You’ll be able to’t plan for the unimaginable profession path that led Judy Greer to “The Lengthy Stroll.” With Lionsgate‘s nerve-wracking new horror film, the multi-faceted actress is now on her second Stephen King adaptation — opening in theaters September 12.
At IndieWire’s particular early screening at AMC Century Metropolis in LA, Greer was light-footed and enjoyable for a Q&A delivered to a packed home stuffed with her and King’s followers.
“He’s actually good at writing books, that man’s tremendous gifted,” Greer quipped of the legendary writer. “But when I may return and do all of it once more, I simply want I may have been within the film extra. Not as a result of I want I had a much bigger function, however simply because I liked being on set.”
In “The Lengthy Stroll,” Greer performs Ginny Garraty, an agonized mother who’s pressured to look at her son embark on an countless march designed for almost-certain demise. Additionally recognized for her stand-out horror turns in “Jawbreaker,” “Halloween” (2018), and extra, Greer is magnetic reverse Cooper Hoffman as her son and the movie‘s essential protagonist, No. 48 Raymond Garraty. Regardless of the subject material, the pair had a blast appearing collectively, and Greer is already dying so that you can see Lionsgate’s behind-the-scenes footage.
“I liked these boys,” she stated. “All of them cared a lot in regards to the film in a manner that, once I was beginning out, I felt just like the individuals I used to be working with didn’t care as a lot about appearing within the movie and the storytelling. It was actually an inspiration to look at them work.”
Revealed a decade after it was written below the pseudonym Richard Bachman, “The Lengthy Stroll” hasn’t been tailored earlier than. Directed by Francis Lawrence (“The Starvation Video games”) and written by JT Mollner (“Unusual Darling”), Lionsgate’s movie options a number of adjustments that make it a singular murals.
“He wrote the screenplay so shortly,” stated Greer, who discovered Mollner spent simply two weeks on the primary draft of “The Lengthy Stroll” earlier that day. Greer loves King’s novel however she praised Mollner’s model for various causes. The screenplay leaves out loads but it surely says simply as a lot and felt “unique” to Greer.
“I believe he stated he did two rewrites after the preliminary desk learn with the forged after which that was it,” she stated. “However that’s the enjoyable, and that’s type of the dishonest factor [with adaptations]. I can learn all this backstory and although a director or screenwriter will likely be like, ‘We’re not utilizing a number of that,’ I nonetheless use it.”
Greer liked collaborating with Lawrence, too. Final 12 months, IndieWire gave huge reward to the director for his work on Lionsgate’s “Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.” When it got here time to take “The Lengthy Stroll,” Greer stated the “Starvation Video games” filmmaker was important to making a joyful manufacturing atmosphere that has made the upcoming film an emotional sleeper cell. “The Lengthy Stroll” is constructing critical buzz forward of its launch later this month, and a few early reactions have already referred to as it the perfect Stephen King film ever made.
“[Lawrence] loves actors and for those who’re not within the trade, you may suppose, ‘Properly, after all a director would love actors!’ — however they don’t at all times love us. It’s bizarre,” Greer stated. “Generally I really feel like I’m simply in the best way and Francis shouldn’t be a kind of individuals.”
She continued, “I simply suppose that for somebody who has made motion pictures of the dimensions that he has, to nonetheless be targeted on the character and nonetheless be directing the appearing, is spectacular to me.”
Earlier than “The Lengthy Stroll,” Greer performed a misguided health club instructor attempting to assist out Chloë Grace Moretz’s “Carrie.” The actresses appeared collectively in Sony’s mixed-bag remake of the promenade queen slasher from 2013. The unique Brian de Palma film from 1976 put King on the Hollywood map, however its lesser sophomore 12 months nonetheless provides Greer a singular accomplishment.
“I’ve now been in motion pictures for each of his first novels in idea,” she defined. “This was his first ebook he’s ever written, ever, ever, ever. However the first ebook launched was ‘Carrie,’ and I used to be in that one too. He’s iconic and he writes tales which can be actually grounded. I imply, they’re horrific and a few are supernatural — however I believe what makes him so common, and what makes individuals longtime Stephen King followers, is the characters he writes.”
King has appeared again on his first novel, penned when he was simply 19 and nonetheless a pupil on the College of Maine, as being from an angrier time in his life. Requested how her perspective has shifted over her profession — from beginning out as an beginner who “wasn’t good” in highschool to offering the magnificent beating coronary heart of “The Lengthy Stroll” — Greer stated she nonetheless feels a few of that very same youthful melancholy that haunted King. And but, she’s optimistic.
“I really feel cynical, however I additionally really feel actually hopeful,” she stated. “I perceive the enterprise a lot extra and I perceive who I’m a lot extra and what I convey to one thing. So, in that sense, I’ve expanded my emotions about Hollywood, however I additionally suppose it’s darkish as a result of the enterprise is altering.”
She continued, “I’m actually attempting so arduous to go to the flicks and I really need motion pictures to nonetheless exist in theaters and I would like individuals to look at TV reveals as soon as every week once more.”
In her reside dialog with IndieWire, Greer mirrored on her text-forward appearing course of, really useful King’s nonfiction “On Writing,” and shared her ideas on being a scene stealer for greater than 30 years. In 2025, Greer’s bold as ever — and she or he’s in search of her personal starring function in a serious blockbuster.
“One thing I’ve by no means accomplished is an actual simply straight-up motion film, the place I’m operating loads,” Greer stated. “I don’t need to run loads, however I desire a lady with a barely higher physique than me to be operating loads with a wig on her head. However then I’d do the appearing components.”
Greer stated she’d wish to be in one thing like “Jason Bourne.” “However which may not be a Lionsgate movie, so I shouldn’t have stated that one,” she joked. “Like a Lionsgate motion film is my dream job.”
Learn IndieWire’s frontline report from Lionsgate’s immersive treadmill screenings of “The Lengthy Stroll” at Culver Theater in Los Angeles.
