The Stand: Amber Heard on Why Nadine is One of The Best Female Roles

CBS All Access’ The Stand continues on Thursday with “Pocket Savior”, the second episode of the nine part limited series adaptation of Stephen King’s iconic novel of good versus evil in a world devastated by pandemic that wipes out nearly all of the world’s human population. The episode will introduce viewers to a few more of the story’s key characters, including Nadine Cross, a woman who makes her way to Mother Abagail’s Boulder Free Zone, but isn’t what she seems having long ago been “spoken for” by the Dark Man himself, Randall Flagg. Nadine is a complex and interesting character both in the series and the book its adapted for, and for Amber Heard who plays her, she’s one of the best female roles she’s ever encountered.

Speaking with ComicBook.com, Heard shared recently that it’s the complexity of Nadine that she finds so interesting about the pivotal character in The Stand.

“What I think is so interesting about Nadine is you don’t know how to define her. No one knows how to define her, probably least of all herself,” Heard said. “She is struggling with a dark past, a lot of secrets, and a very very complicated dynamic with a supernatural force. And while she is presented with for the first time perhaps love and humanity in the form of the relationship she’s been able to form since meeting Larry and coming into the Boulder Free Zone, she’s ultimately a tragic character in that you realize she’s being presented with this reality almost too late. She’s almost discovering this on the last step of a very long path and there’s something tragic and I don’t know, heartbreaking about that because we see that, despite her complications, she ultimately is a lonely person who is reaching out for connections and love and for a character that’s only motivated by that love.’

Heard continued, “And it’s kind of heartbreaking when she meets the end she does and I don’t want to give anything away, but Nadine is my favorite character in this, certainly one of the best female roles I have read or met and that I know of in that she is not easy to define as a bad guy or a good guy. She’s complicated and she’s ultimately a tragic character.”

The first episode of The Stand, “The End”, is now streaming on CBS All Access. New episodes arrive every Thursday. The second episode, “Pocket Savior”, debuts December 24th.