Lisey's Story's Dane DeHaan reveals he, too, was a victim of the "'90s yo-yo craze"
Dane DeHaan admits he has a muscle memory for yo-yo tricks, and discusses the creation of his unsettling villain
Up until the AppleTV+ series’ most recent episode, Dane DeHaan’s Jim Dooley has been a menacing presence largely lingering on the outskirts of Lisey’s Story. A superfan of the late author Scott Langdon (Clive Owen), Dooley shares DNA with another Stephen King creation, Misery’s Annie Wilkes, as the two clearly feel a sense of ownership over their favorite writers’ work and will stop at nothing to access it. In “Jim Dandy,” that dark, unfettered fandom leads to Dooley’s most brutal confrontation with Lisey (Julianne Moore) yet, beating and berating Langdon’s widow until she tells him the whereabouts of the authors unpublished work that may or may not exist.
Dooley is a thoroughly unsettling villain, and DeHaan, King, and series director Pablo Larraín paint him as id personified, juvenilizing Jim through distinctive characteristics: The big yellow coat, the wild temper, and—most notably—the yo-yo. It’s that yo-yo that has The A.V. Club most intrigued, so we spoke with DeHaan about it, and here’s what he had to say about having to brush up on his yo-yo skills for filming: