In FIRESTARTER, young Charlie McGee has several big problems. One is that she was born with the innate ability to create and control fire. The other is that ability came from an experiment in which her parents were test subjects — and now the government wants to keep Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) under wraps. This adaptation of Stephen King's early novel comes from director Keith Thomas (THE VIGIL) and also features Zac Efron as Charlie's father and Michael Greyeyes as Rainbird, the operative who tries to get into Charlie's head.
We talked to Thomas and Ryan Kiera Armstrong to hear about their experience creating this fiery new vision. "This version of FIRESTARTER really boils down to the essence of what I enjoyed most about the book, which is the relationship between Charlie and her father, Andy; the tension and scares associated with her abilities… and the larger world conspiracy thriller aspects of a family on the run being chased by this shadowy government [agency]."
The beauty of King's original novel is that it is horror filtered through more approachable ideas — the scares are in many ways rooted in a loss of control. "It's different than any other horror that you would expect," says Armstrong. "It's scary, but this is scary but also [has] a lot of love and this family" as agents try to cage them, perhaps forever.
Watch our full video interview with the director and star of FIRESTARTER:
FIRESTARTER opens on May 13.
All images courtesy of Blumhouse and Universal Pictures.