A character’s villainy is always just a matter of perspective, as an antagonist is typically of the mind that they are justified in all of their actions, while the protagonist also believes they’re doing the right thing. In the case of the latest adaptation of Stephen King’s Firestarter, Gloria Reuben’s Captain Hollister is acting on behalf of the government to obtain an immensely powerful asset, though in this story, that asset is a young girl. While Hollister believes she’s doing what’s right for her country, her ultimate goal would separate the young Charlie from her only family, surely calling Hollister’s morals into question. Firestarter is in theaters and on Peacock now.
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The film is described, “For more than a decade, parents Andy (Zac Efron; Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile; The Greatest Showman) and Vicky (Sydney Lemmon; Fear the Walking Dead, Succession) have been on the run, desperate to hide their daughter Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armstrong; American Horror Story: Double Feature, The Tomorrow War) from a shadowy federal agency that wants to harness her unprecedented gift for creating fire into a weapon of mass destruction. Andy has taught Charlie how to defuse her power, which is triggered by anger or pain. But as Charlie turns 11, the fire becomes harder and harder to control. After an incident reveals the family’s location, a mysterious operative (Michael Greyeyes; Wild Indian, Rutherford Falls) is deployed to hunt down the family and seize Charlie once and for all. Charlie has other plans.”
ComicBook.com caught up with Reuben to talk her morally questionable character, developing an unseen character dynamic, and a possible return for her Cloak & Dagger role.
ComicBook.com: Do you have a particular favorite Stephen King story or movie? Or do you remember what your first introduction to Stephen King was?
Gloria Reuben: I’ll never forget it, my first introduction to Stephen King. My first introduction to Stephen King was reading the book The Shining. I couldn’t sleep for, I don’t know, a month or something. And I love winter. See, my dream has always been to go to a great place in the middle of nowhere in the winter for months and it is snowing and there’s nobody else around. Oh no, hell no, that dream was shattered after reading that book.
So yeah, I’m a big Stephen King fan, always have been, and this is … No joke, it’s not just cool, it’s an honor to be in this remake of such an iconic story, and to be in this film that really honors the original in a couple of fundamental ways yet at the same time, just elevates it to a whole new dimension. Multidimensional characters have been unearthed a lot more and a lot more mystery. And the suspense is amazing and the tension is huge and the horror aspect, which is my favorite. It’s not chainsaws, it’s really psychological on the human level. I love it. I love this film. I love it.
A lot of Stephen King stories exist in a sort of shared universe with connections to other stories and secret backstories. When it came to developing your backstory that we don’t necessarily see in the movie, were you given a lot of freedom from [director] Keith [Thomas] and [writer] Scott [Teems] or was it a pretty strict thing that we just didn’t necessarily see?
No, no, it was totally, there was a whole bunch of freedom there. I just want to touch on what you just said about there’s a certain framework that Stephen always uses. For me, it’s the fundamental thing, and the thing about family. To me, that’s the kernel of all of his stories, the majority of ones that I know … Everything from The Shining to Firestarter and everything in between. Cap Hollister was, when I read the script, I was thrilled. Again, I had seen the original, so, of course, Martin Sheen was awesome in that, but needless to say, on the page, there was so much space, there was so much mystery about Cap. It’s not written about where she’s from, how she got to where she is, why she’s doing what she’s doing, what her family life is like, none of that
So I was like, “Great, here’s what I think.” And Keith and I had talked about it, about some ideas and just, “How does she walk into the room when she doesn’t get her way?” And I think this is a fundamental thing for all of us, and it’s a great way to start diving into the possibility of creating this fictional character into an actual human being, is how do they handle not getting their own way, right? So that was a great way to start with this woman, and particularly in that role and for that government agency where it’s like … I hope I’m not giving too much away.
But, needless to say, she has to not just do her job. It’s not just doing your job. It’s like, oh no, there’s no room for any kind of error, but even deeper than that, it’s like, why does she want this? She’s very passionate about this, why?
Being a hero or villain is all just a matter of perspective. Your character doesn’t think she’s the villain. She has her agenda and her goals.
That’s a fun way to go about. There’s no villain. I mean, don’t get me wrong … We’re talking about storytelling here, right? We’re talking about performances. There’s always a reason why people do what they do in storytelling. But no, it’s just, it goes deeper than that. She’s, of course, she’s not a villain, are you kidding? No.
Do you think your character, knowing that one of her goals is to obtain Charlie or hone Charlie’s abilities or focus Charlie’s abilities, do you think there’s a world where if she achieved her goal of bringing Charlie into the fold, that would’ve been a better path for her than being with her father?
Well, no, but it’s like, how about this; instead of what you just said about honing her … No, what if it’s just one word instead of all of those? Instead of doing those things, no, just saved her. All of a sudden, the kaleidoscope has shifted, right? I mean, if that’s what’s going on in her head.
So it’s fun, all of those things are at play. Because therein lies the whole fun about, even in the moment, on the day, I’m thinking about it. It’s just, well, perhaps at this moment, it’s like, “Yeah, I want to harness this talent, of course I do. Get out of my way.” There’s that. It’s like, “No, I’m trying to save her. I’m trying to help her. What are you talking about?”
Part of what I loved about your dynamic is you are so obsessed with Charlie, but you have such minimal screen time with her. It’s almost like Darth Vader, how much of Star Wars is about him, but the heroes only meet up towards the end of the movie. What is that like for you as a performer to be engaging with characters in the scene, but constantly being focused on this other unseen character that you’ve never even met up with?
Right, exactly. Well, the interesting thing, and this does not happen this way all the time, actually, it rarely, rarely does, if ever. Because we’re shooting in the midst of COVID and after I had to quarantine, all my stuff was shot in just a few days. So my stuff with Charlie ended up being at the end of my filming, so it worked out beautifully that I’m after this, and then the last, again, my last few scenes of filming for the film were with Charlie. So in that regard, it was easy as a performer. Instead of filming scenes with her at the beginning of my filming schedule, it’s a little tricky to do that, but that going after, going after, going after, while I was working and then, “Oh, well there she is.” And then all of this stuff that she brought to the table, not just Ryan as a terrific actress, but with the special effects and all that stuff was just, it was … And I thank Keith and the producers and the ADs for scheduling it in that way, because it certainly was helpful.
I can’t help but bring up some of your work on Cloak & Dagger, because it just feels like the door is currently wide open for Marvel characters to come back, with crossovers and multiple universes and all that stuff. Even though the series ended after two seasons, the fan support, fans loved that series so much, are you keeping that window open for getting to return as that character again? Or do you think it is an important part of your career and you hold it very dearly, but you’re happy to leave that behind you?
I was hoping that we would get at least another couple of seasons because it was on point. It wasn’t just, again, honoring the comic book relationships, but it just, it brought into it current day ideas about police brutality and about mixed-race couples, and talk about good and evil. It covered so many social issues while under this cloak, no pun intended, of this Marvel Universe. That was a terrific show. I don’t know who made the decision, but it’s obviously completely out of my hands. I really wish that we had come back for a good couple of seasons because we had something good going on there. It’s a shame, but one never knows what the future will hold. Oh, my gosh, that was totally Yoda.
Firestarter is in theaters and on Peacock now.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You can contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter.
