Trailer: Stephen King Presents The Stand (CBS All Access)
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A postapocalyptic world beset by a global plague, the victims of which find themselves drawn either to good or to evil? Yup, that’s right: It’s CBS All Access’s new adaptation of Stephen King’s novel The Stand. The miniseries’ latest trailer stars Whoopi Goldberg as Mother Abagail Freemantle, an elderly Boulder, Colorado, resident tasked with psychically calling the survivors of the Captain Trips virus to join her side in the battle against Randall Flagg, an avatar of the Antichrist himself. You’d think the side of good would be a no-brainer, but Alexander Skarsgård makes for a convincing charismatic leader for those lost souls drawn to his headquarters in Las Vegas. In this new trailer, Jovan Adepo and Odessa Young play two survivors who come to Mother Abigail’s Boulder Free Zone, where they are greeted by James Marsden, who’s very good at being that guy who instills trust until he doesn’t. The good guys and bad dudes square off when The Stand premieres on CBS All Access on December 17, and, according to the streaming network, “will close with a new coda written by the famed author himself.” Compare and contrast to the new trailer, above, the teaser from the 2020 MTV VMAs, below, which had 100 percent less creepy, slow, ominous Bob Marley.
This looks good.
Why are they redoing this? The original was good. They need to do proper dark tower series, then link Flagg in that bitch if they really want to show a bad guy.
Yes it was, but I'm thinking the special effects this time around will be a whole lot better.
They need to come with more than better special effects
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'The Stand' reboot creeped out cast with its 2020 similarities
The Stand reboot's "dark side" cast led by Alexander Skarsgård as a 'sexy Trump' speak out about the show's villainous characters, and reveal three new photos.
Alexander Skarsgård plays Randall Flagg like a 'sexy Trump' in The Stand reboot
The Stand reboot's 'dark side' cast speaks out about the show's more villainous characters — and reveals three new photos.
By James Hibberd
December 07, 2020 at 12:11 PM EST
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CREDIT: ROBERT FALCONER/CBS
The Stand (2020 series)
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- TV Show
- CBS All Access
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A devastating pandemic. A divided America. Two sides facing off. One group’s leader is older, measured, and calm. The other is charismatic, punishes disloyalty, and holds ego-boosting rallies.
Stephen King wrote his best-selling post-apocalyptic novel The Stand in 1978, yet the tale has so much eerie present-day resonance that the similarities even creeped out the writers and cast of the new CBS All Access limited series, which wrapped filming just three days before COVID-19 shut down productions worldwide in March.
“I got spooked,” says Nat Wolff, who plays Lloyd Henreid, a henchman for the story’s supernatural supervillain Randall Flagg (True Blood’s Alexander Skarsgård). “Suddenly everybody was saying, ‘Oh, [COVID -19] is just like the flu’ [like in the show], and I’m reading about prisoners in Italy lighting toilet paper on fire to get attention – I had just shot a scene where I was doing that. I went into panic mode."
Showrunner Benjamin Cavell would prefer to emphasize that The Stand, which was last adapted for television by ABC in 1994, isn’t just about a pandemic. While a killer virus (dubbed “Captain Tripps”) does wipe out 99.4 percent of the world’s population, that’s only part of the story. “Captain Tripps is the mechanism by which the world gets emptied out so that King can do his Lord of the Rings in the United States and set up a walk to Mordor," Cavell notes.
And King's version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy hellscape is Las Vegas, which is reborn as a morality-free “New Vegas” commanded by Flagg. The city stands in contrast to Boulder, Colo., where a group of “good” characters are led by the angelic Mother Abigail (Whoopi Goldberg), along with noble Texan Stu Redman (James Marsden), troubled music star Larry Underwood (Jovan Adepo), sociologist Glen Bateman (Greg Kinnear) and others.
CREDIT: ROBERT FALCONER/CBS
Until now, little has been disclosed about the show’s version of the dark side characters, though recently EW revealed that King’s crazed pyromaniac Trashcan Man would be played by Erza Miller (Fantastic Beasts 3). “Trash is the underestimated and misinterpreted amongst us; the divine genius concealed beneath apparent mental illness and personal dysfunction,” Miller wrote in an email from the Fantastic Beasts 3 set. “The world hinges on people like Trashcan Man — mad artists and depraved engineers, constantly overlooked in how pivotal they ultimately can be.”
Another Warner Bros. franchise star, Aquaman’s Amber Heard, tackles the crucial role of Nadine Cross, a schoolteacher with a dark destiny. “She’s one of the most nuanced of King’s female characters and not an easy part,” says Heard, a fan of King's work who says she had wanted to play the role for years. “She owns and uses her sexuality, but that’s just part of her repertoire, not something that defines her. She also represents for me a kind of a balance between someone who is a villain and a victim."
But the most seductive character is Flagg himself, portrayed by Skarsgård as an über-bro of demonic masculinity. He’s fond of holding raucous rallies, gladiatorial competitions, and public crucifixions of traitors. “He’s sort of sexy Trump,” says Fiona Dourif (The Purge), who plays Rat Woman, a former showgirl.
