Jane Levy Is Horror's Secret Weapon

Hulu's anthology series Castle Rock is packed to the brim with references and hidden allusions to the works of Stephen King, whose broad body of novels is the foundation on which the show stands. Early on, we hear stories about the town involve "The Dog" and "The Strangler," more explicitly, these pastiches extend to the casting choices. The show's entourage includes Bill Skarsgård, the de facto face of the highest grossing horror film of all time, and Sissy Spacek, who once was in a little film called Carrie.

Then there's Jane Levy, who has been a professional actor for just seven years and already has a raft of horror movie bona fides to her name. After being cast in the lead role of Mia in Fede Alvarez's brilliant Evil Dead remake, Levy has become a go-to for anyway trying to build a scary-ass movie. She re-teamed with Alvarez on the sleeper hit Don't Breathe, appeared in what, for my money, was one of the most low-key harrowing moments of Twin Peaks' revival season on Showtime, and now she's a resident of Castle Rock, a place that seems to live its own kind of horror film every day.

Jackie is a key component in the show, both hungry for and eager to dispense the sordid details of the town's shameful, disturbing past and present; a gatekeeper of what most of the town's inhabitants would like to remain hidden. Her name also just so happens to be Jackie Torrance, whose uncle, Jack Torrance, once "flipped his lid and tried to axe-murder his wife and kids in a fancy ski resort," which sounds like it would make a good movie. Born Diane, Jackie took her uncle's name just to fuck with her parents, and because it seems like nothing stays forgotten, stays dead in Castle Rock for very long.

GQ spoke with Levy about fitting into the canon of one of the greatest horror writers in history, the pros and cons of becoming a household name throughout an entire genre, and whether or not we might see Jackie again in Castle Rock's future seasons.

GQ: I've been watching a lot of Castle Rock. I love it. How did you first get involved?

Jane Levy: I got an email that said, "one hour Hulu pilot" —I don't even think it said it was based on Stephen King. No script attached, just that Andre Holland was going to star, Sam [Shaw] and Dusty [Thomason] wrote it and J.J. Abrams was producing.

Was your character written differently originally?

So it said that my character was "goth," but not in typical way. I think Jackie was actually written as a teenager, but my agents were like, "There's room. They know that you're not a teenager." I got the part, and I got to read the pilot after I got it. It hooked me when I read the pilot, it was great writing. It reminded me of Twin Peaks, which is a favorite show of mine and also a favorite show of Sam Shaw, one of the creators. I love a sinister, weird, small-town drama.

You're relatively new to the business, but you've already made a big impact in horror as a genre already, wouldn't you say?

Yeah, and It's something I sort of fell into.

I am a huge proponent of the 2013 Evil Dead remake. It's so gross.

Thanks! Yeah, when I read Evil Dead, I was working on an ABC sitcom called Suburgatory, but I read Evil Dead and I thought it was just so ridiculous and funny and just so extreme that I thought, This would be the diametrically opposite job I could take right after finishing the first season of this TV show. I really wanted that part. And then from then on, continuing to work in the horror genre hasn't been something I've been looking for necessarily, but they do come to me.

Why do you think that is, besides Fede Alvarez wanting to work with you again on Don't Breathe?

I've thought a lot about why that is. Some of it is just that it's an industry where if you're in one thing that's successful, people think about you in that way and continue to ask you to do parts like that.

But I also think that there's something about my sensibility. Nothing gets me to the movie theater quicker than horror. I like things that push buttons and push boundaries, and horror and comedy are genres that do that. I guess, I hope, there's a quality in me that is vulnerable yet strong, which is a really funny thing to say about yourself. I am a huge crybaby, but I'm also really tough. I used to be a soccer player so I have an athletic background. It's a quality a lot of final girls have.

Evil Dead was your first starring role in a movie. I imagine that was a real trial by fire, in a debut, to have the opportunity to jam your hand into a chainsaw and cut a demon version of yourself in half.

Right? And get buried alive and cut my tongue in half and barf all over someone. Yeah, it should have been a miserable experience, right? It wasn't.

Let's talk about Jackie Torrance. When I heard her name said out loud in the show, I think I gasped. She knows even her name is going to push buttons.

Yeah, I think that Jackie's M.O. is just to get the dirt or to find anything exciting happening. In a way she's like the Stephen King fans who are going to watch this show. She's like a horror fan herself; she just wants to be in the front row when the shit hits the fan.

