Кадр з фільму "Довга хода"
The actors of the dystopian film The Long Walk had to walk 12 to 25 kilometers a day to faithfully depict the course of the brutal “walk or die” race from Stephen King’s novel of the same name.
The story is set in a dystopian America, where the main entertainment is an event called the Long Walk, involving 50 teenage boys who have to walk continuously along route 1. If the participants stop or move too slowly, they will be shot. Those who reach the finish line will receive a prize of their choice.
Garrett Wearing, who plays Stebbins, a participant in the “walk or die” contest, told EW that during filming he tried to secretly track the number of steps the actors would take, and the final result shocked everyone.
“I had my phone in my backpack all the time, so I had to hide it, but I had a meter. We all walked 12 to 25 kilometers a day. So how much is that? 25,000 to 30,000 steps?”
His colleague Tut Nyoet, who plays Arthur, added that the workload was difficult primarily from a psychological point of view, not physically.
“I don’t think it’s something we’ve ever done before — just keep moving. It was hard to mentally dive into that mental space, to stay locked in and treat each scene as if it were new, because we’ve done it so many times.”
Wearing also recalled a tradition that the crew invented in honor of each new character’s departure to cheer up the team a bit. However, it was black humor.
“Our wonderful advertising directors made us badges that said ‘Happy Death Day’ and we gave them to those who were supposed to ‘die’ that day. We also had balloons, which was a kind of celebration of a long but well done walk.”
“The Long Walk is mostly presented through the eyes of a 16-year-old boy, Raymond Garrity, played by Cooper Hoffman. However, the most famous actor who joined the film is Mark Hamill, who plays a psychopathic major who terrorizes the marchers and can erase the kindness and virtues of Luke Skywalker from your memory. Hamill himself said that the idea for the film immediately reminded him of his teenage years in Japan, where he went to school next to a US military base.
“I know who this man is: I saw him with my own eyes [about his character]. I saw the officers torturing the guys under the scorching sun, and they were extremely cruel. If you vomit, they make you eat it. It’s horrible.”
There have been attempts to film King’s story for 40 years: in the late 1980s, George A. Romero received a proposal; in 2007, the film rights were transferred to Frank Darabont, the director of Shawshank Redemption; and one of the last attempts was made by Andre Ovredal. Eventually, the idea was brought to life by The Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence and screenwriter J. Molner.
“I went through the whole book and took what I wanted to keep. The DNA and the themes that Stephen King put into his original novel,” Molner said. “While he wrote about specific things in his time, I feel like their relevance is generational and I wanted to make sure we kept that. Beauty, love, and the story of friendship, along with the brutality of hopelessness and horror. If this book had fallen into the wrong hands, studios or directors, it could have been neutered. So I am very happy that we managed to preserve the essence of it.”
Earlier we had already demonstrated a couple of trailers, which was generally well received. The finished result will be available in theaters on September 11.
The Long Walk is just one of many King adaptations to be released in 2025. Earlier, the audience was presented with horror “Monkey”, science fiction movie The Life of Chuck with Tom Hiddleston, as well as horror series “The Institute”, we are also looking forward to the prequel to Pennywise, Welcome to Derry and The Running Man with Glenn Powell.
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