“Why would I do ‘Carrie’ now?”
Samantha Sloyan says this was one of the first things writer, director and showrunner Mike Flanagan said to her when he revealed his idea to turn Stephen King’s 1974 novel of the same name into a miniseries.
Additionally, Flanagan was interested in recruiting Sloyan to play Carrie’s religious and antagonistic mother, Margaret White, unforgettably played by Piper Laurie in the film.
But, much like Carrie on prom night, Flanagan wanted to burn it all down.
“He just took everything down to its studs, and then rebuilt the structure,” Sloyan says.
What’s left is a modern tale of school bullying, with a Margaret who is both a zealot and also, thanks to Sloyan, much more human than in the past.
Sloyan often hears about these projects in their earliest days, given a personal connection: She’s been best friends with Kate Siegel, Flanagan’s wife and frequent collaborator, since their twenties.
Given her striking work as Bev, it’s easy enough to draw a straight line to Margaret, who in the original text is much more outrageous in her faith. But Sloyan sees two truly different and complicated characters.
Sloyan’s childhood was diametrically opposite to Carrie’s existence, in that she was born to two character actors who encouraged her to become engaged with the world.
“I was born into it, and being raised by character actors, you’re surrounded by really fantastic stories and all different types of people,” she says. “You might recognize them on the screen, but these aren’t people who are walking through life with celebrity having warped everything. But the lifestyle looked so scary because it was so unpredictable and insecure in so many ways.”
Samantha Sloyan as Bev Keane in “Midnight Mass.”
EIKE SCHROTER/NETFLIX
Sloyan followed in their footsteps, racking up an impressive roster of recurring roles on hit shows like “Scandal,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and even the first season of “The Pitt” (she plays the grieving mother whose son overdoses on Fentanyl).
But she’s always excited to hear about roles for Flanagan’s projects, because they often push her beyond her own expectations.
That depth and confidence allowed Sloyan to look past previous depictions of Margaret.
Despite that dark undercurrent, stories like “Carrie” are the ones that keep Sloyan energized as an actor.