Castle Rock, as far as I can tell, takes place after a lot of classic King stories have already happened to the town and the people in it. Jackie references her uncle trying to kill his family with an axe, but I'm curious about how much more of Jack's story Jackie actually knows.

That's a really good question. Maybe not much more. I think it's one of those family traumas that nobody really talks about. But that's like a badge of honor for her. A cool fact about her is that she had an uncle that snapped. But I don't think she knows in detail everything about what happened at the Overlook Hotel, or why.

Are you signed on for any more seasons of Castle Rock at the moment?

I am not, but I love the idea that, like in Stephen King's books, characters pop up here and there from other stories. Sam and Dusty have mentioned that they're planning on doing that with this series, and I would be more than happy to pop back in as Jackie. It sort of seems like that's her role in this town, is somebody who just pops up every once in a while.

Keep tabs.

Right. Like suddenly she's driving your taxi or she's next to you at the bar. I don't want to give anything away, but she has a tendency to show up at the right place at the right time just because she's nosy.

Or the wrong time. She's drawn to Bill Skarsgård's character in the show, too. That can only get her into trouble eventually, right? There's only so interesting things can get.

Totally. And I mean, I think she wants trouble. I think that Jackie is someone who wants to light things on fire. She's a shit starter.

Would you call yourself a King fan? Have you read a lot of his stuff?

No, actually I had only read Carrie, and then I've also read his semi-memoir book, On Writing.

Oh, man, that's such a good book.

Isn't it? I loved reading that. He's also just really an endearing person. Interesting, good, smart obviously, extremely talented... Have you read a lot of his books? Are you a Stephen King fan?

I guess so. I guess I've read maybe like a dozen or so, here and there?

A dozen or so's a lot.

He's had, like, nearly a hundred!

That's true. I haven't read much Stephen King, but since working on this project I've learned a lot about him and I think he's a really cool guy and I'll obviously read more.

How about the movies, then? Did you have the shit scared out of you by Carrie when you were little or anything like that?

I read the book and that actually scared the shit out of me more when I was in high school. I guess I wouldn't say I was scared by the movie, but titillated might be more the word. And Sissy Spacek, like you said, a legend, is one of my favorite actresses of all time and her performance in that movie is just so radical and weird and scary. Did you see the Brian De Palma documentary, De Palma? There's a part about casting her.

No, actually. I must.

There's some story, I forget the exact details, that they already had another choice for Carrie. Sissy Spacek knew De Palma through friends, and was like begging him, "You have to just see me for this part." And he was like, "Okay, sure." But it was some sort of courtesy. He already had cast the part in his mind, but then Sissy read and he was like, "Whelp! Never mind! Nobody else could ever play this part. Here you go."

I'm also a big fan of The Shining, the movie, even though we all know that Stephen King has said that he's not that big of a fan of that one... I loved the It adaptation that came out last year. I thought that the movie wasn't scary, but I'm excited that they're making the second half. The one I want to see right now is Pet Sematary.

Oh that's going to fuck you up. Are there any other King adaptations you'd want to do? It seems like the universe is open to cross-casting, with Skarsgård and Spacek involved in Castle Rock

Actually, I read a pilot by his son, Joe Hill, that I loved. I love the idea of the book that they wrote together about women. Isn't it called Sleeping Beauties?

Wasn't that with Owen King, his other son?

I guess I'm interested in all the King men.

You used the phrase "final girl" earlier, and I'm wondering how you feel about the terms like "final girl" and "scream queen." A lot of people would describe you in films like Don't Breathe as that. Do you feel tropes, or even the phrasing like that, is dated? Or are you cool with it?

I have a lot of thoughts about it. I wouldn't really know if I could compile a perfect answer for that, but actually I do think that there is something very cool about the final girl. Of course, I think that women have been exploited and women's sexuality has been exploited in horror films since the beginning, and that's a lot of what horror films are about. There's a lot that you could point out in horror films that is misogynistic and totally just like, male fantasy violence against women.

But at the same time I think that horror films have given female characters a platform that normal mainstream movies haven't necessarily, in certain ways. I think that women can be action heroes in horror films in ways that are not common in action films. That's cool! And a lot of times women in horror are presented with their worst fear and they step up to the plate.

So, I kind of like the term! I think that there's something, I don't know, culty and old school about it. I don't feel it's disrespectful. Horror fans show up for you. It's been kind of flattering in a funny way to have these strangers consider me, that I'm accepted into this world. It's so not what I expected out of my life, but I feel like I have this badge of honor.