Spoiler Alert: This story contains spoilers for Season 1, Episode 3 of It: Welcome to Derry, now streaming on HBO Max.
When Chris Chalk first appeared in episode 2 of HBO’s It: Welcome to Derry, avid horror fans likely noticed that his character Dick Halloran shared a name with the Overlook Hotel’s telekinetic chef from The Shining. Episode 3 confirms that this episode is more than just an homage to another Stephen King classic, as a young black soldier displays his unique powers in a thrilling and horrifying sequence. But Chalk’s Hallorann is very different from the character Scatman Crothers’ ill-fated incarnation in Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film. “Everything I do has a certain amount of dignity,” Chalk told Variety, and he brought that dignity to Hallorann with a sense of purpose and intensity throughout the show.
Dick Hallorann first appeared in Stephen King’s third novel, The Shining, in 1977 as a magical character who shares the same name’s superpowers with Danny Torrance. He plays an important role in the book and reappears in the 2013 sequel, Doctor Sleep. In between these two works, he appears briefly, albeit in a brief flashback, in the 1986 novel It. Even Chalk admits, “I didn’t remember anything about the book. I mean, there are 3,000 stories in this book. It’s okay to forget some.”
However, the intermittent flashbacks of “It” provide much of the source material for “Welcome to Derry,” so Hallorann’s canonical presence in town is understandably expanded upon in the prequel series. So Chalk revisited the original story and, with guidance from writer, director, and executive producer Andy Muschietti, fully revealed the ephemeral character.
Brooke Palmer/HBO
However, Chalk’s Hallorann deviates from past iterations of the character. Modern reviews of The Shining often point to Hallorann as a stereotypical, token black character. “He’s literally a magical black man,” Chalk says. “But the problem with Magical Negroes is that they’re the only fucking black people in the movie.” That’s certainly the case with The Shining, where Closers’ Hallorann is one of an otherwise all-white cast.
But “Welcome to Derry” avoids this outdated trope. Alongside Chalk as Hallorann, Jovan Adepo plays Leroy Hanlon, a black Army major with a wife and son. They each have their own arcs, played by Taylor Page and Blake Cameron James, respectively. There are also Hank (Stephen Ryder) and Veronica Grogan (Amanda Christine), a single black father and his daughter who work at the town’s movie theater and become scapegoats for the disappearances of the town’s children. Army bases and towns are home to other black soldiers as well as Native Americans and Latinos.
“We know that having so many black people already in the story, not just as props but as integral to the story, means we’re going to avoid these tropes, because if everyone there didn’t serve a purpose, this trope wouldn’t exist,” Chalk says. “I happen to be a magical black man, but in a world full of black people, that doesn’t seem gross.”
Brooke Palmer/HBO
“Welcome to Derry” has a comment about racism written on its sleeve. Set in 1964, the film expands on the history of racial violence and racism that is only peripherally mentioned in the 2017 and 2019 IT films, but is unavoidable in the novel. Hallorann’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance in the book also depicts his role as the founder of The Black Spot, a nightclub for black soldiers stationed in Derry that was burned down by groups like the Klu Klux Klan.
When we first meet Hallorann on the show, he and the rest of the black squad are kicked out of a local bar at the insistence of the police chief. They then return to the army base and are targeted there as well, until Hallorann’s name evokes some authority and the first sign that there is something special about him.
It soon becomes clear that an army base has unearthed some kind of ancient weapon or power beneath Derry, and that Hallorann’s abilities will help locate it. These abilities come into full effect in Episode 3, when Hallorann is tasked with guiding a helicopter tracking a target over Derry. Using his abilities from the back of the helicopter, Hallorann enters a trance-like state where reality collapses and the sequence becomes increasingly agonizing until it cuts between the helicopter in the sky and the dark realms Hallorann navigates within his own mind.
Brooke Palmer
“He’s just in the back of the plane, but he’s half in and half out of that reality, because he’s delving into another reality,” Chalk says. To play a version of Hallorann who is physically present but psychologically absent, Chalk focused on making his breathing appear deliberate and shaking involuntarily. Rather than studying previous performances of “shining” characters, he looked to examples of real-world people pushing past mental barriers through herbalism and magic across a variety of cultures. “I don’t watch movies anymore, because what’s the point? Other people are just making assumptions,” Chalk says. He prefers to base his performances on real people’s attempts at mysticism.
Playing Halloran in the spiritual realm, on the other hand, is a more serene experience. “He thinks he’s in control,” Chalk says. “There’s a calm there, because it’s in the spiritual realm and he knows nothing can hurt him.” Everything in the spiritual realm is made up of Halloran’s own memories, and he knows how to navigate it. But when those memories are taken over by something dark and unknown, “the world falls on him and begins to crumble,” he added.
The audience witnesses this when Hallorann sees a tower of Pennywise’s victims floating in his mind. When childhood visions of war and violence flash back to reality, he has one foot out of the helicopter’s rear door, only to be saved when Hanlon pulls him back.
Brooke Palmer/HBO
Although the actors were safely on the ground inside a soundstage for the entire film, Chalk recalls, “Both Jovan and I got hurt. Early on in the shoot, when he was helping me open my back, I broke my ribs. That guy is strong. I had studied Jiu-Jitsu, so I thought, ‘It can’t be that bad.'” But then I slammed him into the wall and shoved him in the back. So the conflict you’re seeing is actually two actors who got a little carried away and got really hurt on set. ”
Fortunately, both actors recovered and the result is a thrilling scene that blends real-world action with paranormal mystery. By the end of the episode, Hallorann was having dinner at Hanlon’s house. After the meal, the two soldiers talk about what happened in the sky. Hallorann explains his powers to the fullest. He also stated that when he got inside Hanlon’s mind, he could not find fear. The fear is a symptom related to the amygdala damage Hanlon sustained during the war. Given what we know about Pennywise and his desire for fear, Hallorann and Hanlon may prove to be the town’s first line of defense against the terrifying clown’s curse.
But for real-world courage, Chalk praised Andy Muschietti, who along with showrunners Jason Fuchs and Brad Caleb Kane, created a bold show. “I think there’s a certain amount of courage in this,” he says, “They could have told other stories in ‘It’ very well and that would be an honor, but I love that Andy, Jason and Brad said, ‘No, we’re going to do this version of racism.’ It’s still very obvious, it’s still very visceral, but we’re going to do it our way and add another layer of horror.”In my opinion, if we can tell this honest story based on honest reality and add some horror on top of it, people will respond.” ”
