Lisey's Story’s Clark Furlong On
the New Stephen King Mini-Series
by Billy Ingram
Produced by J. J. Abrams and Bad Robot Productions with Pablo Larraín as director, ‘Lisey's Story’ premiered on Apple TV+ on June 4, 2021 with new episodes dropping every Friday. The mini-series sports an all-star cast that includes Julianne Moore, Clive Owen, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Joan Allen. Those are some of my fave actors and they all give stellar performances here.
This is a somewhat unusual adaptation because, in this case, Stephen King actually wrote the scripts himself. He did make some changes from the novel of the same name but King has stated 'Lisey’s Story' is his favorite of all the novels he’s written.
‘Lisey's Story' has all the elements one would expect from a Stephen King chiller — cryptic words carved into a sandy beach, mysterious travelers festering sinister intentions, foreboding behavior from long-haired boogeymen, converging plotlines, unhinged obsessives, inexplicable noises in the attic, and life-scarring flashbacks — that’s where Clark Fulong’s scenes provide some underpinning for a story unraveling slowly, creepily.
Clark Furlong (14) has a recurring role on ‘Lisey's Story,’ portraying Paul Landon. He’s no Hollywood hipster. When he’s not working or auditioning, Clark lives on a farm with his family in Virginia. While the acting bug bit him at an early age, he had a hard time convincing his parents that this was not a flirtation but a calling.
Clark: “I said, ‘I want to do this for real. Mom said, ‘No.’” You should know that Clark’s mother is actor/ author/ producer Jen Furlong (Jennifer Albright).
Billy: “That’s a smart mom.” Show business is no trip to Baskin-Robbins, let me tell you. It’s a rocky road.
Clark: “She was very good. She said, ’No, you can’t. No, please, no.’ I was pulling on her sleeve every day. I told her, ‘Understand that this is the thing I love most, as much as you guys.’ She was an actor before having children. Eventually she said, ‘Okay. We’re either going to go big or go home.’ I said, ‘That sounds like so much fun. Let’s do that!’”
Previously, Clark was best known for his portrayal of young Jules on HBO's ‘Euphoria.’ I wondered, just what is the audition process for an actor who’s asked by a casting director to read for a role? “At the start we were actually driving up to New York three times a week,” Clark says.
“It was a lot of time in the car, we went through an insane amount of audiobooks. But now with COVID and everything changing, we have a home studio, which has blank walls and is perfect for self-tapes. It really has made our lives so much easier, instead of having to spend five hours in the car to get up to New York and five hours back. Two minutes in the studio and the audition is done.”
Clark had a starkly different audition experience landing the role of Paul Landon on ‘Lisey's Story’. “My mom and I were up in New York already for another audition, as you do. We got the call… I freaked! We were down here [Virginia] when we got the sides. It was crazy because they were so top-secret they could not be printed. You couldn’t screen shot them. ‘You can only view this screen once. If you try again or open on another device, we will know!’ Which was a very strange experience.
“We went up to New York for the audition at the Warner Bros. building and it is huge. It’s like, every 40 or 50 yards, there are men in black suits. ‘Am I going to go see the President?’ Security is so tight, which was terrifying and exciting all at once.
“In the audition room there were the series’ casting directors. Oh my gosh, I was so nervous. Three weeks later, we had heard nothing, ‘Oh well, whatever, on to the next one.’ Then I got a callback, ‘You have a director’s appointment.’ So we drove back up to New York. There was, again, the casting directors, Pablo Larraín the director, and someone else. We did pretty crazy stuff, direction wise.
"Again, two weeks, didn’t hear anything, I thought, ’That's very disappointing.’ Then I got the call that they booked me, I think we had three weeks to get a place in New York for a week of rehearsals.”
After the lockdown happened it meant the scenes that Clark appeared in, scheduled to begin shooting shortly, had nowhere to film. “The set that we had built for water [scenes]," Clark says. "The building was actually not up to code for the new standards."
That’s when Stephen King adjusted the script so those flashbacks to a horrrifying childhood could take place elsewhere. The production then relocated to Germany.
“Our director's next film was shooting in Germany,” Clark says. “He said, ‘Why don't we move production there?’ So they found this amazing old farmhouse on a piece of a German National Forest and got a permit to do whatever they wanted with it. And it looks so amazing. I've read the book and there are scenes that are different but the changes were all controlled by Stephen.”
Billy: Did you get to work with any of the main actors on the show?
Clark: I got to work with two actors. My [character’s] father (Dane DeHaan) and my little brother (Sebastian Eugene Hansen), we were set in a different timeline so we couldn't really have anything to do together.”
As for where Clark Furlong would like to see his career to go? “I would really like to be a series regular,” he tells me. “It looks like it would be a dramatic series, just because that's what I've had the most experience with. I would really prefer to play someone who’s not killing people left and right.”
WIKI: The genesis for Lisey's Story was an incident in 2003, when King came down with double pneumonia; while he was in the hospital, his wife Tabitha decided to redesign his studio. Coming home from the hospital and seeing his books and belongings in boxes, King saw an image of what his studio would look like after his death.
If IMDB is correct, Clark Furlong can be
seen in episodes 2, 3, 5, 6, & 7.
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Clark: I got to work with two actors. My [character’s] father (Dane DeHaan) and my little brother (Sebastian Eugene Hansen), we were set in a different timeline so we couldn't really have anything to do together.”