CREDIT: CBS
“It’s a bit terrifying when you're with hundreds of extras chanting insane profanities at Alexander Skarsgard lording over us as Randall Flagg,” adds Katherine McNamara, who plays Flagg loyalist Julie Lawry as "a lost soul and erratic Tinkerbell of the apocalypse."
Producers added an additional Trump-ian touch to their version of Flagg, by having the character put his own branded mark on Vegas monuments. "We fell in love with the idea that Flagg would want to essentially block out any logos – and Vegas is obviously a place with a lot of logos – but that he would want to block out any branding that's not him with a Flagg symbol," Cavell says.
Rally swagger aside, Skarsgård surprised producers with his otherwise calm and quiet take on Flagg, a role many actors would have instinctively “gone big” with. “He’s able to be so still and quiet, which was a brilliant choice and not what any of us expected,” Cavell says.
“Flagg's such a formidable opponent, I decided to focus on his vulnerability,” Skarsgård says. “He needs adulation and accolades from his sycophants, and that fuels his ego. That’s interesting because he shouldn’t care about tiny humans at all but still craves their devotion.” Or as Wolff puts it: Skarsgård “uses every ounce of his gigantic Swedish beauty.”
CREDIT: ROBERT FALCONER/CBS
The Vegas side of The Stand provides some of the show’s most tense action but is also a meditation on the ethical responsibilities of a society. In Flagg’s hedonistic world, it becomes clear that limits are needed for survival — or humanity is destined to make the same mistakes that led to the deadly pandemic all over again.
“The freedom to ‘do whatever you want’ has a nice quality to it,” Dourif says. “The problem is, that doesn’t really work.”
Wait, we're still talking about The Stand, right?
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By James Hibberd December 17, 2020 at 07:52 PM EST
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THE STAND
CREDIT: ROBERT FALCONER/CBS
Fans of Stephen King's novel The Stand noticed a major difference in how the iconic tale is being told in Thursday's premiere of the new CBS All Access adaptation: The sprawling narrative is being told out of order rather than in the usual linear fashion. In a storytelling style that evokes ABC's Lost, The Stand focuses its first few episodes on various characters who ended up in the Boulder Free Zone and then flashes back to show how they got there.
Even before the premiere, some TV critics chided the decision as "draining the story's inexorable gravity and tension," or saying it "robs this version of all narrative momentum," or that it's "making this Stand more confusing."
We asked showrunner Benjamin Cavell about the dramatic departure from the book, particularly whether it risks making scenes less suspenseful if the viewer already knows which characters make it to Boulder.
"I feel like an audience is savvy enough at this point [to follow along]," Cavell says. "I doubt people would have thought that James Marsden was going to die due to Captain Tripps and not be with us for the whole series. It's a completely valid question, I just don't know if that's the juice of the early part of the series. It's not so much about whether the characters are going to die, but rather: What is the horror that's going to befall them? And how are they going figure out how to push back against that evil?"
Cavell added that he also didn't want to spend the first few episodes focused on the pandemic, though said this was always part of the original plan — not something that was changed in the show due to COVID-19.
"Captain Tripps is not The Stand," Cavell said. "Having time run completely linearly as it does the book would mean making people sit through three episodes of the world dying before we got to the meat of our story. For us, it's about the rebuilding and the struggle between Randall Flagg and Mother Abigail and the question that all the characters have to ask themselves, which is: If you got the chance to push the reset button on human civilization, how would you build it? I think we were all starting to – reluctantly – be willing to consider the possibility that maybe those things aren't as stable as we had come to believe, that maybe we need to start thinking about ideas like: Is [society] structured correctly? Is it built in the best way, or are there other systems? It's about these fundamental questions: What does the individual owe to society and what does the society owe the individual and what do human beings owe one another?"
Ezra Miller reveals his wild top-secret role in The Stand
Exclusive interview and first look photos of Miller as you've never seen him before.
By James Hibberd November 18, 2020 at 10:32 AM EST
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The Stand
CREDIT: CBS ALL ACCESS
Fantastic Beasts star Ezra Miller has a big and secret role in The Stand, and EW has your first look.
The Justice League actor will play Trashcan Man, a pivotal character from Stephen King’s 1978 post-apocalyptic novel.
The casting details have been kept under wraps until now. Take a look Miller’s dramatic transformation above.
The Stand is about a global pandemic that kills more than 99 percent of the population and leaves two groups of survivors to battle for the soul of America. Trash is an unstable pyromaniac who joins a group of survivors in "New Vegas" led by the demonic Randall Flagg (Alexander Skarsgard).
“It’s so different from any way that anyone has seen Erza before, and he's so committed to it,” says The Stand showrunner Benjamin Cavell. “He’s a huge fan of the book and had fallen in love with this character and wanted to play it for a long time. On our first call, he described Trash as ‘the embodiment of pyromania.’ The only thing this guy was capable of, and the only area in life he was comfortable, were with the explosives and instruments of fire and destruction.”
