Alison Thornton is fully embracing the divided online discourse provoked by her polarizing character in Prime Video‘s Carrie.
The Vancouver native actress, who is in the midst of continued press for Mike Flanagan‘s series adaptation of Stephen King’s classic, which was released on Prime Video on Oct. 7, knows her Chris Hargensen villain role has given viewers moral whiplash.
“Some people hate Chris, some people forgive Chris, some people want to give her a hug, and some people cheer when she dies,” Thornton tells The Hollywood Reporter, laughing.
The 27-year-old actress has an array of onscreen credits already, including Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce, Dare Me and School Spirits. However, her portrayal of the tragic villain in Flanagan’s adaptation of King’s Carrie felt like a stroke of destiny. Thornton revealed that the iconic author was a “huge deal” in her household while growing up.
“My mom is the biggest Stephen King fan, and I grew up reading a lot of his books. … I had actually read Carrie twice before even auditioning,” she shares.
Despite being familiar with the story of the bullied teen with telekinetic powers, reading the script for Flanagan’s take on the horror caught the actress off guard, realizing how his expanded version added new layers of depth to the ensemble of characters originally introduced in the 1974 novel and its previous film adaptations.
Flanagan’s Carrie marks the first time the novel has been reimagined for the small screen with the cast also including Summer H. Howell and Samantha Sloyan. The role of Chris Hargensen has been portrayed by Nancy Allen, Emilie de Ravin and Portia Doubleday in previous screen versions of the book, but in Flanagan’s Carrie, viewers see a more developed Chris, and chronicling how her internal conflicts leads her to a path of tragic disaster.
Thornton has been navigating the whirlwind of attention surrounding her role at the heart of the show’s intense discourse.
“The response has been incredible. I love seeing people argue about the characters, about who’s morally wrong and who’s morally right. All the conversations around redemption and kindness versus cruelty are exactly what we wanted,” she says.
Throughout Flanagan’s eight-episode series, each of the characters are placed at the center of a complex moral debate, continually forced to choose between kindness and cruelty. As their interpersonal dynamics fray, a constant tug-of-war between power and vulnerability not only shapes the characters’ individual choices, but also profoundly impacts their ultimate journeys and tragic fates.
Thornton’s Chris journey is one that reflects a tragic spiral and fate. But the series’ choice to humanize the villain without excusing her actions was intentional, Thornton explains. “Reasons are not excuses,” she says. Though she even admits, “If I knew her, I’d want to give her a hug and also yell at her.”
In a chat with THR, Thornton reflects on the divisiveness over her character, the parallel journey of Chris and Carrie and responds to those Christine theories.
It’s been a little while since the show came out. What have you made of the response, and how are you feeling now that it’s out there for audiences to watch?
It’s so wild that the show is finally out, because we shot it over a year ago. The response has been incredible. I love seeing people argue about the characters, about who’s morally wrong and who’s morally right. All the conversations around redemption and kindness versus cruelty are exactly what we wanted. Some people hate Chris, some people forgive Chris, some people want to give her a hug, and some people cheer when she dies. (Laughs.) I love the debate around her. The conversation is really meaningful to me.
Take me back to the start. Were you familiar with the Carrie book and the other adaptations? What did you think of the story overall?
I was very familiar with Carrie going into this. Stephen King is a huge deal in my household. My mom is the biggest Stephen King fan, and I grew up reading a lot of his books. I’d seen the Brian De Palma movie and the 2013 movie, and I had actually read Carrie twice before even auditioning, so I went in thinking I knew exactly what it was going to be.
Then I read Mike [Flanagan]’s scripts, and seeing how much time we had with the characters and how three-dimensional everyone was, I was blown away. I was also a fan of Mike Flanagan, so I was over the moon to be in the Flanniverse and the Stephen King universe. The characters aren’t necessarily what I was expecting from the book, which was such a treat to play. Everyone is so layered.
In the show we get to learn Chris’s home dynamic. Her mother is no longer in the picture, and her father is there but not a loving, present figure. Can you talk about the Chris we first meet and how this family dynamic has impacted her?
