Salem’s Lot Star Reveals Why Dr. Cody Is Different From Stephen King Book

The latest Salem’s Lot adaptation, written and directed by Gary Dauberman, tackles Stephen King’s sophomore novel as a movie rather than a television miniseries — but that’s not the only major change setting it apart. Starring Lewis Pullman as Ben Mears, the Max film follows the author’s homecoming and sees his hopes to write about a haunted house turn into an escape from a vampire. Such a trajectory is familiar, but there is an interesting difference in how the new remake incorporates the character of Dr. Cody.

The 2004 miniseries featured The Matrix Reloaded‘s Robert Mammone in the role of the doctor, who is a male in King’s book, but the 2024 Salem’s Lot stars Alfre Woodard and revises the role to reflect her gender. The film also stars Spencer Treat Clark, Pilou Asbæk, William Sadler, Makenzie Leigh, and Alexander Ward as the infamous Kurt Barlow. Given that fans have waited since 2022 to see the long-delayed project come to light, hopes are high that it will be the perfect trick for the Halloween season.

Screen Rant interviewed Alfre Woodard about why she was drawn to the new remake of Salem’s Lot, how her character role changed from King’s version, and why she thinks the Max movie is a present-day equivalent to 1922’s Nosferatu.

Alfre Woodard Explains How The New Salem’s Lot Evolves The Role Of Dr. Cody

“I love the fact that we’re in 1975, and this woman doctor figures so highly now.”

Screen Rant: How familiar were you with the original novel by Stephen King before taking on the role of Dr. Cody?

Alfre Woodard: Well, I have not read the novel of Salem’s lot. I had seen the incarnations of it on screen through the years, and I didn’t want to go back and have any kind of information from that. So I went from what Gary [Dauberman] wrote, the story he wanted to tell, and I let that just inform everything that I was doing, having him as a writer, executive producer and director, as smart as he is. He’s cinematically smart, King is literarily smart, but there’s no Steve in the mixture together that was presented here, so I knew it was going to be a tight, wonderful, classic horror story.

I’m excited, too, that it is coming out now instead of some other time. Not just because it’s all Halloween-y, but it’s also a scary time in our country, in our world, especially the way that the vampire seduces and takes hold in normally good minds and good hearts. We can all talk about how that happens in election years. Good people can be vampires, and good people can let little things infect their spirit, too.

Screen Rant: Dr. Cody’s a badass doctor who gets to kill vampires, but tell us a little bit more about Dr. Cody. What attracted you to play in this world?

Alfre Woodard: Obviously, I’m a woman, but you don’t have to change the role. I knew it was written – even this time out – for a man, and I knew because I had been told and had talked about it and seen the expressions of what Dr. Cody originally was asked to do and to be.

So, I was excited when I got it that it was a different direction for him. And for me, as a woman, thinking back to 1975, that was the first time when people started to really talk about women doctors in different ways, because all of us had been raised with gynecologists who were men. But I remember being in Boston with like 300,000 college students there, and suddenly there were a lot of women OBGYNs. You had to say, “Well, I’m going to leave my pediatrician and go to this person.” When we started to talk about reproductive health, you had the option of going to a woman, so I love the fact that we’re in 1975, and this woman doctor figures so highly now.

I have a backstory I made up, but she is a doctor for two or three small towns in Maine. She’s a Mainer because she went to Bates, and she met her husband there. He’s in forestry, and he has passed on, but she has been there for their whole marriage of 40 years or something. She gets to practice there in a way that she doesn’t get to practice in Boston or in Providence or somewhere else on the East Coast. I was just interested in all of those things, and the fact that she wrestles a vampire and she doesn’t fall down and go, “Oh, I’m bit! It’s curtains for me.” I wanted to explore all that and demonstrate it.

Salem’s Lot Comes At Vampires In A New Angle, But Older Movies Still Inspire It

“…What a beautiful time the ’70s were before the vampires came.”

Screen Rant: One thing I love about Salem’s Lot premiering on Max is that you can do your in-home double features. If fans wanted to pair up Salem’s Lot with either another vampire film or a Stephen King film, what would your choice be?

Alfre Woodard: I would do this
Salem’s Lot and the 1922 Nosferatu
.

That s–t is scary. Maybe because it was German, the whole sensibility. Again, it’s the simplicity of working with what you’ve got. You discover more things. I think that’s one of the cool things about this piece: the production values, the set, the costume, the cinematography, and the fact that Gary is editing.

He knows what he needs as he goes. He knows where he wants all that. It makes – again – for simplicity that first draws us in and reminds us of what a beautiful time the ’70s were before the vampires came. I think those two together, because they’re so far apart in timespan and what we can do with a camera and with production design, are the best of the era because they use all that to make the most honest and clean production.

More About Salem’s Lot (2024)

Author Ben Mears returns to his childhood home of Jerusalem’s Lot in search of inspiration for his next book only to discover his hometown is being preyed upon by a bloodthirsty vampire.

Check out our other Salem’s Lot interviews here:

Source: Screen Rant Plus