Stephen King's legendary book The Long Walk is now a new horror movie from Lionsgate, and it's blowing critics away, sitting at a whopping 96% approval score on Rotten Tomatoes. The story is set in a dystopian world where a group of teenage boys compete in an annual contest called The Long Walk. They have to stay at a three-mile-per-hour (MPH) walking speed or be shot on sight. The Long Walk stars Cooper Hoffman's Raymond Garraty and David Jonsson's Peter McVries as contestants #47 and #23, as they walk under the totalitarian leadership of Mark Hamill's The Major.
The Direct sat down with The Long Walk star Garrett Wareing, who plays contestant #38 Stebbins, to discuss the grueling shooting process that brought this movie to life.
Wareing noted that the intense production of the film made him "can't accurately describe how grueling this was to shoot." He elaborated that "by the end of this film, we were all just calloused and blistered and bruised," and the "limps that you're seeing towards the end of this film, those were all real," which made "these performances more authentic."
The movie was also filmed in chronological order, which is rare for productions. Wareing called this approach a "true blessing," one that let him "make choices the day before that you can then incorporate them into the performance as the days continue."
The Direct's Russ Milheim also spoke with The Long Walk star Ben Wang (Hank Olson, #46), writer J.T. Mollner, and producer Roy Lee. The full spoiler-free interview can be read below. The Long Walk is in theaters on September 12, 2025. Lionsgate's next horror film will be The Strangers: Chapter 2, which underwent some big changes.
The Long Walk Star Garrett Wareing Confirms Production Was as Grueling as It Looked
"I Can't Accurately Describe How Grueling This Was to Shoot."
- The Direct: "Was this movie as exhausting a film as it looks?"
Garrett Wareing: I can't accurately describe how grueling this was to shoot. I mean, there was a day when one of my dear friends, Daymon [Wrightly], who played Rank in the film, took off his shoes. He was like, 'Hey, there's something in my boots.' And he took off his Converse, and they were filled with blood. I think that maybe a blister had burst or something.
But by the end of this film, we were all just calloused and blistered and bruised. And you know, the limps that you're seeing towards the end of this film, those were all real. We weren't having to act there at a certain point. It was intense, but I think it made the movie better, because these performances were more authentic. And for me, I didn't have to even act as much because I just had to use what I was feeling on the day.
- The Direct: "I read that you guys shot this in sequential order, which is very unique for film and television to do that. What was that like? Was that a new experience for you, and how did it help your performance and add authenticity to the character?"
Garrett Wareing: It was a true blessing as an actor to be able to shoot something chronologically, because you can make choices the day before that, you can then incorporate them into the performance as the days continue.
And I remember I started the limp on one of these days, and I was like, I can just build this limp and make it more and more intense as it goes, because my foot was hurting that day, and I just wanted to use that. And so, like to make choices. And Francis [Lawrence] gave us such freedom to be able to make creative choices, to help us feel more personal within our characters.
And I think shooting chronologically and also having the freedom to be able to make our own choices allowed us to have fuller performances. And I think that's what we see on the screen now.
- The Direct: "Stebbins is not the most social, or, you know, open to socializing in general. When this walk starts, can you help paint a picture just of where he is mentally, as we start this event, and who he is before this walk even starts?"
Garrett Wareing: So, Stebbins is this mysterious character, and the audience is left wondering why that is. And you know, the viewers will get a treat when they do find out what this mystery of Stebbins is. And I think that's a really beautiful scene when that reveal happens.
But I think it comes from a place of self-preservation, and not necessarily from a place of antagonization. I think Stebbins, in his brain, he will win this. He is the strongest one. He's ready to walk to the end, and he's strong and he's prepared, and he wants to get that wish right. He wants his wish to come through. And in order for that to happen, he has to take out every other boy on this walk.
And I think if he probably believes that if he gets close to these other boys, it's only going to hurt him more. So, while it may seem like this antagonistic kind of character, it comes from a place of care, I think, because he doesn't want to hurt others or hurt himself in the process by bonding with these boys. But of course, he has to go along this walk, right?
We see this scene where they're starting to play music, and there's this first smirk from from Stebbins, kind of enjoying what this walk is when everybody's shouting, fuck the long walk, fuck The Major and I think that's the first time we see a bit of humanization within the character and bonding with these boys that continues to only grow throughout the rest of the film.
The full conversation with Garrett Wareing can be seen below:
The Long Walk Star Ben Wang on Filming Chronologically & Building Camaraderie
"It Made It Easy For Us to Keep Track of Our Relationships..."
- The Direct: "This movie was filmed in chronological order, which is a rare thing. How did that experience add to your own performance and help you realize the character more?"
Ben Wang: It just made it easy. It just made it a lot easier, because you'd have to think about us as an actor, you didn't have to keep track of the tired level of your character, right?... Before I found out that we were gonna do it chronologically, I was like, Oh man, I'm gonna have to basically take notes, right myself, like, out of 100 scale of how tired I am so that I can keep track of where I was in the scene before, or where I'm gonna have to be and like, basically do math. And I'm very glad that I had to do any math, and it made it easy for us to keep track of our relationships, too, how they grow and sometimes, how they deteriorate... It was just plain fun...