Here’s a look at Trashcan Man in action:
The Stand
CREDIT: CBS ALL ACCESS
“He wears basically no clothes except for his extensive tactical gear,” Cavell adds. “So he just kind of in underwear and combat boots … the character has to be right on the edge of over-the-top. But no matter how strangely he’s behaving there’s always this Ezra Miller soul as a twinkle coming through. I can’t say enough about how brilliant he is in it.”
"What excites me is the deception of behavior and appearances," Miller wrote in an email from the Fantastic Beasts 3 set where he's reprising his role as Credence Barebone. "Trash is the underestimated and misinterpreted amongst us."
The outfit, by and by, was Miller’s inspiration.
"'Fireproof underwear' were two of the first words out of my mouth in the first conceptual meeting,” Miller wrote. “I was very interested in working directly with the wardrobe department in creating a look based entirely on the practical demands of the characters pyromania. Trash wears nothing but what is necessary to craft incendiaries, ignite them, and get as close to the flames as possible — in order to revel in the fire.”
The reveal that Miller is playing Trashcan Man follows months of speculation that goth rocker Marilyn Mason was secretly in the role. It turns out, those rumors did have some basis in reality, but for a different character.
“We were talking to [Manson] early on about playing The Kid, who drives Trashcan Man to Vegas,” Cavell reveals. The showrunner noted he was initially excited to include The Kid because he’s a colorful character from King’s extended version of The Stand who wasn’t in the previous 1994 miniseries adaptation of the material. But during the writing process, Cavell realized – as presumably did King when he completed his first edition of the book – there just wasn’t enough of a reason to have the character in the story. “We thought we were going to be able to restore the character of The Kid, but there really isn’t a lot of reason for The Kid to exist."
In the show, a Boulder-based group of largely "good" people is led by the angelic Mother Abagail (Whoopi Goldberg) and includes James Marsden as Texas everyman Stu Redman, Odessa Young as the heroic Frannie Goldsmith, Jovan Adepo as troubled musician Larry Underwood, Amber Heard as the mysterious Nadine Cross, and Owen Teague as the toxic incel Harold Lauder.
Filling out the cast is Henry Zaga as Nick Andros, Brad William Henke as Tom Cullen, Irene Bedard as Ray Bretner, Nat Wolff as Lloyd Henreid, Eion Bailey as Weizak, Heather Graham as Rita Blakemoor, Katherine McNamara as Julie Lawry, Fiona Dourif as Rat Woman, Natalie Martinez as Dayna Jurgens, Hamish Linklater as Dr. Jim Ellis, Daniel Sunjata as Cobb, and Greg Kinnear as Glen Bateman.
The limited series premieres on CBS All Access on Thursday, Dec. 17.
Exclusive interview and first look photos of Miller as you've never seen him before.
By James Hibberd November 18, 2020 at 10:32 AM EST
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The Stand
CREDIT: CBS ALL ACCESS
Fantastic Beasts star Ezra Miller has a big and secret role in The Stand, and EW has your first look.
The Justice League actor will play Trashcan Man, a pivotal character from Stephen King’s 1978 post-apocalyptic novel.
The casting details have been kept under wraps until now. Take a look Miller’s dramatic transformation above.
The Stand is about a global pandemic that kills more than 99 percent of the population and leaves two groups of survivors to battle for the soul of America. Trash is an unstable pyromaniac who joins a group of survivors in "New Vegas" led by the demonic Randall Flagg (Alexander Skarsgard).
“It’s so different from any way that anyone has seen Erza before, and he's so committed to it,” says The Stand showrunner Benjamin Cavell. “He’s a huge fan of the book and had fallen in love with this character and wanted to play it for a long time. On our first call, he described Trash as ‘the embodiment of pyromania.’ The only thing this guy was capable of, and the only area in life he was comfortable, were with the explosives and instruments of fire and destruction.”
Here’s a look at Trashcan Man in action:
The Stand
CREDIT: CBS ALL ACCESS
“He wears basically no clothes except for his extensive tactical gear,” Cavell adds. “So he just kind of in underwear and combat boots … the character has to be right on the edge of over-the-top. But no matter how strangely he’s behaving there’s always this Ezra Miller soul as a twinkle coming through. I can’t say enough about how brilliant he is in it.”
"What excites me is the deception of behavior and appearances," Miller wrote in an email from the Fantastic Beasts 3 set where he's reprising his role as Credence Barebone. "Trash is the underestimated and misinterpreted amongst us."
The outfit, by and by, was Miller’s inspiration.
"'Fireproof underwear' were two of the first words out of my mouth in the first conceptual meeting,” Miller wrote. “I was very interested in working directly with the wardrobe department in creating a look based entirely on the practical demands of the characters pyromania. Trash wears nothing but what is necessary to craft incendiaries, ignite them, and get as close to the flames as possible — in order to revel in the fire.”
The reveal that Miller is playing Trashcan Man follows months of speculation that goth rocker Marilyn Mason was secretly in the role. It turns out, those rumors did have some basis in reality, but for a different character.
