You’ll be able to’t plan for the unbelievable 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 proficient,” 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 beloved being on set.”
In “The Lengthy Stroll,” Greer performs Ginny Garraty, an agonized mother who’s compelled to look at her son embark on an infinite march designed for almost-certain demise. Additionally identified 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 foremost 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 beloved these boys,” she mentioned. “All of them cared a lot in regards to the film in a means that, once I was beginning out, I felt just like the folks 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 beneath 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,” mentioned Greer, who realized 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 quite a bit nevertheless it says simply as a lot and felt “authentic” to Greer.
“I feel he mentioned he did two rewrites after the preliminary desk learn with the forged after which that was it,” she mentioned. “However that’s the enjoyable, and that’s form of the dishonest ingredient [with adaptations]. I can learn all this backstory and regardless that a director or screenwriter will likely be like, ‘We’re not utilizing numerous that,’ I nonetheless use it.”
Greer beloved collaborating with Lawrence, too. Final 12 months, IndieWire gave large 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 mentioned the “Starvation Video games” filmmaker was important to making a joyful manufacturing surroundings that has made the upcoming film an emotional sleeper cell. “The Lengthy Stroll” is constructing severe 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 in case you’re not within the business, you would possibly suppose, ‘Nicely, after all a director would love actors!’ — however they don’t at all times love us. It’s bizarre,” Greer mentioned. “Generally I really feel like I’m simply in the way in which and Francis isn’t a type of folks.”
She continued, “I simply suppose that for somebody who has made films of the size that he has, to nonetheless be centered on the character and nonetheless be directing the appearing, is spectacular to me.”
Earlier than “The Lengthy Stroll,” Greer performed a misguided health club trainer making an attempt 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 offers Greer a singular accomplishment.
“I’ve now been in films for each of his first novels in principle,” she defined. “This was his first e-book he’s ever written, ever, ever, ever. However the first e-book launched was ‘Carrie,’ and I used to be in that one too. He’s iconic and he writes tales which might be actually grounded. I imply, they’re horrific and a few are supernatural — however I feel what makes him so fashionable, and what makes folks longtime Stephen King followers, is the characters he writes.”
King has regarded again on his first novel, penned when he was simply 19 and nonetheless a scholar 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 novice who “wasn’t good” in highschool to offering the magnificent beating coronary heart of “The Lengthy Stroll” — Greer mentioned 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 mentioned. “I perceive the enterprise a lot extra and I perceive who I’m a lot extra and what I deliver 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 making an attempt so exhausting to go to the films and I really need films to nonetheless exist in theaters and I would like folks to look at TV reveals as soon as per week once more.”
In her stay dialog with IndieWire, Greer mirrored on her text-forward appearing course of, really helpful King’s nonfiction “On Writing,” and shared her ideas on being a scene stealer for greater than 30 years. In 2025, Greer’s formidable as ever — and he or she’s looking for her personal starring function in a significant blockbuster.
“One thing I’ve by no means carried out is an actual simply straight-up motion film, the place I’m working quite a bit,” Greer mentioned. “I don’t wish to run quite a bit, however I desire a girl with a barely higher physique than me to be working quite a bit with a wig on her head. However then I’d do the appearing elements.”
Greer mentioned she’d wish to be in one thing like “Jason Bourne.” “However that may not be a Lionsgate movie, so I shouldn’t have mentioned 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.