Lizzy Caplan
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Lizzy Caplan is stepping into a role made famous by Kathy Bates— Annie Wilkes, the crazed superfan from ‘Misery’.  While many know the infamous film, for which Bates won the Academy Award, Golden Globe and more, many may not realize that it was based on a Stephen King novel of the same name.  And as such, ‘Misery’ and its characters are fair game for the hit Hulu series ‘Castle Rock’.  Caplan will portray Annie, who is described as a “budding psychopath” on Season 2.  She will be joined by ‘Eighth Grade’ star, Elsie Fisher, as Annie’s daughter Joy.

Caplan’s Annie will play a major role on ‘Castle Rock’ as hinted at by  the Season 2 logline:

“A feud between warring clans comes to a boil when Annie Wilkes, King’s nurse from hell, gets waylaid in Castle Rock.”

‘Misery’ was published in 1987, with the film arriving in 1990.  In that story, James Caan played author Paul Sheldon, a pastiche for King himself, who found himself in the care of Wilkes, a superfan who goes to any length to keep him subservient to her, including breaking his ankles with a sledgehammer in the film’s most famous scene.

In addition to Bates and Fisher, ‘Castle Rock’ Season 2 also welcomes another King alum, Tim Robbins, who starred in the ‘The Shawshank Redemption’, which was based on King’s 1982 novella ‘Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption’.  The Shawshank prison plays a major part on ‘Castle Rock’.

However, Robbins will be playing a completely different King character, Reginald “Pop” Merrill, from the book ‘The Sun Dogs’, “the Patriarch of the Merrill crime family,” who discovers that he is “dying of cancer and at a reckoning with his family.”  Garret Hedlund also joins the cast as “Pop”s nephew, “John ‘Ace’ Merrill, who is taking over his uncle’s businesses and threatening a fragile peace with nearby Jerusalem’s Lot.”  Ace appeared in ‘The Body’ (the short story that inspired ‘Stand By Me’, in which Kiefer Sutherland portrayed Ace) and ‘Needful Things’.

Season 2 also welcomes Yusra Warsama as Dr. Nadia Omar, “the Harvard-trained Somali medical director of a rural hospital in Jerusalem’s Lot whose rational and scientific mind will be put to the test,” Barkhad Abdi as Abdi Omar, “Nadia’s tough, older brother who leads the charge to build a Somali community center that will deepen the roots of his people in Maine,” and Matthew Alan as Chris Merrill, “Pop’s nephew and Ace’s brother who struggles to keep peace between the Merrills and the Somali community.”  These three characters were created for the show.

What do you think of the lineup for ‘Castle Rock’ Season 2 so far?

Source: TV Line