Virtually everything you ever wanted to know about the making of Carrie...
Many of the cast/crew members were connected to Brian DePalma's earlier film, PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE, including Sissy Spacek, who worked as a set-decorator on that film. For more detailed info about the PHANTOM/CARRIE connection, click here.
The first draft of the script included the White Investigation that tied the story together in the novel, but it was deemed unnecessary for the film. It was also decided that Carrie's destruction of the entire town, which played out in the novel, would've been too large and costly of a feat to pull off in the film. In an unusual move for a Hollywood film, the second draft of the script underwent only minimal revisions before being filmed.
The casting of the film was part of a legendary "dual audition." George Lucas and Brian DePalma held an open casting call; Lucas was looking for a cast for STAR WARS, DePalma for CARRIE. In addition to trying out for roles in CARRIE, the ladies were casting to play Princess Leia and the guys were trying out for Luke Skywalker. DePalma later said in an Entertainment Weekly article that Lucas wanted to use Amy Irving (Sue Snell) to play the role of Princess Leia Organa, but DePalma ultimately won her for his film.
Piper Laurie did not audition for the role of Margaret White. After winning an Oscar for her performance in the 1961 film THE HUSTLER, Laurie retired from show business. An executive at United Artists was a fan, and urged DePalma to try to get her for the role of Margaret. Laurie had then-recently made the decision to return to acting -- she had just filmed the PBS original film "A Woman's Rebel" -- but when she was sent the script for "Carrie," she initially passed on it because it seemed to be a bland role. A re-reading and a meeting with DePalma swayed her opinion -- she concluded that there was an element of outrageous black humor to the film --so she accepted the part. CARRIE won her another Oscar nomination, she resumed her acting career and has continued to appear in films and on television ever since.
Betty Buckley also did not audition for CARRIE. She first met DePalma on an audition for his film PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE. Although she didn't win the role in that film, DePalma liked her and used her to dub voices for minor characters in both PHANTOM and OBSESSION. Before casting for CARRIE had begun, he talked to Buckley and announced that he wanted her to play the role of the gym teacher. She read the novel and thought the character of Miss Desjardin was small and uninteresting, but she changed her tune when she got the script and discovered they'd fleshed out the character of Miss Collins.
Sissy Spacek had worked with Brian DePalma before, and her husband, art director Jack Fisk, was hired for CARRIE. Spacek auditioned for numerous roles in the film; DePalma ultimately told her that she would be playing the role of Carrie White's nemesis, Chris Hargenson. DePalma had his mind set on another actress to play Carrie (he's never mentioned this actress by name that I'm aware of, but from his comments, I suspect it may have been Pamela Sue Martin, who went on to star in "The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries" and "Dynasty"). For Spacek, this wasn't good enough. She had words with DePalma and blew off a TV commercial shoot to audition one final time. She threw on a raggedy sailor costume, slathered her hair in Vaseline, arrived at the audition and blew every other candidate for the role out of the water.
Prior to being cast as boyfriend and girlfriend Tommy Ross and Sue Snell, William Katt and Amy Irving had dated and broken up. In a 1977 interview, Irving had this to say: "It was like a year before we tested for CARRIE. We were only together for a short time and then we became friends. Suddenly, we were tested for this film together. We tested with a scene that wasn't in the film, one of our big scenes that was cut out. It was in the back seat of a car and it was very physical. We were lucky because we'd been through that; we were very comfortable with each other, it was easy. We didn't end up having much together in the final print."
P.J. Soles wore her red baseball cap to the auditions. DePalma liked it so much that he insisted that she wear it in the film. The cap became something of a character unto itself and an inside joke -- during the scene in the beauty parlor, as Soles sits below the hairdryer, the cap sits on top of it.For Nancy Allen, winning the role of Chris Hargensen was serendipity. Allen was on the verge of giving up acting when she was approached by a casting director and told of the audition for CARRIE. Most of the casting was done at this point, so Allen missed out on auditioning for STAR WARS -- she was "the last person on the last day" to read for CARRIE.
