One of the most important characters in Stephen King's universally acclaimed novel The Stand is Frannie Goldsmith, a pregnant college student who is back home in New England when the lethal contagion strikes. In CBS All Access' ambitious miniseries adaptation of King's book, Odessa Young plays the character, who sets out to rebuild civilization in Boulder, Colorado, as the last remnants of society plunge into a war between good and evil.
In a roundtable interview attended by CBR, Young discussed the differences between how she played Frannie and the character's depiction in the novel, working with the production to modernize the character for today's audiences and the importance of staying bright in the face of overwhelming darkness.
Asked about her depiction of the character in The Stand adaptation versus King's novel, Young explained. "The decision that we also made going into the retelling of it is to kind of center these characters in modern day whereas, I do kind of have this feeling that the younger generation now is more thoughtful, worldly and wiser than people give them credit for.
"And in Frannie's case, there's a distinct difference between pre-pandemic Frannie and post-pandemic Frannie. I think that she has to grow up a lot and has to do a lot of decision-making that is harder than what anyone could've imagined, and she has to make a real conscious effort to push forward...she's pregnant and about to bring a new life into the world, and it's a world that's very different than the one that she thought she would be bringing a new life into. With all of that great responsibility comes a great need to put aside your adolescence."
Much of Frannie's character arc is informed and shaped by her relationship with fellow survivor Stu Redman, portrayed in the miniseries by James Marsden, growing close as they trekked cross-country to set up a new community in Boulder. In response to a question from CBR, Young shared the joys of working alongside Marsden for the majority of the production.
"He is one of the funniest people I've ever met and, in spite of that, very professional and very, very good at his job," Young said. "Stu and Frannie have a really interesting position in the story because they represent this kind of family unit that has been completely obliterated since everybody died. They give themselves the task of rebuilding a life together as a family, obviously with this new baby coming into the mix as well. To kind of balance that dynamic with the kind of fun person James is on set was a real pleasure to do."
While Young hadn't read The Stand prior to being cast, she familiarized herself with the text and quickly delved into her character. Young and co-star Owen Teague, who plays Harold Lauder, improvised between filming takes on set to get a better idea of who their characters were and their mindset at any particular moment. The two would even make suggestions about how to modernize their characters to the production crew.
"I admittedly read the book after I got the role," Young said. "I hadn't read it before, but she is so fun to read. She is so quirky and so idiosyncratic. I got into acting because I was such a bookworm; it wasn't so much a love of cinema as it was a love of story and character. Doing a book adaptation like this one -- even if there hadn't been a show and I read this book, I would been like 'I've got to play Frannie' -- it did feel like a very collaborative process. I think as one of the youngest members on set and someone who is the same age as Frannie, I think that the writing team and the producers were very receptive to certain ideas I had about ways to make her feel more grounded in this retelling and feel more complex than perhaps the Frannie that we've seen before.
"It is easy to have a character always going 'I think we should do it this way' and to be so strong in the committee setting. It's easy to have a character like that. What is hard is to write a character who makes mistakes, to write a character who questions their own decisions and questions the decisions of those around her. And I think we worked really hard to make her feel as accurate as possible to her scenario: A girl entering this world as a pregnant college kid having absolutely no idea what the future holds and no idea what she's going to do in this new world with the freedom to make mistakes along the way and find herself in that process."
Even with conscious modernization to the story and characters, Young pointed out that the pre-pandemic world only exists briefly in The Stand. Following the outbreak, Young explained that the trappings became more timeless as more modern technology was abandoned in the wake of civilization's collapse. Thus, she instead wanted to focus on making Frannie's emotions and actions seem more relatable and grounded for modern audiences while staying in the spirit of the original 1978 novel. One of the big things the adaptation sought to add, was bigger emotional and dynamic stakes for Frannie than she had experienced in the novel, with a new coda co-written by King himself.
"Something that was a great gift and something that King said is he always felt a little regretful about Frannie not getting her opportunity to stand in the face of evil," Young shared. "Without revealing anything, it is so exciting for me as an actor and a fan of Stephen King to be able to say 'I played Frannie with King's new writing that nobody has ever seen or heard before in this constantly updating and shifting story that has been part of our canon since the '70s that is so interactive with its fans and audiences that King can update it again.' I love how alive that makes this whole story feel."
In response to a question from CBR about how she approached her performance, Young kept a lighter outlook as she portrayed her character throughout some The Stand's darker moments, noting it was easier to face the end of the world head-on if she and her character didn't take things too serious.
"You definitely need that levity and with a cast as fun as the one I got to work with, it was really easy to not get lost in the tragedy of it all because, ultimately, there are really tragic things that happen in this story," Young explained. "But also what's so wonderful about King is that has such grasp comedy as well and he understands that comedy cannot without the opposite, without tragedy. I think the story of itself is very funny. I think that he has a lot of comedic characters in it and they're reflected in very interesting and, in my opinion, very funny ways in the show because, ultimately, it's theater. The world of post-pandemic America is the stage for these characters to exist on and, to go back to the foundations of [Ancient] Greek theater, you need to have tragedy and comedy because that is the human experience and it's a real delight to walk that line between them."
The Stand stars Alexander Skarsgård as Randall Flagg, Whoopi Goldberg as Mother Abigail, James Marsden as Stu Redman, Odessa Young as Frannie Goldsmith, Jovan Adepo as Larry Underwood, Amber Heard as Nadine Cross, Owen Teague as Harold Lauder, Henry Zaga as Nick Andros, Brad William Henke as Tom Cullen, Irene Bedard as Ray Bretner, Nat Wolff as Lloyd Henreid, Eion Bailey as Weizak, Heather Graham as Rita Blakemoor, Katherine McNamara as Julie Lawry, Fiona Dourif as Ratwoman, Natalie Martinez as Dayna Jurgens, Hamish Linklater as Dr. Jim Ellis, Daniel Sunjata as Cobb and Greg Kinnear as Glen Bateman. The Stand premieres on Dec. 17 on CBS All Access.