Margaret White starts to progress through the show, her arguments are really cogent. They're really compelling. So you can never just stand up and say, 'She's out of her mind!' Everyone is advocating for what they want the most, and I think that, candidly, the teachers are at the center of it, advocating for everyone. They're trying to move through this crisis situation with as few people hurt as possible."

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The Flanagan Crew

Flanagan is known for his ever-growing troupe of recurring actors, with Lillard, Sloyan, and Trucco among those once more working with him, alongside those like Midthunder, Howell, and the other actors playing the high school kids joining the "Flanagang" for the first time. All of Carrie's cast had high praise for their showrunner and director, with Totah recalling, "Every single scene, he spoke to the whole crew and said, 'This is why we're here. These are where the characters' heads are at. This is what's happening.' That level of care and dedication is just unfortunately rare on film sets where you don't have any time."

Midthunder recalled that during their weeks of rehearsal, "We talked a lot about our characters individually. I think the expansion of this story really allows us as an audience to spend a lot of time with the characters that we know in limited capacity in the past. The past iterations have been done so beautifully, but this honors all the things that you know and love about Carrie, but it gives you something completely new. Every character in this travels so far from where they start to where they land."

Added Lillard, "It's ripped from modern headlines and I think it's going to be very relatable. But I think at the end of the day, people stay for the performances. At the center of this show is Summer Howell and she's incredible. She gives an incredible performance."

Elaborating on his title character, Flanagan observed, "She has an enormous emotional intelligence and an inherent curiosity and kindness, and she's smart, and she's eager to understand things. That version of the character I'd never seen before, and I just was so enamored by her. I wanted her to be protected from the world, and it kind of took parental anxiety I had about my own kids and transferred it over to her. It started to make me think, 'Wow, this could actually strike a chord with a lot of people.'"

Carrie Season 1 premieres Wednesday, Oct. 7 on Prime Video.