An air of mystery surrounds the telepathic Dick Hallorann, who was first introduced in Stephen King‘s The Shining, appears in Doctor Sleep, and earns a mention in IT. Actors like Scatman Crothers, Melvin Van Peebles, and Carl Lumbly have portrayed him in various adaptations. Still, his backstory and experiences remain an enigma—at least until IT: Welcome To Derry. HBO’s 1962-set prequel explores a younger Dick’s time in small-town Maine, where he hunts for Pennywise under military orders and learns to use his power. For Chris Chalk, this became an opportunity to give a fresh take on a fairly well-known character, something he previously pulled off with Gotham‘s empathetic Lucius Fox and Perry Mason‘s cynical Paul Drake. And his turn in Welcome To Derry, in which he digs into Dick’s chilling nature (sometimes without words), makes him the show’s clear MVP. The A.V. Club spoke to the actor about finding his way into the character, why he resonates with the show’s take on horror, and his pivot from stand-up comedy to intense dramas.
The A.V. Club: Dick Hallorann is already an established character in Stephen King’s books and their adaptations. Once you got the part, what was your approach to making it your own?
Chris Chalk: I wanted it to honor the versions that have already existed but not be attached to them. We’re all drawing from the same material, so our characters should have a similar quality. The Shining‘s Scatman Crothers was my north star out of all of the interpretations since he’s the most popular one. Still, I did not want to be so attached to what he becomes because this version isn’t him. I wanted to be an entry point into the character, no matter who watched it. This is a human being who has these powers, and in my version or in our show’s version, he can’t control them. So then, when you get through this series, you can go “Oh, what is Doctor Sleep about?” and so on. We thought it could be such that you can actually watch this first, weirdly, and then see Doctor Sleep and The Shining. This show helps you get to a place of who this guy is. I wanted to fill in some of those blanks with the depth, curiosity, and playfulness that I was allowed to have as a performer.
AVC: Was there a scene or moment where Dick snapped into place for you?
CC: Now that the episode is out, I’ll answer this question honestly. It’s episode three. That’s when I started to get a sense of what Dick can do, and I felt very comfortable with my company. They are unbelievable. But I think it just took me a minute to have a runway because in the first scene and episode, I don’t talk much. I had a sense of his mystery and quiet, but it took me a minute to come up into his body. I think in episode three, once Dick starts talking to Leroy in his home and you see what he can do in the plane, that’s when I got a sense of what this emotional journey is going to be. We had great directors throughout, but Andrew Bernstein is a particular style of director. He’s a very good television director, so the notes he gives are actually very helpful for TV because of the pace. He’s quick at giving an incredible note that helps with layering the character. That helped me go, “Oh, I’ve got this.” But it was a slower runway than normal to feel in his body, to be honest.
AVC: You pointed out that you initially don’t have much dialogue. Was it creatively exciting to let your expressions do the talking to convey what Dick is feeling?
CC: I’ve been doing this for so long that I know I have to just trust the process. Silence is the best thing in the world. Please take the scripts away. I do think the beauty of cinema and the moving picture is to tell the story with the image. And luckily, I have a lot of training, and I have a lot of trauma. So my eyes look like those of a person who’s been through a lot of shit because I’ve been through a lot of shit. By default, I’ve got a deep life experience at my very young age, and it really did mirror with Dick, who’s probably had significantly more trauma considering the shine. But that stillness he has was the easy thing to match. He also has a sardonic meanness, and I buried that version of myself maybe 15 years ago. I used to want to do stand-up, and I thought that being mean in stand-up was the way to go. Over time, I realized that if you have a microphone, you can’t pick on people. So I put away the meanness. It was actually really fun to wear that around the set and to be grumpy with Jovan Adepo.
AVC: Do you find it tough or easy to let parts of your real life seep into a character?
CC: Oh, great question, because I have whole philosophies on this. I’ve been coaching and teaching acting for as long as I’ve been acting myself, even when I didn’t necessarily have the skills to teach. When I went to school, no one taught me the basic things, but my point on this is that whatever works for you is healthy. I believe if you’re digging up emotional stuff that’s traumatic and you can’t control it, that’s irresponsible for everyone else on set. If you can’t control yourself, get it together. This is still work, even though it’s vulnerable and emotional. That’s why they hire professionals. Or rather, that’s why they usually hire professionals, so that we can control our shit. I think teaching that part is important and part of learning that one’s body and instrument could be saying, “Oh, that’s too far or digging too much into a wound.” I can’t do that repeatedly, and it’s my responsibility to know how to do that for myself. And I have to say, in this show, we haven’t even gotten to those episodes yet, but there was stuff that was hard on me. I cannot lie. There was stuff that made me say, “Oh, I hope I’m good.”
AVC: Episode four has hints of how dark things can get with him. Can you talk about filming that closing scene when Dick gets into Taniel’s head that ends with what felt like a menacing smile from you?
CC: There’s so much about that scene. I will say, first off, the actor [Joshua Odjick] really spat in my face a bunch of times. It was his real saliva in my fucking face. I was gobsmacked. [Laughs] So that added a layer of tension. Jovan would ask me if I was going to say something, and I was just like, “Hey, we’re all pros. He’s going to do it in his way, and that’s good.” When Dick asks Taniel to give up the information, I think he’s being very generous. He says everything that’s going to happen, that’s going to be terrible for both of them, and that he doesn’t want to do it for the military assholes, so the sooner Taniel gives him the information, the better. Otherwise, this is going to suck. I don’t think Dick really cares about his context as much as it’s a job, so he has to get it done. So his smile isn’t meant to evoke just terror, but more the feeling of, “Damn, people do not listen to me, and now it’s going to hurt us both.” I remember earlier, when it was written, there was a scene where Dick was like, emaciated and couldn’t stop sweating for a while because of how exhausting the process of going into his head is, considering he has not mastered his powers to some degree.
