by Gill Pringle
If Stephen King is notoriously hands-off in the myriad TV and film adaptations of his works, then nothing could be further from the truth with his latest project, Lisey’s Story, for which he adapted his own book into an eight-part drama series for Apple TV+.
Approaching J.J. Abrams and his Bad Robot Productions to produce the series, the genre specialist quickly enlisted Pablo Larraín (Ema, Jackie) to direct.
“When you hear King’s name, there are so many things that come to mind,” says the Chilean director. “The last 50 years of our culture have been shaped by many of his stories and not only in the horror or psychological terror space. He’s a humanist, and he’s someone who has been able to understand our humanity in a universal way. He can put ideas together in a way that we can all understand and enjoy.”
King was equally impressed by the choice of Larraín to direct: “Pablo has made this story so much better with his eye and his suggestions,” says King. “I wanted to tell the story that was in the book, but I wanted to make it better. The most important thing I changed was that in the book there are five sisters, and in the series, there are only three sisters. That, in itself, gave me the chance to compress the story. Then when Pablo came along, he also let his imaginative child come out. If people love Lisey’s Story, they’re going to love it because Pablo just directed the hell out of it.”
Both King and Larrain were delighted at the choice of Oscar-winning actress Julianne Moore to portray the title character of Lisey Landon, in what is arguably King’s most personal novel, loosely inspired by his own wife, Tabitha.
“Julianne Moore is an amazingly talented actress, so when she expressed enthusiasm for the story and the script, I was overjoyed,” says King. “I felt the same way about Clive Owen who plays Scott Landon and because he’s worked with Julianne before [Children of Men], they clicked and have great magnetism.”
“Lisey is really the heart of the story and tha’’s why having someone like Julianne is so powerful,” adds Larrain. “She has this beautiful internal world. She’s not only a very particular beauty, but she’s someone who can hold an enormous amount of mystery. I think that when you work with materials like this – mystery, suspense, fantasy, thriller – they’re all mixed and combined in this explosion of memories. Someone like Julianne can really hold it, pull it together and absorb it all to deliver something really particular and calming.”
Lisey’s Story takes viewers into the world of Lisey Landon who, two years after the death of her husband Scott – a celebrated author of magical surrealism – is still grieving, although she knows it is high time to begin clearing out his office, where every paper and unpublished manuscript echoes back to the man she loved.
Still in an emotionally and psychologically fragile state, she doesn’t have the will to consider the repeated requests by university Professor Roger Dashmiel (Ron Cephas Jones) to access Scott’s works. In addition, Lisey and her sister Darla (Jennifer Jason Leigh) are also contending with the deteriorating mental health of their eldest sister, Amanda (Joan Allen), who shared a close, but secret, relationship with Scott.
Haunted by visions and facing long repressed realities about Scott, Lisey finds herself on a “bool hunt,” initiated by her late husband. Somewhat like a supernatural scavenger hunt, she is presented with riddles to solve and clues to discover in order to find the peace that eludes her. With one foot in this world, and the other in Scott’s otherworld – a place of healing waters and stalking beasts – Lisey struggles to keep it together while also being harassed by Jim Dooley (Dane DeHaan), one of Scott’s dangerously rabid fans as she navigates the shadowy realm between sanity and imagination run amok.
A complex character to portray, Moore says, “Stephen King has crafted such a beautiful story. There was so much that happened in Lisey’s marriage that she refused to acknowledge. First of all, she’s completely grief-stricken, so in a sense she’s in shock and not revisiting those moments in her life. However, when her sister needs help, she begins to remember things that happened to her and starts to realise that there’s a way that she can help her sister. That was one of the things that I found so beautiful, it’s a story about love and relationships and how we save each other.”
The actress immediately spoke to King after reading his screenplay, recalling, “we talked about what I thought was special about it, how it’s an examination of a long-term relationship – and in so many romantic stories, they have a theme about courtship and how am I going to meet this person and at the end of the story, they get married and that’s the happy ending but, in fact, in a relationship that’s just the beginning and especially in a long one, you bear witness to each other’s lives and you create a world together and create a life together and that’s what I was so intrigued with by this story.
“And, of course, because it’s Stephen King, there are secret worlds and it’s actually something that is manifested in a way which is kind of wonderful.
“Pablo and I would often talk about this and how he’s a master story structurer and a master of narrative. And we would ask how he handled all those strands of story. He’s really amazing. I felt lucky that I had people to help me navigate my way through it because I was trying to be inside this story but, oh my gosh, he’s this mastermind and he’s created this very complicated narrative and these different strands of story. It’s so fascinating, especially having been in the middle of it and pulling it apart, and now watching it come together. It’s a revelation,” Moore tells us.
