Despite being a self-proclaimed scaredy cat, Siena Agudong is making a run at scream queen.
The 22-year-old actress stars in the new Amazon series adaptation of Stephen King’s 1974 cult classic horror novel “Carrie,” in which she assumes the role of Sue Snell. Developed by showrunner Mike Flanagan, the eight-episode series offers a present-day reimagining of the coming-of-age tragedy, with a viral social media bullying scandal at the center of the plot. The show became a number-one hit for Prime Video, and has already been renewed for a second season.
“This show does a really beautiful job [because] it’s scary, but it’s expanded over eight episodes, so you can see our characters more wholly than in other adaptations only because you go home with them,” Agudong says.
The actress is in Thailand wrapping filming for “Extraction 3” set to release next year. It’s monsoon season in Southeast Asia and thunder and lightning illuminate the night sky behind her as she chats on Zoom.
“I wasn’t able to make it to the premiere or much of the press, so watching all the clips of my castmates… I’m so proud of all of them because we’re able to have conversations about the subject matter that we talk about in the show,” she says.
This new adaptation of “Carrie” presents a deeper look into the humanity of the characters as they navigate a more modern world than in the original novel. Agudong describes her character as “sensitive” and a “deep” role, where she was going places emotionally and psychologically that weren’t necessarily comfortable.
“A lot of questions have been coming up about Sue, and whether or not she was friendly, whether or not she was a mean girl,” she says. “There’s no right and wrong in how someone interprets it, but I am so happy to see that conversations are being had because it’s doing the exact thing that I was hoping for, which is having people ask these questions and talk about it.”
In a world where social media can feel more salient than real life, the plot of “Carrie” examines the nuances of what it means to be truly kind, the complicated performance of altruism, and whether one’s actions actually align with their perception of their own integrity.
“Ironically, we do a show that talks about the harm of social media just for it to turn into something that is almost healing it in a way,” Agudong says. “I’ve been getting very sick of my phone recently, and I can tell that because I’m away on a job I need more connection with people. I was excited for the questions I had to ask myself throughout this show. And it’s a show that I wish I watched when I was younger.”
Though the original film adaptation has been a classic since it was released in 1976, Agudong hadn’t seen it prior to filming. Flanagan’s new rendition of “Carrie” is introducing a younger generation to the quintessential horror story, and for her part, Agudong wanted to keep the rendition fresh.
“I read the book. I didn’t watch the movie,” she admits. “I didn’t want to have another iteration in my head and fear that I was copying it or comparing myself to it because all I knew was the ‘Carrie’ in front of me and that was a different Carrie than the ones in previous movies. By the time I got to rehearsals, Mike told us that from this point forward, there are no right and wrongs. Our particular Carrie was our Carrie.”
Agudong, who was born in Kauai, is known for her role in the Tubi romance series “Sidelined,” the third installment of which will be released on Thanksgiving. “Carrie” wasn’t her first foray into horror, though: she starred in the 2022 Netflix series “Resident Evil.”
“I have a lot of fun filming horror. I didn’t ever seek it out, but it feels like where I’m headed and what I have been doing the most,” she says. “I love it and I’m growing. The dream is to work in action and I love that there is a bit of a cross in that. I am still a scaredy cat, so I’m still not able to watch a lot of it, but I’ve seen more horror than I think any other genre at this point.”
