Film Interview: Rebecca Ferguson on her role in Stephen King adaptation Doctor Sleep

Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep, the sequel to The Shining, is a layered text, tackling themes like addiction, grief, PTSD, the isolation of being gifted, and the connection of found families. Fittingly, Rebecca Ferguson is a layered actress, whose roles in The White Queen, the Mission Impossible franchise, Men In Black: International and The Girl On The Train have tackled power, ambition, betrayal, gender equality and revenge.

Known for her villainous characters, Ferguson takes on another dark role in Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of King’s novel. She plays Rose The Hat, the leader of a tribe known as The True Knot. They are semi-immortal beings who feed off the psychic powers of children, known as ‘shine’ or ‘steam’ – the kind of psychic powers that Danny Torrance demonstrates in The Shining.

Rose The Hat is charming and charismatic, effortlessly drawing people to her – allies and victims alike. She’s aware of the power that comes with being a woman who does not age, and willing to torture children to keep that power – but she’s not heartless. She cares deeply about the family she has forged in The True Knot, and is fiercely protective of them.

Talking to Ferguson in a London hotel suite, she is polished and poised, with an intelligent and unwavering gaze. When asked what drew her to Doctor Sleep, she agrees that Flanagan’s screenplay had many intriguing themes.

“Stephen King said one book is about abuse and addiction,” notes Ferguson, “and one is about recovery – there are so many layers with which to read the film and see analogies. But for me, it was quite simple: I read this script and I couldn’t find a single flaw. I loved the character. I loved how maternal I found her, I loved how protective she was of her people, and I loved how that inflicted consequences on others. Because that’s life, isn’t it? We make choices, we see things, we choose not to see other things.”

It’s unexpected to describe a child murderer as “maternal”, but that complexity is what makes Rose The Hat intriguing. She is maternal to those she loves, and merciless to those she doesn’t. She’s feels emotion and connection deeply, making it impossible to dismiss her as purely evil or monstrous.

“That’s the scary part, isn’t it?” says Ferguson gleefully. “I watched a lot of interviews with psychopaths and serial killers, just to see their reasoning. And usually, they didn’t have a reasoning, so the question becomes, ‘Where did they flip? Can I see the love, did they have any love for anyone?’ You look at someone like Ted Bundy who was a very intelligent man, and he has quite a lot of nothingness there. But there are moments when he’s talking where he is drawing on some emotion or connection, and I find those moments interesting. It reminds us of their humanity, which we often don’t want to think about. So that was interesting for research.”

Pop culture is currently experiencing a psychopath obsession, with true crime shows, podcasts, TV series like Killing Eve and You, and feature films about serial killers like Bundy reaching saturation point. Our interest in psychopaths and people who seem to easily ignore social and ethical imperatives taps into our fears of The Other, but also our sense of awe at those who don’t experience fears of either conscience or consequence.

“I find it very interesting,” says Ferguson of this current cultural trend. “There’s a morbidity in it. Why does traffic slow down when there’s an accident, why do we want to see? It cuts away from the normality and expectations of our everyday life. It puts us in an uncontrolled state. There was an interview with a guy who hit his mother 17 times with a sledgehammer while she was sleeping, and when he was questioned, there was something about his reality that was missing something from ours. There was no empathy. And it’s so interesting thinking, ‘Who in their right mind could do this?’ But he could intellectually explain the action. I found that interesting because my character cannot enjoy what she’s doing. She cannot feel empathy for her victims. There’s something very beautiful about something so different to us.”

Rose The Hat is the antagonist of Doctor Sleep, while adult Dan Torrance (Ewan McGregor) and gifted teen Abra (Kyliegh Curran) are the protagonists – two characters isolated by their psychic abilities and the trauma they have experienced. As Dan and Abra find a belated sense of understanding and shared experience in each other, we realise that The True Knot offers that connection to Rose. Though some of the characters are kind and some reprehensible, they are all staving off loneliness and seeking family. That loneliness was fascinating to Ferguson, and fuelled her understanding of Rose.

“I’m not a psychologist, but you see those programmes about highly intelligent children and there’s nothing beautiful about it,” she remarks. “There’s nothing beautiful about feeling so isolated and misunderstood that you become depressed. I feel when I watch these people is that they’re very lonely. What’s interesting is that these people need to do these things to survive – we need food and air, they need steam – and the consequence is not great for other people. But they are something together, they are a clan, a family, and they care for each other. She cries when something happens to them, she feels loneliness and sadness – she wants to be a part of things and not be alone. That removes the psychopath from them.”

While Dan Torrance may be the official lead character in Doctor Sleep, Rose’s dynamic with young, powerful women is intriguing. She is the one who recognises Abra’s limitless potential, but she also recognises it in one of The True Knot’s other members, Snakebite Andi. She uses her psychic abilities to punish predatory men for their crimes against women; a storyline that King wrote before #MeToo, but which takes on a new cultural relevance in this fresh era of accountability. Ferguson appreciated Rose’s understanding of women’s power, and salutes Rose’s attempt to “create some form of gender equality – not taking women and making them stronger just individually, but collectively.”

“Rose sees that Snakebite Andi has used her power for her own benefit,” she notes, “but also to protect other women. Rose says, ‘You can use it in an even different way, you can become one of us.’ It’s not the standalone power of one woman, it’s about seeing your role within a tribe.”

I remark that the fear surrounding young, powerful girls like Snakebite Andi and Abra feels prescient given the vitriolic rage and transparent fear being expressed by a lot of adult men towards influential girls like Greta Thunberg.

Ferguson smiles slightly.

“Their time has come.”

Doctor Sleep is in cinemas now.