The King Cast

Casting Director Jane Jenkins (r) with partner Janet Hirshenson

Happy New Year, all. Episode 23 of the podcast and the first of 2012 must begin on a sad note of condolence to the family and friends of John Dalglish. John was a leading contributor to the Stephen King Message Board and was one of Stephen King’s Constant Readers. He passed away recently, or in King-parlance “reached the clearing at the end of the path”, leaving behind a loving family and many friends both virtual and real. This episode is dedicated to his memory.

In any case, some news of Wind Through the Keyhole, a look forward to upcoming Kingcasts, and then an interview with Jane Jenkins, partner in The Casting Company.

From their site (emphasis mine):

“Since 1981, Jane Jenkins and Janet Hirshenson of The Casting Company have cast over 100 feature films, including the Academy Award winning “A Beautiful Mind” “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” “Something’s Gotta Give” ” Airforce One” “Jurassic Park” “The American President” “Apollo 13″ ” The Lost World” “A Few Good Men” “Backdraft” “Misery” “Ghost” “When Harry Met Sally” “Mystic Pizza” “Beetlejuice” “Stand By Me” “Home Alone” “The Outsiders” and more recently “Transformers” “Angels and Demons” and “The Da Vinci Code.”

Jane began her career in entertainment as an actress in New York City. She entered the casting profession while working in film production. Her first project was “On The Nickel” an independent film written, produced and starring her friend Ralph Waite. She soon began working with other casting directors, including Jennifer Shull, who would later connect her with Janet Hirshenson. 

…Today, they are established as two of the premier casting directors in the entertainment industry.” 

Jane joined me last month to talk about what casting directors do, and some of her experiences working on Stephen King — and non-Stephen King too — projects. I’ll bet you’ll have a hard time trying to imagine who the original choice for Paul Sheldon in Misery was!

Leave me a comment or drop me a line!

Here’s episode 22, with a bunch of last-minute gift ideas for the King fan, and special appearances by Marsha DeFilippo, David Squyres of the Talk Stephen King blog, and Matt Jacobs and Luanne Johnson of the SK Fancast.

Here are links to all the items we mentioned:

Glenn Chadbourne's Scary Christmas cards, which benefit the Haven Foundation

• The Official SK store, benefitting the Haven Foundation (tip of the hat to Spideyman from the Stephen King Message Board)
• Illustrator / artist Glenn Chadbourne’s site.

• Dark Tower omnibus from Marvel (thanks fushingfeef)
• The Very Fine Books listing for the “Coffin Bible” edition of “The Stand.” (thanks Srbo)

• Bev Vincent’s “Stephen King Illustrated Companion” and “Road to the Dark Tower”
• “The Stephen King Companion” and “The Stephen King Story” by George Beahm.
• Back issues of magazines with Stephen King stories included.
• Publications from Cemetery Dance

This is a bit long for a Kingcast, but I hope you’ll indulge me.

Bag of Bones (1998) is one of my favorite King novels. The story of Mike Noonan, a novelist who loses his wife Jo and discovers starnge events at their vacation home in rural Maine, is passionate, erotic, romantic, and a first-rate thriller.

The book treads some of the same ground that King later visits in Lisey’s Story (2006) — the act of creation, grief, loss, and what comes after death — but the two novels in some ways are mirror images, with Bag of Bones hinging on the death of a novelist’s wife as seen through the eyes of the novelist, and Lisey’s Story looking at the death of the novelist Scott Landon through the eyes of his wife.

A&E Network in the US has been spending a LOT of money promoting their two-night miniseries treatment of Bag of Bones, which airs December 11 and 12. The film stars Pierce Brosnan as Noonan, Annabeth Gish as his wife Jo, Melissa George as Mattie Devore, and Anika Noni Rose as Sara Tidwell, the blues singer whose name graces Noonan’s house and whose spirit remains to haunt Noonan’s soul. The miniseries was directed by Mick Garris from a script by Matt Venne.

As part of their promotion of the miniseries, A&E developed a fantastic website called “Dark Score Stories.” The site is a tremendously well-executed “photojournalism” project. It’s chock-full of Easter eggs and in-jokes that King fans will get great fun out of spotting. And A&E was also kind enough to send me a very well-produced DVD screener kit and a copy of the “Dark Score Stories” book, as well as get me an interview with Mick Garris, who (to his own incredulity) has made more films based on King than anyone else.

I was also able to speak with Annabeth Gish, who’s worked with Garris before on the miniseries treatment of Desperation. I’ve been a fan of Gish since her days on The X-Files and The West Wing, so this was far from the hardest job I’ve ever had.

So check out episode 21, which is 1:21 of audio spookiness. Hope you enjoy it, and please let me know what you think.

Episode 20 of The Kingcast wraps up the 2-parter on The Stand
. Although you don’t have to listen in order, you might want to check out my interview with Trashy himself, Matt Frewer, in episode 18.

If you don’t remember Matt, here’s a YouTube clip from the miniseries of the Trash Can Man’s greatest hits:

In any case, this time I’ve got some thoughts (about 40 minutes worth, as it turns out) about the role religious faith plays in The Stand’s 1200 pages.

