Castle Rock: Tim Robbins on Returning to the Stephen King Multiverse [Video]

Fans of Stephen King and Shawshank Redemption will see a familiar face when they tune in to the new season of Castle Rock on Hulu. 

Castle Rock Season 2 has gotten a visit from Tim Robbins, who is not a newcomer to the Stephen King multiverse. Tim Robbins played wrongly convicted Andy Dufresne in the 1994 film. Now, he’s entering the universe in a different role. 

Tim Robbins sat down with reporters at New York Comic Con to talk about his role in the Hulu series. 

Robbins started by discussing what drew him to the role. Stephen King wrote Shawshank Redemption in addition to the horror he’s known for, but Robbins didn’t take the two sides of King’s repertoire into account when he signed on to the project. 

“Honestly, I didn’t even think about that, I know that they do Shawshank in the first season, but they are such wildly different universes, that I more was interested in the universe of terror, and horror that they were dealing with. And the character, the character’s what drove me to it,” Robbins said. 

On Castle Rock, Robbins is playing Reginald “Pop” Merrill, the dying head of a crime family. When asked to describe the character, Robbins quickly talked about how Pop’s history in the town was to his advantage. 

“He’s morally complicated. Someone that has a past that is full of demons and ghosts. He’s probably the only one in the town that can recognize a certain element of the town that has a tenuous hold on itself, and at any time can burst.” 

There is some father-son tension in Castle Rock Season 2 as his son Ace tries to succeed his dying father. 

“Well the question is, was Ace bad from the beginning, or did Pop have something to do with that? It’s what happens in a crime family. If you raise your children in a crime family, you’re going to have to expect that some of your children might not be good people,” Robbins said. 

Watch the interview with Tim Robbins:

Robbins talked extensively about how he went about finding the character of Pop stressing that every human being is capable of good or bad acts depending on the circumstances. 

“I think all of us have the capability of acts that are moral and sometimes it’s the way you’re raised, sometimes it’s your relative mental security, sometimes its as simple as if you have enough to eat that leads to whatever behavior that society might find compromised.”

“An experiment you can do is try not eating for four days and see how rational you are. Then add a little drugs into that mix and see how rational you are.”

Robbins also talked about how his upbringing helped him access a morally complicated head of a crime family. 

“I grew up around kids that got into trouble, some of them went to jail, so I don’t feel that far removed from people who weren’t as lucky as I was. I don’t approach it with that kind of judgment. I approach it as everyone is capable of evil and everyone is capable of good, and even if you have done bad things you’re still capable of redemption, and if you have been an angel your whole life, you are capable of murder. That’s the human condition.” 

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Castle Rock is now streaming on Hulu with new episodes every Wednesday. 

Check out the rest of our coverage from New York Comic Con. There is more plenty more to come. 

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