“We were talking to [Manson] early on about playing The Kid, who drives Trashcan Man to Vegas,” Cavell reveals. The showrunner noted he was initially excited to include The Kid because he’s a colorful character from King’s extended version of The Stand who wasn’t in the previous 1994 miniseries adaptation of the material. But during the writing process, Cavell realized – as presumably did King when he completed his first edition of the book – there just wasn’t enough of a reason to have the character in the story. “We thought we were going to be able to restore the character of The Kid, but there really isn’t a lot of reason for The Kid to exist."
In the show, a Boulder-based group of largely "good" people is led by the angelic Mother Abagail (Whoopi Goldberg) and includes James Marsden as Texas everyman Stu Redman, Odessa Young as the heroic Frannie Goldsmith, Jovan Adepo as troubled musician Larry Underwood, Amber Heard as the mysterious Nadine Cross, and Owen Teague as the toxic incel Harold Lauder.
Filling out the cast is Henry Zaga as Nick Andros, Brad William Henke as Tom Cullen, Irene Bedard as Ray Bretner, Nat Wolff as Lloyd Henreid, Eion Bailey as Weizak, Heather Graham as Rita Blakemoor, Katherine McNamara as Julie Lawry, Fiona Dourif as Rat Woman, Natalie Martinez as Dayna Jurgens, Hamish Linklater as Dr. Jim Ellis, Daniel Sunjata as Cobb, and Greg Kinnear as Glen Bateman.
The limited series premieres on CBS All Access on Thursday, Dec. 17.
'The Stand' director Josh Boone clarifies that Marilyn Manson rumor
<em>The Stand</em> director Josh Boone clarifies that Marilyn Manson rumor
The Stand director Josh Boone clarifies that Marilyn Manson rumor
By James Hibberd
November 24, 2020 at 10:46 AM EST
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CREDIT: MAURICIO SANTANA/GETTY IMAGES
The director of the new version of Stephen King's The Stand is looking to set the record straight on that Marilyn Manson rumor.
The goth rocker has been rumored to be secretly a part of the CBS All Access limited series for months, perhaps in the role of the pyromaniac Trashcan Man. Then after an EW report last week that Fantastic Beasts actor Ezra Miller was cast in the role of Trash, rumors continued that Manson must have shot footage for another role, The Kid, and was cut out of the production.
“Just to clarify, Marilyn Manson and I had long-discussed him taking on the role of The Kid in The Stand," Josh Boone, who directed the premiere and finale, wrote in an email. "He and the great Shooter Jennings even recorded a killer cover of The Doors song, 'The End,' that ultimately proved too expensive to use. The show was made on a very tight budget and some of the dreams we had went to the wayside. The Kid was another casualty. When Manson wasn't able to make it work schedule-wise, the storyline was ultimately excised and never shot, which is for the best, as no one could have slayed that role like Manson would have. Hope to work with him in the future."
The Kid is a character from King's extended version of his 1978 post-apocalyptic novel. The character is a pure psychopathic who drives a classic hot rod and has a fanatical love of Coors beer. The character isn't essential to the story, however, as his narrative purpose is simply helping drive Trashcan Man to Las Vegas.
"We thought we were going to be able to restore the character of The Kid, but there really isn’t a lot of reason for The Kid to exist," showrunner Benjamin Cavell previously told EW.
In the show, a plague kills 99.4 percent of humanity, leaving thousands of struggling survivors scattered across the United States. A Boulder-based group of largely "good" people is led by the angelic Mother Abagail (Whoopi Goldberg) while a Vegas team is led by the demonic Randall Flagg (Alexander Skarsgard).
The cast also includes James Marsden as Texas everyman Stu Redman, Odessa Young as the heroic Frannie Goldsmith, Jovan Adepo as troubled musician Larry Underwood, Amber Heard as the mysterious Nadine Cross, and Owen Teague as the bitter Harold Lauder.
Filling out the cast is Henry Zaga as Nick Andros, Brad William Henke as Tom Cullen, Irene Bedard as Ray Bretner, Nat Wolff as Lloyd Henreid, Eion Bailey as Weizak, Heather Graham as Rita Blakemoor, Katherine McNamara as Julie Lawry, Fiona Dourif as Rat Woman, Natalie Martinez as Dayna Jurgens, Hamish Linklater as Dr. Jim Ellis, Daniel Sunjata as Cobb, and Greg Kinnear as Glen Bateman.
The limited series premieres on CBS All Access on Thursday, Dec. 17.
The Stand (2020 miniseries) - Wikipedia
‘The Stand’ Review: Stephen King’s Pandemic Story Hits TV Again (Published 2020)
A mini-series from CBS All Access adapts the sprawling novel about opposing camps of survivors in a post-apocalyptic America.
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And isn’t that just about always the case with Stephen King adaptations, particularly on TV? Maybe creators assume that what the King audience wants isn’t adaptation but transcription. Or maybe, with rare exceptions — Brian De Palma and “Carrie,” Stanley Kubrick and “The Shining” — filmmakers with their own distinctive styles avoid the books because they don’t want to make what will most likely be called a Stephen King movie.