AVC: Were you a fan of Stephen King before Welcome To Derry?
CC:The Shining was the first book I read. I can’t remember how old I was, but I remember reading it after Candyman because I remember how, after that, I stopped reading horror books for a long time. I was afraid of mirrors and didn’t want to trust anyone around me. But then I went and read [The Shawshank Redemption], The Stand, Pet Semetary, and Cujo. I forgot how many of those books there were until this press tour, but I used to devour them. His favorite book of mine, in all honesty, is On Writing, because of the vulnerability it required. Reading that made me go, “Oh, these books are so much better when you know what he went through to write these books.” That adds a whole other layer. I’ve been a big fan of watching any of his work being put onscreen. My wife was watching the original It just last night. That one’s so different; it’s a reminder of how we had a different sensibility back then.
For this show, we had a lot of meetings with Andy Muschietti and saw the concepts and drawings on his wall in the room. But it doesn’t register until you see it. Like that birthing scene in the premiere—you can’t explain that in any way. It’s terrifying, bloody, and there’s no sense of how that will look on the screen, finally. So my job is to be grounded and feel terror and back myself into it as much as I can. Dick doesn’t want to be there. Everybody hates this version of Dick. We don’t meet him in a happy place, and it makes sense. He’s got to hurt people, he’s nowhere near his family, he’s not cooking, and he’s not around music.
AVC: Welcome To Derry is set in the ’60s, where characters deal with other forms of horror in the form of social and cultural issues that remain relevant today. How important is that aspect of the show to you?
CC: I believe it is important to be useful with what we make. Even in something like this, where it’s gory and horrifying, how are we also being useful? We’re telling the truth about something within a genre. We’re not dropping a bunch of N-bombs, we’re not hanging people. I did stuff like that in 12 Years A Slave and Underground. But to be able to do that inside of an already successful genre, and not have to lean so hard on it, helps ground the whole thing in reality. It also makes me want to do it more. If we were going to sugarcoat the truth or rewrite history, then I wouldn’t be the guy. I’m just not your guy for that. I do think it ties into the connection to magic and mysticism, which, to some degree, is real in all of our cultures. We just bury it.
This was also a time when the world was terrible for women, Black people, and queer people. It wasn’t and still isn’t a safe world for a lot of people. So, you know, you throw a fucking clown from outer space on top of any time period to [channel] fears. To me, it feels like a reminder that we’re continuing to perpetuate the exact same cycles over and over again. Until we deal with the cycles of hate and discrimination and pain, until we apologize for all the shit we’ve done, until we stop being walking garbage bags, we’ll keep having this It creature torture us generation after generation. I see this as an analogy of how we’re doing it to ourselves. Derry is the world, and we are the people who won’t read the history books and apply the lessons learned.
AVC: You’ve played characters who have already been a part of pop culture thanks to Perry Mason and Gotham. And you’ve played real people in When They See Us and Feud. What’s your trick of making each of these people land distinctly?
CC: I do think every role should feel fresh. Everything I do is because it’s coming through me and because I have an annoying, nerdy process of creating characters, so it’s not just another Chris Chalk in there. And I normally say I don’t care what an audience thinks, but that’s not entirely true. It’s like I don’t care, but I really would love it if they appreciated the amount that goes into it. There are levels to this, dude. Some people don’t do anything. Some people show up and they say words and they don’t care about their audience and they’re just doing this for fun and it’s not their purpose. That’s okay, too. I’m not commenting on that. But I come to work from the point of view that I’m an artist. I love creating characters, making movies and shows, and working with collaborators. I also love adding layers that aren’t necessary, but they’re fun to fucking watch and help make things real.
I don’t have my little book with me to show you, but I have these questionnaires in it that have changed over time since I’ve been teaching. [That’s how] I get to know a character and then myself, too. If I know the character as well as I know myself, I don’t have to do anything. Then I can just believe in the make-believe world because Andy and the crew and the set—they’re going to make the world feel real. In episode three, there was some blue screen, but we were still sitting in a plane, and that was one of the big set pieces. So if I do my job and build this human being who’s afraid of heights, who has a relationship with a slingshot, who can’t stand white leadership, and who hates Uncle Toms—if I can just believe in that shit, then it’s right in front of me. It makes the work so much easier.
AVC: To backtrack, how did you shift from wanting to pursue stand-up comedy to doing these intense TV dramas?
CC: The world’s racist. [Laughs] This isn’t a lie, but I remember a long time ago, I won’t say the casting director’s name, but I was with an agency at the time, and I don’t even know if that one exists anymore. But they asked if I could be seen for a network comedy. They got back and said, “I just don’t see comedy for that guy.” I guess I do have a resting bitch face, and I do look mean.
AVC: But that’s often helpful in a comedy.
CC: Exactly, so I don’t understand it either. It’s funny because in all my theatrical stuff, which was 10 years before I started doing TV and film, it was all serious stuff. William Jackson Harper and I were always the comic relief in things because we have this darkness of experience that’s given us this very funny perspective of life, which we often implant into our characters. I’m good at comedy. I’ve always wanted to do that and host a TV show.
AVC: Before we go, do you want to tease what the rest of IT: Welcome To Derry looks like for Dick Hallorann?
CC: The tease that I can give you is that for Dick and for most characters, everything they love gets either played with or taken away to strip them to their bare, most fearful selves. Pennywise is a completist. He’s going to get to everybody that he’s trying to get to. Whether he succeeds or not, who knows, but I like to call this season Dick Halloran: The Unraveling.