Amy Irving (Sue Snell) and her real-life mother Priscilla Pointer (Eleanor Snell) play mother and daughter in this film. DePalma had previously cast Jennifer Salt and her mother Mary Davenport in the film SISTERS, and he liked the dynamic -- since Pointer was also an established actress, he requested her for the role. Because they played mother and daughter in CARRIE, DePalma opted not to use Pointer again in THE FURY (Joyce Easton played Irving's mother in that film).An alternate version of the locker room sequence was film which featured all of the ladies clad in bras and panties -- and Nancy Allen covered in a towel. This scene surfaced in American television airings for many years. Nowadays it's rarely seen -- the theatrical version plays with strategically placed fog that blurs out the nudity.... and there's even one version in which they've animated a bra and panties on Allen.
Bobby Erbeter, the "boy on the bike" was played by Brian DePalma's nephew, Cameron. However, it's not Cameron's voice that we hear in the film. The film originally contained quite a bit of dialog about Carrie and her mother praying; the lines that Cameron screamed were "Praying Carrie! Praying Carrie!" (which are still heard in the theatrical trailer). Betty Buckley (Miss Collins) had dubbed in voices for characters in a few of DePalma's previous films, so when scenes containing references to Carrie's religious habits were dropped, she was recruited to record the lines "Creepy Carrie! Creepy Carrie!" Buckley was unaware at the time that she was looping lines for Brian's nephew.
The statuette in Carrie's prayer closet is often believed to be Jesus Christ (it was scripted as such). However, when they decided that Margaret's death would differ from the novel and she's instead by stabbed to death by kitchen utensils, they opted to parallel her death by creating the statuette in the likeness of St. Sebastian, a Christian Saint who is generally depicted as having been stabbed with arrows.
The name "Bates High School" is an homage to Alfred Hitchock's film PSYCHO; the main character in that film is Norman Bates, who owned and operated The Bates Motel. DePalma was hailed as 'the new Hitchcock' in the '70s, and CARRIE wound up being DePalma's Hitchcockian masterpiece. The school's mascot are "The Bates Wasps;" strangely the new school kept the "Bates" name, but their mascot was changed to "The Bates Bulldogs" in THE RAGE: CARRIE 2.In addition to basing her performance as Carrie on the character in Stephen King's novel, Sissy Spacek drew upon her memories of a classmate named Dorothy, who was an outcast she had befriended in high school. Spacek had this to say about Dorothy in a 1977 interview: "She was from a poor family and wore weird clothes, but she was really beautiful. People made fun of her, but not as much as they did of Carrie. Dorothy filled the space in my class that Carrie did in hers, and I based a lot of the character on her."When Miss Collins hauls off and slaps Chris, the slap is real. Brian DePalma didn't want "a phony stage slap," so he instructed Betty Buckley to actually slap Nancy Allen. Allen, the future Mrs. DePalma, had to endure numerous blows to the face because Brian didn't like the way the scene was reading on film. John Travolta was also instructed to actually slap Allen, though he refused; his slaps were instead light and playful. "Red. I might have known it would be red." Margaret's reaction to the color of Carrie's prom dress appeared in a scene that was removed prior to filming. When that scene was scrapped, portions of the dialog were shifted to two other scenes. In the script, Carrie's prom dress was red, but the dress became pale pink to better suit Spacek and, as Laurie said: "no one bothered to check the dialog... Brian was gonna change it and I said, 'oh no, no, no!' In her mind the dress was red."The story about Miss Collins' prom was improvised by Betty Buckley. The dialog in the script ("I was two inches taller than the boy I went with..." "he gave me a corsage that clashed with my gown...") was lackluster, so DePalma asked Buckley to make up a story on the spot.