Stephen King Has Thoughts About Stephen King TV Shows
Dec. 14, 2020
This new version of “The Stand” (a four-episode mini-series written by King came out on ABC in 1994) was spearheaded by Josh Boone, who directed “The New Mutants,” one of the few big-studio popcorn movies to open in theaters during the pandemic. It’s a reasonably skilled and unobjectionable job of transcription and compression, stutter-stepping among time lines to keep track of King’s manifold plot strands and characters.
The cast is large, evocative of a golden age of mini-series when you never knew who might show up in one. In the early episodes (six were available for review) we get the luxury of five minutes of J.K. Simmons, as a general presiding over the bioweapons facility from which the virus escapes. Lasting slightly longer are Heather Graham as a wealthy, suddenly widowed New Yorker and Hamish Linklater as a government epidemiologist, reprising his harried-company-man role from “Legion.”
The main cast is led, capably, by James Marsden (“Dead to Me”) and Jovan Adepo as Stu and Larry, leaders of the peaceful camp in Boulder; Whoopi Goldberg plays the centenarian Mother Abagail, who drew them there by infiltrating their dreams. On the other side of the moral equation, Alexander Skarsgard is an insufficiently menacing Randall Flagg, the Vegas-based demon determined to destroy the Boulder group. (He isn’t helped by the cheesiness of the sets the production devised for Flagg’s own sessions of dream-walking.)
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If you’re looking for American-roots mythology on a large scale, there are other options available — Starz’s “American Gods,” for instance, and in the post-apocalyptic category, AMC’s “Walking Dead.” Both have their drawbacks, but “American Gods” gives you wild things to look at, and “The Walking Dead,” for all the aimlessness of its recent seasons, can still throw a good scare into you. “The Stand” doesn’t accomplish either of those through six episodes.
The faithful may want to hang around until the finale, which King wrote, but as Stu tells himself as he heads to Las Vegas to confront Flagg in the novel, it might be a fool’s errand.
CBS’ ‘The Stand’ Series Faces Boycott for Casting Hearing Actor in Deaf Role
“It is time for industry professionals to create opportunities for Deaf talent,” members of Hollywood’s Deaf community write in a statement
Margeaux Sippell and Tim Baysinger | December 17, 2020 @ 1:19 PMLast Updated: December 17, 2020 @ 3:03 PM
James Minchin/CBS
Members of Hollywood’s Deaf community are boycotting “The Stand” after a hearing actor was cast to play a Deaf character in the CBS All Access limited series “The Stand.”
On Thursday, Dec. 17 — the day the series based on Stephen King’s 1978 novel premiered — a statement was posted to Twitter signed by 70 Deaf professionals who protested the show’s lack of Deaf representation after hearing actor Henry Zaga was picked to play Deaf-mute character Nick Andros.
Dubbed “We Stand Against The Stand,” the statement asserts that “not one Deaf professional actor was called in to audition for the role,” and pledges not to “endorse, watch, or support” the miniseries.
Also Read:'The Stand': Where Does the Term 'Captain Trips' Come From?
Zaga discussed playing a character with disabilities with TheWrap last week, prior to the statement that was released Thursday.
“All we can do is play the character as respectfully and as honorably as possible by doing all the homework we can, by putting our hearts into it, and truly trying to understand how that situation would really play out,” Zaga told TheWrap.
“I went through a year of [learning American Sign Language] every single day, for over two hours a day,” he added. “It’s tough work, but it’s also like, if you think it’s available within your heart, you know, to portray this character, you better do a good job with it.”
A person with knowledge of the situation said that CBS All Access is meeting with the group that released the statement later today.
Also Read:How 'The Stand' Depicts Stephen King's Fictional Pandemic Amid a Real One
The “We Stand Against the Stand” statement also adds: “At the time of diversity and inclusion, this cycle of misrepresentation and unequal or non-existent employment opportunities for Deaf professionals in the entertainment industry, both in front of and behind the camera, must end. This has been happening for decades; enough is enough!”
Among the signatories are actors Antoinette Abbamonte (“The New Normal,” “Curb Your Entusiasm”), James Caverly (“Chicago Med,” “A Bennett Song Holiday”) Dickie Hearts (“Tales of the City,” “Grace & Frankie”), Andrew Morrill (stage productions of “Waiting for Godot,” “Alice in Wonderland”), and director Jules Dameron (“Reverse Polarity”), and executive producer and TV writer Jade Bryan.
Deaf model, reality TV star and “Deaf U” executive producer Nyle DiMarco spoke out against the show’s casting back in 2019, tweeting, “Nick Andros is DEAF in #TheStand and is being played by a hearing actor @henryzaga. Hollywood takes pride in diversity to ensure representation & authenticity.., BUT CONTINUES TO EXCLUDE people with disabilities.”
“It is time for industry professionals to create opportunities for Deaf talent,” members of Hollywood’s Deaf community write in a statement
Margeaux Sippell and Tim Baysinger | December 17, 2020 @ 1:19 PMLast Updated: December 17, 2020 @ 3:03 PM
James Minchin/CBS
Members of Hollywood’s Deaf community are boycotting “The Stand” after a hearing actor was cast to play a Deaf character in the CBS All Access limited series “The Stand.”
