Mike Flanagan‘s upcoming adaptation of Carrie may be based on Stephen King‘s iconic debut novel, but Matthew Lillard found inspiration for his character somewhere much closer to home. While the new Prime Video series remains rooted in King’s story, its cast has repeatedly emphasized that it also explores issues that feel especially relevant today.
During an interview for Carrie at San Diego Comic-Con conducted by Collider’sPerri Nemiroff, Lillard explained that he didn’t spend much time looking at the source material when developing his performance as the school’s principal. Instead, he drew from two decades of watching his own children navigate the modern education system, shaping a character caught in the middle of students, parents, and teachers trying to make it through an increasingly difficult environment. When asked how the series updates Carrie‘s themes of bullying for the modern era, Lillard admitted that King’s novel wasn’t his primary guide when approaching Principal Grayle.
“I didn’t really rely on the source material that well. I reread the book, but it was in the middle of shooting. For me, it was really about trying to represent what teachers are suffering through right now in the education landscape that we’re living in.”
Collider Exclusive · Horror Survival Quiz Which Horror Villain Do You Have the Best Chance of Surviving? Jason Voorhees · Michael Myers · Freddy Krueger · Pennywise · Chucky
Five killers. Five completely different ways to die — if you’re not smart enough, fast enough, or self-aware enough to avoid it. Only one of them is the villain your particular set of instincts gives you a fighting chance against. Eight questions will figure out which one.
🏕️Jason
🔪Michael
💤Freddy
🎈Pennywise
🪆Chucky
01
Something feels wrong. You can’t explain it — you just know. What do you do? First instincts are the difference between the survivor and the first act casualty.
02
Where are you most likely to find yourself when things go wrong? Setting is everything in horror. Where you are determines which rules apply.
03
What is your most reliable survival asset? Every survivor has a quality the villain didn’t account for. What’s yours?
04
What kind of fear is hardest for you to fight through? Knowing your weakness is the first step to not dying because of it.
05
You’re with a group when things start going wrong. What’s your role? Horror movies are brutally clear about who survives group situations and who doesn’t.
06
What’s the horror movie mistake you’re most likely to make? Honest self-assessment is a survival skill. Denial is not.
07
What’s your best weapon against something that can’t be stopped by conventional means? Every horror villain has a weakness. The survivors are always the ones who find it.
08
It’s the final scene. You’re the last one standing. How did you make it? The final survivor always has a reason. What’s yours?
Your Survival Odds Have Been Calculated Your Best Chance Is Against…
Your instincts, your strengths, and your particular way of thinking under pressure point to one villain you actually have a fighting chance against. Everyone else — good luck.
Camp Crystal Lake · Friday the 13th
Jason Voorhees
Jason is relentless, but he is also predictable — and that is the gap you would exploit.
He moves in straight lines toward his target. He doesn’t strategise, doesn’t adapt, doesn’t outsmart. He simply pursues.
Your ability to keep moving, use the environment, and resist the panic that freezes most victims gives you a genuine edge.
The Crystal Lake survivors were always the ones who stopped running in circles and started thinking about terrain, water, and distance.
You think like that. Which means Jason, for all his indestructibility, would face someone who simply refused to be where he expected.
Haddonfield, Illinois · Halloween
Michael Myers
Michael watches before he moves. He is patient, methodical, and almost impossible to detect — until it’s too late for anyone who isn’t paying close enough attention.
But you are paying attention. You notice the shape in the window, the car parked slightly wrong, the silence where there should be sound.
Michael’s power lies in the invisibility of ordinary suburbia — the fact that nothing ever looks wrong until it already is.
Your spatial awareness and instinct to map every room, every exit, and every shadow before you need them is precisely the quality Laurie Strode had.
You are not a victim waiting to happen. You are someone who already suspects something is wrong — and acts on it.
Elm Street · A Nightmare on Elm Street
Freddy Krueger
Freddy wins by getting inside your head — using your own fears, your own memories, your own subconscious as weapons against you. That strategy requires a target who can be destabilised.
You are harder to destabilise than most. You’ve faced uncomfortable truths about yourself and you haven’t looked away.
The survivors on Elm Street were always the ones who understood what was happening and chose to face it rather than flee from it.
Freddy’s greatest weakness is that his power evaporates in the presence of someone who refuses to give him the fear he feeds on.
Your psychological resilience — the ability to stay grounded when reality itself becomes unreliable — is exactly the quality that keeps you alive here.
Derry, Maine · It
Pennywise
Pennywise is ancient, shapeshifting, and feeds on terror — but it has one critical vulnerability: it cannot function against someone who genuinely stops being afraid of it.
The Losers Club didn’t survive because they were braver than everyone else. They survived because they faced their fears together, and faced them honestly.
You ask the questions others avoid. You look directly at what frightens you rather than turning away.
That directness — the refusal to let fear fester in the dark — is Pennywise’s worst nightmare.
It chose the wrong target when it chose you. You are exactly the kind of person whose fear tastes like nothing at all.
Chicago · Child’s Play
Chucky
Chucky’s greatest advantage is that nobody takes him seriously until it’s already too late. He exploits the gap between how something looks and what it actually is.
You don’t have that gap. You take threats seriously regardless of how they present — and you never make the mistake of underestimating something because of its size or appearance.
Chucky relies on surprise, on the delay between recognition and response. You close that delay faster than almost anyone.
Your instinct to treat every unfamiliar thing with appropriate scepticism — rather than dismissing it because it seems absurd — is the exact quality that keeps you breathing.
Against Chucky, not laughing is already winning. You are very good at not laughing.
Matthew Lillard Based His ‘Carrie’ Principal on Today’s Schools
carrieImage via Prime Video
Lillard said becoming a parent changed the way he approached the role. Having watched his three children grow up in today’s school system, he wanted to portray a principal trying to support everyone involved rather than simply acting as another authority figure. “I think that in this moment, my job as the principal is to try to salve the landscape around, and that’s the parents and the teachers and the students. There’s this chaos, and I’m sitting in the middle of this storm and trying to make sure everyone wins.”
He went on to explain that Carrie‘s central story of feeling like an outsider continues to resonate because so many people today identify with that experience. Rather than viewing the series as simply a horror story about bullying, Lillard sees it as a reflection of the isolation many people feel in modern life. Co-star Amber Midthunder echoed that perspective, describing her character as someone caught between the students’ experiences and the institution she works within. She explained that Miss Desjardin wants young people to feel understood while also wrestling with the limitations of the system around her.
“I think my character’s in a position where she’s sort of the bridge of the gap between the experience of the students and wanting to really understand what they’re actually going through… and then sort of have to be a part of this institution that you don’t necessarily always agree with.”
Midthunder added that even though she isn’t far removed from her own school years, she already finds herself struggling to understand what younger generations are experiencing online and in classrooms today. For her, that rapid pace of change is one of the reasons Flanagan’s new adaptation feels so timely.
Check back with Collider for more San Diego Comic-Con news throughout the weekend.