The family dynamic is a huge reason for the choices Chris makes. Working with Michael Trucco and Heather Graham was a dream. One thing I thought was so important is that Chris has truly been shielded from facing any consequences her whole life. Her dad has always covered everything up for her, so I don’t think she understands what adult repercussions look like, and I don’t think she understands how much damage she can actually cause, to other people and to herself.
Working on the family dynamic and seeing Michael’s portrayal of John Hargensen, I saw just how ruthless he was. They have a winner mentality, and they view cruelty and being mean as power. There were so many moments in the scripts, and in things we found on the day, where the only time Chris feels affection from her dad is when she’s making fun of Brooklyn or being cruel to someone else. That was so interesting to me: her lack of good role models and her lack of emotional support at home. In the very first scene where we meet Chris and John, Chris doesn’t get breakfast from her dad. She ends up getting a burrito from Sue (Siena Agudong). She really doesn’t have any parental figures at home, which is tragic for her.
At school, Chris projects a strong, unfazed persona. She has popularity, power and a following, while Carrie is the complete opposite, someone who can easily become a target. The saying is hurt people hurt people. Do you think Carrie is just a bystander Chris chooses to project her hurt and anger onto, and that it could easily have been someone else? Why Carrie and why not Brooklyn?
I love that question, because I really don’t think it has anything to do with Carrie herself. As you said, it’s just bad timing for Carrie. I love that Carrie and Brooklyn look kind of similar, and that Brooklyn is off limits.
I think a lot of Chris’s reason for targeting Carrie is how vulnerable she is and also the threat of losing Sue. Carrie enters the picture, and Sue gravitates toward her and shows her all this warmth. I think Chris is really envious of that, especially since she’s losing her support system at home, and Sue has been the only parent and healthy role model Chris has ever had. When that gets threatened, Chris thinks, “I need to push this girl as far away from our friend group as possible and hopefully get Sue back.”
There’s also something interesting in Summer’s beautiful portrayal of Carrie and how optimistic she is. She’s so wholesome and genuinely kind, and people start gravitating toward her. Carrie gets more and more popular throughout the show, and I think that’s really threatening to Chris because of how she was raised. She’s been taught that you get power from making people afraid of you and being cruel. Chris has such a sinister view of the world, so seeing this girl come in and truly embody kindness, and that being enough to give her power, is so threatening to Chris’ identity. She can’t handle it. So there are a lot of reasons Chris is unaware of for why she chooses to bully Carrie, but none of them have to do with Carrie herself.
Despite being different, Carrie and Chris have more in common than they may think. Both of their parents project their own faults onto their kids, yet Carrie and Chris turn out differently. Carrie wants to escape and be free from her mom, whereas Chris internalizes that cruelty and uses it against others. Do you think Chris could ever see that similarity, that they’re two sides of the same coin?
I don’t think Chris has the perspective to see that. She’s so caught up in her own pain and her own world. But I love the parallel between them. One thing I thought was so cool in the scripts is that, as you said, they both lose their emotional support at home in the first episode. They both discover power early on: for Carrie it’s telekinesis, and for Chris it’s social media and bullying. They’re both then influenced by outside forces to do the wrong thing: for Carrie it’s Emaline (Thalia Dudek), and for Chris it’s Billy (Arthur Conti). They’re on a parallel track the whole time.
I think one of the most interesting conversations around the show is: once you discover you have that power, whatever it may be, do you use it for good or for bad? I don’t think Chris is old enough or has the maturity to see the tragedy that they could actually have been friends, that they’re quite similar and could have helped each other out. That’s such a shame.
The characters all have a choice between kindness and cruelty, yet they all seem to take the more destructive path. Chris takes the cruel path, but it doesn’t always seem solid. There are moments, like with Billy holding the rock over the freeway or wanting to hit Carrie with his car, where she shows hesitance and that there’s still a moral compass there. What did you make of her internal conflict?