On Thursday, Dec. 17 — the day the series based on Stephen King’s 1978 novel premiered — a statement was posted to Twitter signed by 70 Deaf professionals who protested the show’s lack of Deaf representation after hearing actor Henry Zaga was picked to play Deaf-mute character Nick Andros.
Dubbed “We Stand Against The Stand,” the statement asserts that “not one Deaf professional actor was called in to audition for the role,” and pledges not to “endorse, watch, or support” the miniseries.
Also Read:'The Stand': Where Does the Term 'Captain Trips' Come From?
Zaga discussed playing a character with disabilities with TheWrap last week, prior to the statement that was released Thursday.
“All we can do is play the character as respectfully and as honorably as possible by doing all the homework we can, by putting our hearts into it, and truly trying to understand how that situation would really play out,” Zaga told TheWrap.
“I went through a year of [learning American Sign Language] every single day, for over two hours a day,” he added. “It’s tough work, but it’s also like, if you think it’s available within your heart, you know, to portray this character, you better do a good job with it.”
A person with knowledge of the situation said that CBS All Access is meeting with the group that released the statement later today.
Also Read:How 'The Stand' Depicts Stephen King's Fictional Pandemic Amid a Real One
The “We Stand Against the Stand” statement also adds: “At the time of diversity and inclusion, this cycle of misrepresentation and unequal or non-existent employment opportunities for Deaf professionals in the entertainment industry, both in front of and behind the camera, must end. This has been happening for decades; enough is enough!”
Among the signatories are actors Antoinette Abbamonte (“The New Normal,” “Curb Your Entusiasm”), James Caverly (“Chicago Med,” “A Bennett Song Holiday”) Dickie Hearts (“Tales of the City,” “Grace & Frankie”), Andrew Morrill (stage productions of “Waiting for Godot,” “Alice in Wonderland”), and director Jules Dameron (“Reverse Polarity”), and executive producer and TV writer Jade Bryan.
Deaf model, reality TV star and “Deaf U” executive producer Nyle DiMarco spoke out against the show’s casting back in 2019, tweeting, “Nick Andros is DEAF in #TheStand and is being played by a hearing actor @henryzaga. Hollywood takes pride in diversity to ensure representation & authenticity.., BUT CONTINUES TO EXCLUDE people with disabilities.”
"The Stand" is barely alive enough to capture this year's "end of the world as we know it" vibe
The update of Stephen King's good versus evil showdown is better the 1994 version but still isn't great
By MELANIE MCFARLAND
DECEMBER 18, 2020 12:53AM (UTC)
The Stand (Robert Falconer/CBS)
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"The Stand," Stephen King's epic journey of 1,152 pages, has enthralled millions. This is proven in the fact that back in the day millions of commuters enthusiastically carted around paperback versions of this doorstop around with them on public transportation, on walks and on trips. Read it and you'll get it: once you're well inside of the story, it is hard to put it down and walk away.
The same can't be said of subsequent attempts to bring it to screen, first in 1994 on ABC and again in 2020 on CBS All Access. But then, that's a common feature among TV adaptations of King's work. The best are watchable due to outstanding components as opposed to the work as a whole; HBO's "The Outsider" comes to mind. Similarly I have no qualms with Hulu's recent adaptation of "11.22.63." The lesser of them are . . . disappointing, if not complete jokes, like ABC's "Rose Red."
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The new nine-episode version of "The Stand" capitalizes on some aspects of its '90s predecessor that made its existence memorable if not its substance, mainly its top-tier cast. James Marsden, likable in just about everything he does, plays Stu Redman, the prototypical King antagonist. Which is to say, he's small town gentleman from good stock who finds himself at the center of disaster.
This one is entirely manmade and nicknamed "Captain Trips," a super-lethal strain of influenza developed as a bioweapon that escapes and quickly spreads. Some seven billion people drown in a sea of green mucus and swollen throats, with very few facial tissues in sight. Exactly what viewers want to sit through during the height of an actual pandemic, am I right?
At first Redman is taken into custody and examined by military scientists. Inevitably the virus breaches the facility and Redman is released and left to make his own fate. Or . . . can he? Supernatural forces hailing from the sides of light and darkness call Stu and scores of others to strongholds in Colorado, where the "good" guys gather around 108-year-old holy prophet Mother Abigail (Whoopi Goldberg), and Las Vegas, home of debauchery, killing pits, strippers and endless champagne brunches courtesy of Randall Flagg (Alexander Skarsgård), who may or may not be Satan.
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As you may conclude upon reading those celebrity names, the casting of "The Stand" defies criticism. One should expert nothing less from an adaptation whose previous version starred Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee and Rob Lowe.
The new version casts a combination of known faces and up-and-comers and enacts a few gender-switches. In the place of the novel's memorably named Rat Man, we have a Rat . . . queen! Not dark but beautiful and terrible as the . . . nah, she's just Rat Woman now, and played by Fiona Dourif.
