IT: Welcome to Derry’s Chris Chalk on Dick Hallorann’s The Shining Transformation – ‘He’s Nowhere Near That Guy’

For Chalk, Dick’s shining powers are “a big-time curse” because “he’s perpetually wanting love and cannot get it, because if I can read your mind, I’m going to cheat. You know what I mean? I’m going to figure out who you really are.”

That said, and Dick’s being alone in The Shining notwithstanding, Chalk does see his character as taking the first steps to a better life in Welcome to Derry — one where he can deal with his powers.

“To me, Welcome to Derry, the last episode is the beginning of the transformation,” he says. “He’s nowhere near that guy [in The Shining], but he’s learning that, ‘Oh, I can find connection. People will like me. I can be useful.’ Whereas before that, it’s a one-person show with it.”

As for Dick’s future… or rather, the future of his past, Chalk’s not ruling out playing the character again. While the plan is for Welcome to Derry to span three seasons, it’s currently unclear where it will all sit on the timeline. But Mike Flanagan, who wrote and directed The Shining movie sequel Doctor Sleep, and which featured Carl Lumbly as Dick, was at one time working on a potential prequel that would’ve focused on the character. Chalk is all in if somethign like that ever comes to be.

“Oh, man,” laughs the actor. “I’m trying to initiate [a spin-off]! What are you talking about? Yeah. I would love it. … There’s so much storytelling left to be told about Dick Hallorann, and we know where we’re going. Because imagine, one, he could go to New Orleans. That’s a thing. He could just go straight to the Overlook and then, you know the picture with all the people [from the end of The Shining]? Where’d they go? And that could be the series. The death-of-the-week sort of thing. Who were the twins? Were they alive when he got there? You know what I mean?

“That’s the beauty of Stephen King. He gave you all this stuff and says, ‘Go play, now.’ So let’s make this show!”