I think there are many moments in the show where Chris hesitates. One of my favorites is the trench sequence at the construction site. I really don’t think Chris knows how far she’s going to take it. She’s discovering this power as she goes, and she’s being influenced by Billy, who at that point is the only person validating her and giving her any kind of attention. He likes it when she’s cruel, so she plays that up around him, especially once Sue has exited Chris’ life. Chris really needs someone to say, “Hey, you’re OK, you’re enough. All of these dark thoughts, acting on them is the wrong choice.”
I also love how many moments there are where I think Chris is about to apologize. I think she’s about to apologize in the principal’s office. I think she wants so badly to apologize when she’s alone with Carrie in the bathroom. The internal conflict she’s facing is that she wants everything to go away and go back to normal, but she’s also hearing her dad’s voice in her head, the idea that the Hargensens don’t lose, and that if she apologizes, she’s admitting defeat. Combine that with her never actually being held responsible for any of her actions, and it’s a perfect storm. She’s so stubborn that she can’t make things right, which is also very sad to me.
There’s something really scary about being at that age, where you don’t really understand the consequences yet, or how much damage you can do through cruelty. She’s facing all of that at the same time, which is unfortunate for her. It does not end well.
You mentioned how she wants to go back to normal, but there’s a new normal that she’s unwilling to accept. She has one identity crisis, which will probably be one of many she’d have in life, but it’s so tragic to her that she thinks, “Everything’s over. I can’t handle it.”
I think she really needed the promise of going to Duke and getting out of Chamberlain, getting away from her mom and her dad. She needed that so much, especially with Sue. When that falls apart, she’s just like, “Well, I don’t know what to do now. It’s done.”
You brought up the bathroom scene with Carrie. In that moment, Carrie genuinely wants to understand and seems to give Chris the chance to explain so they can move on. It could have been the moment everything changed for the better. Can you talk more about that scene?
I love that scene so much. Episode six was the last episode we shot, so we’d been building toward it the whole time. Summer and I kept calling it the real mediation, because the parents hijack the actual mediation.
The scene felt so complicated and layered to me. Carrie’s question, “Why me?” is such a fair question, and no one has really asked Chris that. It’s the only scene where Chris and Carrie are alone together, and I think it catches Chris off guard. I don’t think she’s thought about it: why, genuinely, did you do this? At that point she’s dug herself into such a deep hole that I don’t think she can process anything clearly. Carrie does get through to her for a second. Chris is actually reflecting for the first time and almost apologizes, and then at the last minute she pulls back.
I remember reading it and wanting to shake her and say, “Come on, you’re so close! You could have fixed everything.” It’s my favorite scene in the show, I think, because it’s when Chris doubles down. After that, it’s the point of no return for her.
There’s a scene where it alternates between Chris and Carrie in the car. Carrie is happy and free, allowing herself to be a normal teenager for the first time, lifting the car without even knowing it. In contrast, we see Chris completely breaking down, hiding it from Sue while Sue drives. If she could just show that part of herself, I’d imagine people would be there for her more than she thinks.
I totally agree. Chris has unfortunately been taught that vulnerability is weakness. If she could open up to the people around her and lean on Sue. … I think she could benefit from some therapy and just talking about her feelings. She’s such a product of how she was raised, which of course doesn’t justify anything she does, because she does really unforgivable things.
That scene is so interesting to me, too, because from Chris’ perspective, that was supposed to be her night, her at her most powerful, running this party. It wasn’t supposed to end with Carrie on top. Chris doesn’t really witness that, but once again it’s the parallel between them. They’re on very similar tracks. They’re two sides of the same coin, essentially.
With all the characters in the show, there’s an exploration of losing control, taking control and relinquishing control, and Chris experiences all of those. What was Chris’ relationship with control like to you, and how did it shape the path she’s on? She’s seemingly losing control and trying to take it back, but in the wrong way.
Chris has always been someone who has had control and power, just because of her family circumstances, and she loses it really quickly in the first episode. I think that’s a big reason she makes the “Carrie Red” account. It’s the only power she has. Bullying Carrie is a new kind of power she finds, essentially the only control in her life. The more followers she gets and the more people send posts to “Carrie Red,” the more she realizes she’s having a pretty large impact, and that feels good, especially since she doesn’t have power in any other part of her life at that moment. As you said, she’s grasping for these morsels of power and control, and she finds them in really destructive places.