Jovan Adepo as the tortured pop star on the good guy team, Larry Underwood, is a more inspired choice, as is the decision to cast Amber Heard as Nadine Cross, making her a good bit more vampish than the novel's version. Greg Kinnear further ennobles the place as Glen Bateman, a retired professor who had the good sense to stock lots of potato chips, caviar and smokables in case of apocalypse. And the list of names goes on, including Heather Graham as Rita Blakemoor and Owen Teague as moody incel Harold Lauder, giving us a creepy energy that's a complete about-face from his sensitive 19-year-old suitor in HBO's "Mrs. Fletcher."
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A person doesn't have to be familiar with these actors to appreciate what they bring to "The Stand" (and actually, the most affecting performance comes from Henry Zaga, playing Mother Abigail's deaf-mute champion Nick Andros), but over the long run it helps if only to appreciate the aptness of the casting director's choices here.
There may be no better or less problematic representative of good will and common sense that Goldberg, a figure synonymous with keeping "The View" tethered to sanity on any given day. Skarsgård will forever be associated with the brooding vampire noble Eric Northman on "True Blood" and Nicole Kidman's abusive husband Perry on "Big Little Lies." His Randall Flagg vibrates on the same level, and because of them we're primed to understand his character's seductiveness and brace ourselves for blithe acts of lethality.
Advertisement:
In reading this you may get a sense of this adaptation's downside and its eventual unraveling: forging a connection with the characters carries the series to a point, but it only takes a few episodes to realize that there isn't much to build toward in the lead-up to the story's inevitable confrontation between good and evil.
King envisioned "The Stand" in part as an epic on par with J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, and on the page the story lives up to its promise. Nevertheless, the simplicity of its odyssey is masked by the author's extensive development of a slew of character backstories. Such devotion to detail facilitated our connection to more than two dozen characters, heightening our response to their suffering and triumphs. But it also sacrificed its narrative momentum at times.
Onscreen this plays out as a bunch of survivors played by a raft of talented people taking a long time to get to the point of it all and making unnecessarily dunderheaded mistakes as they flail about. This also describes "The Walking Dead" during the energetically moribund season on Hershel Greene's farm, but at least that scenario the exciting (and also gooey) threat of zombie hordes shambling around in the woods.
Advertisement:
Flagg is a menace because he's the devil, and has a nasty habit of attacking people with murders of angry crows or snarling wolves. This is scary to a point but about five episodes in you'll be hankering for the story to get on with the nuclear showdown already – and that's after we've gotten an eyeful of the skin-sational sex-and-violence festival that is Flagg's Vegas outpost.
I recognize that despite all of this, there are enough King fans around whose faith cannot be shaken and who will hungrily devour "The Stand" because of these highlights, cosmetic though they may be. Who am I to begrudge anyone for seeking out joy in the midst of a pandemic even if that joy starts with a slimier, sweatier depiction of another pandemic? Besides, even those who aren't convinced maybe curious to see how the new ending King has written for this version pans out.
Otherwise "The Stand" functions as a reminder that sometimes the greatest blessing the creators of a novel's TV adaptation can bestow upon fans is to diverge from the source material in a way that makes it spellbinding to watch, maintaining enough of its elements to capture the essence of the story's greatness.
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"The Lord of the Rings" not only survived Peter Jackson's interpretation, it thrived off of the films' popularity. King famously had issues with the artistic license Stanley Kubrick took in his interpretation of "The Shining," but that took nothing away from either the novel or the film's iconic stature. Someday someone will have the creative bravery and skill to pare down "The Stand" into a solidly watchable made-for-TV effort. Hopefully we won't be 108 by the time that happens.
The update of Stephen King's good versus evil showdown is better the 1994 version but still isn't great
By MELANIE MCFARLAND
DECEMBER 18, 2020 12:53AM (UTC)
The Stand (Robert Falconer/CBS)
1
comments
"The Stand," Stephen King's epic journey of 1,152 pages, has enthralled millions. This is proven in the fact that back in the day millions of commuters enthusiastically carted around paperback versions of this doorstop around with them on public transportation, on walks and on trips. Read it and you'll get it: once you're well inside of the story, it is hard to put it down and walk away.
The same can't be said of subsequent attempts to bring it to screen, first in 1994 on ABC and again in 2020 on CBS All Access. But then, that's a common feature among TV adaptations of King's work. The best are watchable due to outstanding components as opposed to the work as a whole; HBO's "The Outsider" comes to mind. Similarly I have no qualms with Hulu's recent adaptation of "11.22.63." The lesser of them are . . . disappointing, if not complete jokes, like ABC's "Rose Red."
Advertisement:
The new nine-episode version of "The Stand" capitalizes on some aspects of its '90s predecessor that made its existence memorable if not its substance, mainly its top-tier cast. James Marsden, likable in just about everything he does, plays Stu Redman, the prototypical King antagonist. Which is to say, he's small town gentleman from good stock who finds himself at the center of disaster.
