For Samantha Sloyan, playing Margaret White in Mike Flanagan’s new Netflix reimagining of Carrie represents a departure from Stephen King’s original. In the series, Margaret is far more complex than Piper Laurie’s 1976 film version or even King’s novella—she genuinely loves her daughter while still being “a tragic figure, at best.”
“I think she fails her daughter in a lot of ways,” Sloyan told Polygon. “She’s loving her in the wrong way.”
Sloyan has appeared throughout Flanagan’s horror universe: as scheming Bev Keane in Midnight Mass, a witchy herbalist with a dark secret in Midnight Club, and Leigh Crain in The Haunting of Hill House. In the new Carrie, she brings those elements together into what may be her greatest role yet.
“She’s honestly one of the best actors I’ve ever met,” Flanagan said bluntly about Sloyan.
Redefining Margaret White
Flanagan couldn’t simply stretch King’s story over eight episodes. “Mike’s point of view for this — of ‘why Carrie?'” was to bring everything down to its foundation and rebuild it, Sloyan said. A big portion of that is Margaret: he wanted her relationship with Carrie to be a loving mother and daughter.
“To have that, Carrie can’t come from a monstrous home,” Sloyan explained. “We know she came from a mother and father, and we see he really cared for her, educated her, wanted her safe.”
The series updates how Carrie is bullied to reflect modern society. Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton) creates an anonymous Instagram account named Carrie Red to spread cruel rumors. Margaret responds by embracing social media herself, launching a movement to expose the student behind it.
Margaret succeeds but becomes enraptured by social media’s power, creating an anti-bullying movement that grows beyond her control and takes on “a violent edge.” Even when she’s gone too far, she refuses to back down.
“She drank the Kool-Aid and is excited by the attention,” Sloyan said. “We see as the audience that she’s just as susceptible to the charms of the internet as everybody else is.”
“Every decision she makes is driven by love. It’s a misguided love, and a frightening love by the end,” Flanagan added.
Samantha Sloyan’s superpower
When asked what makes Sloyan so fun to hate, Flanagan offered a surprising answer: her empathy.
“Sam is maybe the least villainous person I’ve ever met,” he said. “She approaches these villainous characters with the same empathy… She leans so fully into that perspective and is so determined to truly see the world through their eyes.”
Sloyan agrees: “When I play characters, I don’t really come at it from a point of view of them being a villain because it really colors how you connect to the choices.” She doesn’t see Margaret as the villain.
“Her goal is to put Carrie back in that house. At the core, I think that she’s wrong,” Sloyan said.
Sloyan’s most iconic Flanagan role remains Bev Keane on Midnight Mass, an irredeemable fundamentalist who wields power against her enemies until the end. Unlike Margaret, Bev never admits fault even as the angel she believed in reveals herself to be demonic.
“She believed so intensely that she was right,” Sloyan said of Bev. “If I’m chosen, it means that you’re not chosen.”
Five years later, Flanagan still admires the performance: “It made the character all that much more frightening.” What Sloyan accomplishes in Carrie, he noted, is nearly the opposite—taking a fanatical abuser and driving her with an unexpressed love that ultimately hurts her daughter.
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