Do you think her friendship with Sue would have been repairable? We see the moment on the “Carrie Red” social media account where Chris reveals Sue‘s big secret yet we also see Chris learn Sue is the one to betrayed her by recording her admission of being behind the social media account.
I would hope so, but I feel like the scars would have been so deep that it would have taken so much work. I think they could use years apart. They have a really co-dependent, really toxic friendship. I do think Chris addresses Sue’s betrayal by posting the photo of Sue’s pregnancy test. It’s a little bit of revenge and a cry for help at the same time. But the damage is so deep in that friendship that I think they should probably separate for a while and see who they are without each other. Chris needed support and love from other people, and she was very dependent on Sue for that. She needed other healthy friendships and role models in her life, too.
The final scene between Chris and Carrie where Chris is about to die, she attempts to apologize to Carrie. Do you think she was genuinely saying sorry in that moment, or was it an act of desperation to save herself?
I think Chris is genuinely sorry. I think of the conversation she has with Billy right before the car flips, when she looks at him and says, “What did we do?” She’s facing so much guilt and remorse, and she’s being forced to see the impact of her actions. In those final moments, she knows what’s going to happen. She knows there’s nothing she can do, and there’s no point in fighting. She just wants to make things as right as possible before she dies. So I think it’s genuine remorse.
The show ends on a cliffhanger, and there’s been a lot of online discussion and conspiracy theories about the story’s connections and where it could lead. One is that Chris’ soul possesses Billy’s car at her death and turns it into Stephen King’s famous killer car, Christine. Have you heard that? Do you have thoughts?
I’ve heard that one, and I really like it. It’s so exciting. The evil car, of course. I trust Mike Flanagan. Whatever he thinks for season two is in his hands. But I do love the conspiracy theories. I love seeing people say, “They’re wearing the same necklace! What does that mean?” People keep sending me screenshots of conspiracy theories asking, “What is this?” And I’m like, “I don’t know. I didn’t notice that either.” (Laughs.)
I do think the Christine connection makes the most sense.
I could play a car for a few hours in hair and makeup, easy! I’m so here for it!
This show’s version of Chris is one where we can humanize her and understand how she became this deeply broken person, but we can also still not excuse a single thing she does. After playing her, do you feel protective of her? What do you make of playing a character that people can be conflicted over?
She’s polarizing.I have very complicated feelings. What I was really holding on to is that reasons are not excuses. We see her reasoning, and I understand her decision-making, and she’s also making the wrong choices. When I was playing her, the only way to play her was to have so much empathy for her. If I knew her, I’d want to give her a hug and also yell at her. I feel so bad for her. I really think her death is a tragedy, and it’s a tragedy also because she’ll never be able to make things right.
My interpretation is that I would have loved to see her go to juvie, get some therapy, do community service and then actually get on a better path. I was never cheering for her to die. There are moments in the show where I’m like, “What are you doing? Please stop. This is cruel.” But, again, reasons are not excuses. And I love that she’s polarizing. It’s so fun.
I imagine things are still very Carrie-focused right now, but what are you working on, and what roles and stories are you hoping to tell? I imagine this feels like a big chapter in your career, and hopefully one of many.
I can’t say too much. I do have a movie coming out soon called And Love Knocked, but there are a few things on the horizon that I can’t share yet. Carrie was a dream project with dream collaborators: the cast, Mike Flanagan, Stephen King. It was such a dream role and such a pivotal chapter in my life, and it was a masterclass to work with everyone. Right now I’m just in Carrie world and reveling in that. We shall see!
Mike Flanagan is known for having his staple ensembles and teaming with the same actors in different projects. Is there another story he could take on that you’d love to be part of?
I would love to work with him on anything! He’s such an incredible director and a great guy, and I’d love to keep working with him. The cast of actors he works with are all so phenomenal. I keep saying I would love a Pet Sematary remake, because it’s my favorite Stephen King book, so I’m putting it out there!