This one is entirely manmade and nicknamed "Captain Trips," a super-lethal strain of influenza developed as a bioweapon that escapes and quickly spreads. Some seven billion people drown in a sea of green mucus and swollen throats, with very few facial tissues in sight. Exactly what viewers want to sit through during the height of an actual pandemic, am I right?
At first Redman is taken into custody and examined by military scientists. Inevitably the virus breaches the facility and Redman is released and left to make his own fate. Or . . . can he? Supernatural forces hailing from the sides of light and darkness call Stu and scores of others to strongholds in Colorado, where the "good" guys gather around 108-year-old holy prophet Mother Abigail (Whoopi Goldberg), and Las Vegas, home of debauchery, killing pits, strippers and endless champagne brunches courtesy of Randall Flagg (Alexander Skarsgård), who may or may not be Satan.
Advertisement:
Five good things that happened in 2020
00:00/00:00
As you may conclude upon reading those celebrity names, the casting of "The Stand" defies criticism. One should expert nothing less from an adaptation whose previous version starred Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee and Rob Lowe.
The new version casts a combination of known faces and up-and-comers and enacts a few gender-switches. In the place of the novel's memorably named Rat Man, we have a Rat . . . queen! Not dark but beautiful and terrible as the . . . nah, she's just Rat Woman now, and played by Fiona Dourif.
Jovan Adepo as the tortured pop star on the good guy team, Larry Underwood, is a more inspired choice, as is the decision to cast Amber Heard as Nadine Cross, making her a good bit more vampish than the novel's version. Greg Kinnear further ennobles the place as Glen Bateman, a retired professor who had the good sense to stock lots of potato chips, caviar and smokables in case of apocalypse. And the list of names goes on, including Heather Graham as Rita Blakemoor and Owen Teague as moody incel Harold Lauder, giving us a creepy energy that's a complete about-face from his sensitive 19-year-old suitor in HBO's "Mrs. Fletcher."
Advertisement:
A person doesn't have to be familiar with these actors to appreciate what they bring to "The Stand" (and actually, the most affecting performance comes from Henry Zaga, playing Mother Abigail's deaf-mute champion Nick Andros), but over the long run it helps if only to appreciate the aptness of the casting director's choices here.
There may be no better or less problematic representative of good will and common sense that Goldberg, a figure synonymous with keeping "The View" tethered to sanity on any given day. Skarsgård will forever be associated with the brooding vampire noble Eric Northman on "True Blood" and Nicole Kidman's abusive husband Perry on "Big Little Lies." His Randall Flagg vibrates on the same level, and because of them we're primed to understand his character's seductiveness and brace ourselves for blithe acts of lethality.
Advertisement:
In reading this you may get a sense of this adaptation's downside and its eventual unraveling: forging a connection with the characters carries the series to a point, but it only takes a few episodes to realize that there isn't much to build toward in the lead-up to the story's inevitable confrontation between good and evil.
King envisioned "The Stand" in part as an epic on par with J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, and on the page the story lives up to its promise. Nevertheless, the simplicity of its odyssey is masked by the author's extensive development of a slew of character backstories. Such devotion to detail facilitated our connection to more than two dozen characters, heightening our response to their suffering and triumphs. But it also sacrificed its narrative momentum at times.
Onscreen this plays out as a bunch of survivors played by a raft of talented people taking a long time to get to the point of it all and making unnecessarily dunderheaded mistakes as they flail about. This also describes "The Walking Dead" during the energetically moribund season on Hershel Greene's farm, but at least that scenario the exciting (and also gooey) threat of zombie hordes shambling around in the woods.
Advertisement:
Flagg is a menace because he's the devil, and has a nasty habit of attacking people with murders of angry crows or snarling wolves. This is scary to a point but about five episodes in you'll be hankering for the story to get on with the nuclear showdown already – and that's after we've gotten an eyeful of the skin-sational sex-and-violence festival that is Flagg's Vegas outpost.
I recognize that despite all of this, there are enough King fans around whose faith cannot be shaken and who will hungrily devour "The Stand" because of these highlights, cosmetic though they may be. Who am I to begrudge anyone for seeking out joy in the midst of a pandemic even if that joy starts with a slimier, sweatier depiction of another pandemic? Besides, even those who aren't convinced maybe curious to see how the new ending King has written for this version pans out.
Otherwise "The Stand" functions as a reminder that sometimes the greatest blessing the creators of a novel's TV adaptation can bestow upon fans is to diverge from the source material in a way that makes it spellbinding to watch, maintaining enough of its elements to capture the essence of the story's greatness.
Advertisement:
SPONSORED BY AUDIBLE PLUS
Listen to thousands of included titles
With Audible Plus, stream or download select audiobooks, podcasts, and originals without limit.
SEE MORE →
"The Lord of the Rings" not only survived Peter Jackson's interpretation, it thrived off of the films' popularity. King famously had issues with the artistic license Stanley Kubrick took in his interpretation of "The Shining," but that took nothing away from either the novel or the film's iconic stature. Someday someone will have the creative bravery and skill to pare down "The Stand" into a solidly watchable made-for-TV effort. Hopefully we won't be 108 by the time that happens.
Star wars the dark side of the force on earth