The prom scene was filmed at the Culver City Studio, which was formerly Selznick International, the studio where the burning of Atlantic was filmed for GONE WITH THE WIND. A blurb in the Press Book mentions the fire connection.
The pig's blood that Carrie gets drenched in was actually Karo corn syrup and red food coloring; a standard for blood in films. The liquid was warmed before being dropped on Spacek, and she described it as being drenched in a 'warm blanket' of liquid. After being splattered, the "blood" would start to dry and get sticky, so Spacek was routinely being showered with water from squirt bottles to keep her from sticking to things (and to herself). To keep the blood consistent between shots, Spacek even slept in it.
The entire prom massacre sequence was filmed in split-screen, which was a trademark of Brian DePalma films. As they were editing the movie, it was decided that having two shots simultaneously running for the whole scene would have been overkill, so it was edited so the split-screen shots would enhance portions of the action in the scene.
When Norma is sprayed by the hose, it was a stunt girl who falls upon the table. For establishing shots and the close-up, however, they needed P.J. Soles. For the final segment, the water was just supposed to brush her face, end take. However, the water hit her with such a force that it broke her eardrum.Although Spacek mentioned in "Acting Carrie" that she's actually in the foreground when Carrie is nearly run down by Billy's car, she said in a 1977 interview that it was a stunt girl. She wanted to do the scene, but it was decided that it was too dangerous. Undoubtedly she was on-set, but it's a case of memory not painting an accurate portrait.
Margaret's lengthy confession ("I should have given you to God when you were born...") at the end of the movie (which was added subsequent to the version of the script that's available on this site) nearly wasn't filmed. Filming was running over schedule and DePalma felt that it was too late in the movie for the exposition. Piper Laurie asked him to allow her a few takes, and he obliged. The rest, as they say, is history.
Originally, Margaret's death was supposed to be as it is in the novel: Carrie stops her beating heart. Feeling that there wasn't a good way to show this cinematically, DePalma came up with the idea that she would be stabbed to death. For Margaret's impalement, Laurie wore a steel girdle that was covered with wooden blocks, strategically placed in the places that the kitchen instruments would stab her. The instruments were flown on wires.It was Laurie's idea to have the Margaret character enjoy being murdered. In the script, Margaret "reacted normally" to being stabbed; Laurie continued with her "comedic" performance by playing the death as if it were orgasmic.
The White's house was supposed to be destroyed by a rain of boulders from the sky. This hearkened back to the prologue, which featured 7-year old Carrie summoning a hail of pebbles. A miniature version of their house was constructed, but on the night that the scene was filmed, the conveyor belt jammed on the rig that was supposed to drop the boulders. With dawn quickly approaching, DePalma decided to just burn down the house. The interior scenes were already filmed and it would have been costly to re-shoot, so you can clearly see rocks bursting through the ceiling. With this alteration to the ending, the prologue was deemed unnecessary and was ultimately trimmed out of the film.
As scripted, Sue was supposed to follow Carrie home from the prom. Moments after Margaret's death, Sue is seen hovering in the doorway, stifling a scream. She tries to explain her motives to Carrie, who doesn't want to hear them. "Get out" Carrie repeatedly screams as the house begins to collapse. Sue runs outside and watches in horror as boulders rain down from the sky onto the White bungalow. Judging from the way the scene plays out in the film, and knowing that the rain of boulders was dropped for technical reasons, I surmise this portion of the scene was most likely dropped prior to filming.
The bulk of Sue's dream was projected in reverse to give the scene a dream-like feeling. During the establishing shots, you can clearly see cars driving backwards in the background. According to Irving in a 1977 interview: "There I was in my costume and he says, 'Okay, now you're gonna walk backwards.' But I didn't know what he was doing. It was my first movie. Then we shot night for day -- I just do what he tells me. I'm good at walking backwards."