Having first met Larrain when he produced Sebastian Lelio’s 2018 dramedy, Gloria Bell in which she starred, Moore continues, “Pablo’s an incredible creative mind. He’s a visionary, and he did things to this material that were so surprising. Pablo has real insight into people; into behaviour; into emotion; into reality. He understands that something can be real and relatable but also deeply felt. I think he has a sensitivity and intelligence that you see in all his films, and it’s not just with women, but I think with men. I’m thinking about Neruda and No, both spectacular.
“His movies are emotional, personal, political, they’re very human and, for me, he felt like an ideal choice for this because I knew he was able to ground this material and make it very meaningful but, obviously, it has a supernatural element. But Pablo was able to maintain that tone of this being important to these people and being real and affecting them. I would not have gotten through it without him. I just think he’s magnificent,” says Moore.
For King, some of his favourite scenes to write in Lisey’s Story were the ones featuring the trio of sisters and also the ones he loved to see take shape once the actors inhabited these characters.
“I tried to capture some of the sibling rivalry dynamic,” explains the author. “I think it’s funny and touching that the way we are as children with our brothers and sisters lasts into adulthood. Siblings have a tendency to continue to squabble, even as grown-ups, and I wanted to get as much of that into the story as I could. There are a lot of scenes between Julianne, Jennifer, and Joan where they catch that feeling of real sisterhood.”
No stranger to King’s work, Allen had previously starred in 2014 thriller, A Good Marriage, based on one of the author’s novellas, “but it was very different from this,” she says. “It’s about a marriage and the woman doesn’t realise she’s married to a serial killer, and it was really, straight out a domestic story.
“Lisey’s Story is also a domestic story, but has all these other elements as well. So, I got to meet Stephen at that time and spend a bit of time with him. I loved The Shining and Carrie and he’s had an impact on my life and my reading and my film viewing,” says the actress who was attracted to the character of Lisey’s older sister, Amanda, because it felt like such a departure from any characters she’s previously played.
“My character is someone who needs people to take care of her. She really needs a lot of help and so that was something that was very appealing to me.”
Of the rapport between the three actresses, Allen adds, “We really enjoyed each other and enjoyed the idiosyncrasies and differences between each character and how they mirror the love/hate moments that all families have.”
“I think Joan is a bit of a genius,” Larraín says of working with Allen. “Amanda is the one who really understands both worlds. She can experience what Scott created in a very particular way and can navigate this reality with this world of fiction and with this fantasy. Joan has a very particular skill which is called truth. When you have an actor who can make everything believable, it elevates everything. Having her on the set was a gift.”
Of the connection between Amanda and Scott, Allen suggests that it comes from the fact that they both know what it’s like to live with a dark side. “I think they’re both fragile emotionally. They experience life in a pretty intense way and sometimes they need to check out in order to survive,” explains Allen. “When things don’t go well, it can really throw them off, send them into a tizzy and into another world. I think they understand each other on that level, in a way that Lisey probably can’t quite understand because she’s more stable,” she says.
As the middle sister, Darla, in this impressive trio of actress sisters, Jennifer Jason Leigh says: “Darla has grit. She can be whiny and critical but she’s a rock when you need her, and her humour is always within reach.
“She’s the classic middle child and has done much of the heavy lifting in this triad which has led to a lot of unresolved issues with her sisters. She sees herself as the grounded realist. She isn’t spiritual and doesn’t believe in mysticism and during the course of the series, Darla’s steadfast views on everything from Lisey and Amanda to heaven and earth and basic reality, get shattered. But the bonds with her sisters deepen and grow.”
The trio of sisters on screen, quickly began to take shape off screen too, as they filmed in Upstate New York. “I felt like Julianne, Joan and I could have been sisters by the end of week two, and that’s pretty rare,” says Leigh.
“It was exceptionally easy, and I think we all really liked one another immediately and Pablo made us all feel like exactly who we were meant to be, meaning that he didn’t judge us or our characters, and that opened the door to all these great conversations. It was just effortless. And I think we’re like-minded people, so there was a joy in working with these actresses who I admire and like so much. Even though we were doing such dark material, there was a lot of levity in the work,” she adds.
Allen agrees, “You dive in and do your big thing and then, while they’re setting up for the next shot, we were able to talk about some wonderful restaurant that we’d been to a few days before or what our children were doing.
“I think, just temperamentally, we really felt extremely comfortable and happy around each other, and that all then threads through when you’re back on camera and makes things richer and communication easier and made us try things, feeling a great sense of support and just working with people at the top of their profession.”
Echoing Allen’s sentiments, Leigh adds, “Pablo makes everyone feel you are who you are and that is exactly who you should be. This makes for a very open and accepting environment. His kindness, his attention to detail and Julianne’s genuine joy and energy is enlightening to be around.”
Lisey’s Story is released on Apple TV + on June 4
