Matthew Lillard says Mike Flanagan's upcoming Carrie TV show is not only book-accurate, but more than worth the wait.
"Carrie's brilliant. Mike Flanagan – who I worked with on Life of Chuck – he is just the single greatest force of nature in this industry," Lillard tells GamesRadar+. "We rehearsed for three weeks. He had plotted out every shot in the entire film. He had it down to the minute in terms of he amount of time it would take to shoot. He developed an app so you could see where they were in shooting. I mean, he's so prolific and profound and such a great storyteller. So that's the first thing."
Lillard plays Principal Grayle (renamed Principal Morton in the 1976 movie adaptation directed by Brian De Palma), who ends up resigning from his position after feeling like he failed Carrie White after the massacre on prom night. He's one of the very few adults in the novel who have both logical reasoning and empathy, but is ultimately unable to prevent the tragedy from happening.
The character was first originated by the late Stefan Gierasch, and meets a grisly end in the 1976 film. His ending is a bit more akin to the novel in the 2002 remake (which has a severely underrated screenplay penned by Bryan Fuller), though it seems Flanagan's Carrie (like his prior King adaptations) will follow the 1974 novel to a T. Rather than pack the 304-page book into a film, the story is told over the course of eight episodes in a miniseries format – and is part of Flanagan's new deal with Prime Video.
"The second thing is the cast is incredible. It's three different sort of sections. It's the story Carrie written by Stephen King. It's really a pure adaptation of the book [more] than the original movie was," Lillard explains. "The De Palma film is really about sort of one aspect, but there's a lot that happens in the book that's been introduced to the show. And then there's three different tiers – the teachers and the parents, and the students. The teachers and the parents are kind of the varsity level of actors, you know, old. It's just a way of calling the old actors. And then the kids...the kids are freaking brilliant."
Summer H. Howell stars as Carrie White, with Siena Agudong as Sue Snell, Alison Thornton as the impossibly evil Chris Hargensen, Josie Toah as Tina Blake, Arthur Conti as Chris's equally evil boyfriend Billy, and Joel Oulette as Tommy Ross. Samantha Sloyan, a frequent Flanagan collaborator, plays Carrie's overly religious and abusive mother Margaret, with Amber Midthunder as Rita Desjardian, the only person who manages to defend Carrie against her impossibly vicious bullies.
"They're brilliant actors. I would watch them work, and I was blown away at their ability to be honest and truthful," Lillard continues. "And we saw the first three episodes cut before we even left Vancouver, Mike had already finished and picture-locked the first three episodes, which was remarkable. But the show's great. It's really fantastic. The only thing that sucks is you have to wait a year to see it, because it's so good."
Carrie is set to hit Prime Video sometime in 2026. Lillard can be seen next in Five Nights at Freddy's 2, which will release in theaters on December 5, 2025. For more, check out our list of the most exciting upcoming movies in 2025 and beyond, or skip right to our list of movie release dates.