From Mother Abagail to Randall Flagg to Glen Bateman to Harold Lauder, there’s a lot of meat for those who like to think about religion in this novel.

Next time, a Bag of Bones-travaganza, with interviews with Mick Garris & Annabeth Gish and my own thoughts on the miniseries (yeah, I saw it!). And if you haven’t done so yet, check out Dark Score Stories, a site set up by A&E as part of their promos. This is a GREAT piece of content, with countless Easter eggs and in-jokes that King lovers will appreciate. And a special shout-out to Lilja, who got a nice bit of promo in Dark Score Stories. So. Jealous.

I hadn’t planned on this, but thanks to Scribner getting me a review copy of 11/22/63 and a loooong travel day, I was able to read the new novel last weekend, and I wanted to quickly record my audio review of it.

In short: it’s great work by King. Possibly Bag of Bones good, and for me that’s high praise.

Take a listen, and then I’ll get back to “The Stand” next episode.

Matt Frewer as Trashcan Man

Here’s the first of a two-parter.

I was lucky enough to speak with Matt Frewer a little while ago.

Matt Frewer has had a tremendously prolific career. Since his first movie role in The Lords of Discipline in 1983, he’s racked up roles in 40 features, and 69 roles in television projects. Some may remember him as Max Headroom, Stephen King fans will undoubtely think of him first as TrashCan Man, one of the most compelling characters in Mick Garris’s 1994 miniseries treatment of The Stand.

Matt has continued to work on Stephen King projects throughout his career (Desperation, Quicksilver Highway, Riding the Bullet…) most recently in the miniseries treatment of Bag of Bones, airing on A&E in December 2011.

Here’s the interview. In the next instalment, I’ll talk a bit about how The Stand deals with issues of faith.

Here’s episode 17 of the ‘cast, featuring an interview with Lucas Bryant, who plays Sheriff Nathan Wuornos on the Showcase / Syfy show Haven.

We held onto this episode for a little while, because there was some question about support for a third season of Haven on the Canadian Showcase network. Once they announced the third season, it was time to get the interview up.

Lucas is a native of Elmira, Ontario, and studied theatre at Sheridan College in Toronto.

Enjoy the episode. And if you do, then check out Episode 15′s interview with Shawn Piller.

Kingcast news roundup anchor, Pennywise.

The biggest news of the last week had to have been the unveiling of a portion of Dr. Sleep. Truly observant King fans may have been aware that he had been considering a sequel to his 1977 novel The Shining for some time.

But when King accepted the George Mason Award as the highlight of the Fall For The Book festival in Fairfax, Virginia, he delighted the crowd with not only a great speech, but a reading from the unfinished work.

While The Kingcast was the first to bring you an audio version of the event, a much-better video version just became available on the morning of the 30th from George Mason University‘s video channel. Here it is:

Stephen King from GMU-TV on Vimeo.

The announcement of Dr. Sleep continues to work its way through the mainstream media, with more than 150 articles published about it so far. Some people are more than dubious about the idea of inserting what have become known as “psychic vampires” into the world of The Shining, but (opinionating here), the idea that children like Danny Torrance, and even the adults they grow into, are powerful tools and ripe for the exploitation of evil forces is well-established in the Kingiverse, and shouldn’t be that much of a stretch for people familiar with the work.

One fun article on Moviefone asks for casting ideas for Dr. Sleep, already working on the assumption that there will be a movie version. I suppose SK is thankful Kubrick can’t get his hands on this one…

My personal favorite quote from the evening?

Books – the most potent weapon against the assholes of the world.

Meanwhile, buzz slowly continues to grow for 11/22/63. This week,  StephenKing.com announced a fundraising event to be held on November 10 at the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. King is quoted as saying that the museum was very helpful during the research and writing of the novel, so this is a way for him to give something back. Here’s the event page, if you’re lucky enough to be in Dallas in November.

Bag of Bones completed production this week, and stars were complimentary about their Nova Scotia shooting location. Meanwhile, a little bird told me that rumours of a King cameo in the miniseries were nothing more than that.  Stay tuned to the Kingcast for some coverage of this production.

On the Stephen King Message Board, the sixth-annual collaborative Hallowe’en Short Story has begun. It’s too late to write a section — the story’s written — but you can join the board and enjoy each installment as it’s posted.

Hi all: Sorry, but something was wrong with the audio on Episode 16. Try this one instead:

Stephen King accepting the Mason Award. Photo courtesty of George Mason University photographer Alexis Glenn

Thanks to some great people, I have a live recording of the George Mason Award ceremony held at the annual Fall for the Book Festival in Fairfax, Virginia on September 23.

A social-media friend, Mickey Gomez was able to — on short notice — secure some audio gear from fellow social media friend and owner of Pixel Workshop Dave Bittner, get a crash course in how to operate it, brave flash floods on the way to Virginia from Maryland, get into the hall, meet Fall for the Book marketing director Art Taylor, get set up, and give us a recording.

Here’s the episode, which at some points sounds more like a rock concert than an author event!

Perhaps the most exciting part of the show was a sneak preview reading of Dr. Sleep, a much-rumoured but now confirmed sequel that takes up the story of Danny Torrance after the events of The Shining.

UPDATE: fixing fixed an audio problem. You may wish to reupload shortly.