The arm that comes out of the ground during Sue's dream actually belongs to Spacek. A stunt woman was supposed to do the scene, but Sissy insisted that she be allowed to do the scene herself. A pit was dug in the ground and covered with a board and pumice rocks. At the appropriate moment, Spacek's husband (art director Jack Fisk), gave her the signal to grab Amy Irving's arm.
DePalma has gone on record saying that the hand-from-the-grave finale was inspired by the final scene in DELIVERANCE. Although a cliché by today's standards, the 'final scare' wasn't an established device in films in 1976 -- it caught audiences off guard and resulted in a cacophony of screams.
The film's score was originally to be composed by Bernard Hermann, who's most well-known for creating the music in PSYCHO -- he had previously scored two other DePalma films. Hermann died prior to filming, so Pino Donaggio was recruited to do the music. Donaggio had attained fame as a songwriter with "Io Che Non Vivo" ("You Don't Have to Say You Love Me") which became a smash hit for both Elvis Presley and Dusty
Springfield; but his memorable score for the film DON'T LOOK NOW started him in a long career doing film scores. Donaggio lifted the violin cues from the PSYCHO score at the behest of DePalma, who wanted "the musical equivalent of a shriek." DePalma has frequently stated the Hermann would not have been happy about the musical plagiarism.According the book "Stephen King at the Movies," principal photography took 50 days, but because of the massive editing job, post-production of the film stretched over several months.
MGM was convinced that they had a bomb on their hands. They urged the filmmakers to change the title to PRAY FOR CARRIE, with the intent of marketing it as low-budget, drive-in, b-movie, double feature fare.
On Halloween night in 1976, CARRIE was sneaked into theatres, playing as the second half of an unbilled double-feature. This was an attempt to gage reaction to the film, which opened the following week. Stephen King and his wife sneaked off to see it and found it was playing following the Redd Foxx comedy "Norman... I
s That You?" When his story of a pale white girl won over an all-black audience, he was sure it would be a hit.Stephen King has affection for the film. When asked if any of the film versions of his novels exceeded his expectations in an interview in Stephen King at the Movies, King replied "Carrie did. It was a big thrill because it was the first [film based on one of his novels], but it was stylish and had things in it that I wish I had thought of." In a 1978 Cinefantastique interview King said, "Sissy Spacek was excellent but right behind her -- in a smaller part than it should have been -- was John Travolta. He played the part of Billy Nolan the way I wish I'd written it, half-funny and half-crazy." In Creepshows: The Illustrated Stephen King Movie Guide, he said: "When 'Carrie' came out in paperback nobody knew me from anything. I was nobody -- and it did about a million copies, and then when the movie came out it went right through the roof... If you asked me what I'm proud of, I guess I would say CARRIE and THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION -- both got nominated for Best Picture of the year. Neither of them won it, but that was a real kick. Particularly with CARRIE, because I was new to the business, I had just started out."After CARRIE was completed, many people associated with the film went on to work with each other again. For director DePalma's follow-up, THE FURY, he cast Amy Irving in the lead role. DePalma later married Nancy Allen, who he cast in HOME MOVIES, BLOW OUT (which also starred John Travolta) and DRESSED TO KILL. Sissy Spacek her husband, Jack Fisk (art director for CARRIE), continued to make films together; he later directed her in the critically acclaimed RAGGEDY MAN. In the '90s, Spacek and Piper Laurie played sisters (!) in THE GRASS HARP; and Spacek was later reunited with Amy Irving in TUCK EVERLASTING.
Betty Buckley went on to have a long career on stage, screen and TV, but she was lured back to CARRIE in 1988 when Barbara Cook dropped out of Carrie the Musical after nearly being decapitated by an elaborate set piece. In the extremely brief Broadway incarnation of the show, Buckley took over the role of Margaret White. Although the show was a critical and financial disaster, Buckley got rave reviews for her performance. The musical instantly became a legendary cult hit -- bootleg audio and video from the musical continues to circulate, and many feel that it was Buckley's quintessential role.
