The Stephen King character played by two different actors at the same time: “It’s really complicated”
In 2020, fans of Stephen King could have been forgiven for doing a double take when two TV shows based on his books hit screens. In January, a supernatural crime drama debuted on HBO, starring Jason Bateman, Ben Mendelsohn, and future Oscar nominee Cynthia Erivo. Then, in October, a series arrived on Peacock after previously running for three seasons on the little-known Audience Network. This serial killer thriller starred Brendan Gleeson and Succession’s Justine Lupe. The two shows differed in tone, style, and genre, with Erivo and Lupe’s characters seemingly worlds apart—yet they were playing the same woman.
When novelist and screenwriter Richard Price was hired to adapt King’s 2018 novel The Outsider into a ten-episode HBO series, he had a big decision to make about the character of Holly Gibney. In the novel, Gibney is an obsessive-compulsive private detective who is hired to investigate the case of Terry Maitland, a little-league coach accused of murdering a neighbourhood child. She discovers that the murder was committed by a shapeshifting being that can mimic a human’s appearance by absorbing their blood. Gibney has no supernatural abilities but instead uses her smarts and detective skills to hunt down the vicious monster.
In the course of his adaptation, though, Price found himself constrained by the Gibney character in the novel. He wanted his Gibney to be a savant who displayed a heightened sense of intuition that couldn’t entirely be explained, but this conflicted with the character King had established in the book – not to mention three previous novels. To Price’s irritation, this faithful version of the character had also already appeared in three seasons of Mr Mercedes, played by Lupe, but Price had never even read that book or watched the show.
“I have to create this character, and I didn’t want it to be beholden to something that has nothing to do with The Outsider,” Price told the Television Critics Association, “Even though it’s a continuation of the character.”
So, Price did the only thing he felt made sense – he asked King if he could do his own thing with Gibney, a character King counts as one of his absolute favourites. Thankfully, King was open to the idea, and Price was allowed to do as he saw fit. “Just forget everything you knew about Holly,” Price explained. “That was that Holly; this is my Holly.”
Later, when interviewed by Entertainment Weekly, King admitted that the Mr Mercedes incarnation of Gibney is closer to the character he created—but that doesn’t mean he disliked the Outsider’s version. “Richard Price’s concept of Holly was a little bit different from mine,” he explained.
King revealed that he loved seeing Lupe’s character evolve and change throughout three seasons as she blossomed into a more confident person and detective. “Justine Lupe got into that character and did a terrific job with it because she had more time to develop Holly,” King reasoned. “Cynthia may get that time…and she’s terrific, but she’s more someone who is kind of almost on the spectrum.”
Ultimately, despite strong reviews and good ratings, and King revealing that a second season was in the works, The Outsider was surprisingly cancelled by HBO after one season. Similarly, Mr Mercedes was undoubtedly watched by more people on Peacock than on Audience, but it didn’t create enough of a splash to warrant a fourth season. It seemed like the world was about to go from two Gibneys to no Gibneys – but in 2024, Mr Mercedes director and producer Jack Bender let it slip that a third series – simply entitled Holly – was in the works. It will more than likely cast an entirely new actor as Gibney.
Overall, the fact that King’s beloved character is getting a third chance at TV stardom will surely tickle him pink. After all, he once told NPR, “I just love Holly, and I wish she were a real person and that she were my friend because I’m so crazy about her. She just walked on in the first book…and she stole my heart.”