- The Direct: "You obviously play Hank, #46. Before this walk starts, can you paint a picture of just who he is mentally, like, where is he at? Who is he before it all begins, and then, you know, how does that change as he starts this walk?"
Ben Wang: I think at the beginning, he's a guy who thinks he could maybe win the long walk, and then somewhere towards the end, he realizes that he's not that guy. And that's really the trajectory, and I think that's what it is for every single one of these boys. I don't think, you know, any one of them would go into this not believing a little bit that, at least a little bit, for a lot of them, it's a lot of bits that they're gonna they at least have some chance of winning this thing. And then somewhere in those 400 miles, you break, and it's just where you break, how long it takes for you to break, what the thing is that causes you to break? But everybody breaks, right?
- The Direct: "Who was Hank before the walk? What did he do? Not too much of that is in the film. Did you get to kind of think about that on your own, or kind of flesh that out, or was that given to you?"
Ben Wang: I mean, it's just a couple of very simple pieces of information... There's a big piece of information that's kind of like a spoiler, right? It's like in the film. But other than that, it's just, it's more of, to me, the most important thing, especially for filming that first scene, when we meet all of the characters, it was just about attitude and headspace, and also how he wants to come off to the rest of these boys, what his strategy is. Hank's a big talker. He likes to talk. And, you know, paradoxically, I think that's how he calms down, is by talking, by moving his mouth. It's also why it's chewing gum all the time.
- The Direct: "It sounded like there was a really incredible camaraderie formed between the cast members, kind of much like we see through the film, in that world, through those characters. Can you talk just about that and experiencing those bonds growing both in real time, and having them reflect through the final product as well?"
Ben Wang: I mean, it was super literal. We all met each other on day one, and then we started walking. And then, as people died in the film, they would leave the set until it was down to just a group of us. So, the trajectory of these characters getting to know each other in the film is also the trajectory of us as actors getting to know each other in real life. We were shooting in Winnipeg, and outside of filming, there's not a whole lot to do in Winnipeg except go out, grab a bite, and get a drink.
So, we did that a lot, too. It was fun. I mean, at one point, we were out in Saskatchewan, we were staying in huts, like the circle of huts. It was like a ski resort. It was the middle of summer and it felt like a little summer camp. It felt like we were out on some sort of adventure. So, it was a lot of fun. And they're all really great guys and fantastic, talented actors. So real privilege to get to work with all [of them].
Make sure to watch the full interview with Ben Wang below:
The Long Walk Writer JT Mollner on World Building & Making Each Death Impactful
"It's Never Any Less Impactful to Lose Somebody."
- The Direct: "The story being told is generally restricted to just this walk itself, on this road. So then, how did you work to kind of world build while being restricted to that one road and what they may pass on the way?"
J.T. Mollner: It's a good question for Francis Lawrence as the director, but as the writer and working with him, I would say that our priorities were not—we wanted to make sure our priorities were the characters, and those relationships and revealing hints of what was going on outside of the road, but not worrying too much about making that the priority, making that the main focus. And we thought that would just distract.
Francis made a bold choice, which was, lets put them in this. Let's keep them in this. Except for, you know, these very few flashbacks, and I think that's where the movie, that's one of the things that definitely, one of the number of things that definitely separates this film from his style, and say, 'The Hunger Games,' he's much more intimate and kind of claustrophobic.
Roy Lee: JT initially, just wanted to focus on the boys and try to keep it as tight as possible. And we felt like if you started to see the outside world and everything, it would've gotten a little bit more sprawling than we needed to, because we just wanted to folk like the audience to focus on the characters themselves and the boys and their relationships, which is the most important part of this. And so knowing that what the world is, we could hint at it, and people could just imagine, but they know what the boys are dealing with, and that's what was important.
- The Direct: "Speaking of the characters themselves, obviously, given the concept, nearly all of them are going to be biting the dust by the end of the film. But just with these characters, how did you work to make sure that no matter when that happened, that each and every one of those deaths was impactful in their own ways, in varying ways throughout this runtime?"
Mollner: Almost everything you see in the movie, every death you see in the movie, was lifted right from the book. And I think that as I was reading the book, I kind of marveled at that. I mean, every time there's a death, it's impactful, and it doesn't lose that. And I think that if we were to sanitize it or shy away from it, I think it would be kind of obscene. And that's why I wanted to write it for Francis, because Francis wanted to direct a movie that went all the way, and I know that's what Stephen King wanted him to do, and I was really interested in writing that.
I think one of the themes and the observations for me is that, like, it never really gets easy, you know, when we lose people, even though I've had friends and family members who have died, and I've even been with somebody as they were dying. You think when it happens, it's going to be easier the next time, and it just never really is... You might start to handle it in a more elegant way, but it always impacts you, and I think that's what we're trying to do in this in this movie, is to show that it's never any less impactful to lose somebody.
Lee: Well, I think JT's job was made easier by Stephen King's amazing book. So, it was something where the hardest part for him was just to condense it and to combine characters that made sense, and just the situations, like the major beats were all taken directly from the book, except for, I don't even want to talk about it right now [due to spoilers], but there were changes that were made. Some were some big ones, but I'm thinking that the audience would understand why we had to do those changes.
Lee talked about the changes made to the source material, which amounted to lots of "combining of characters and reducing the amount of participants from 100 to 50:"
Roy Lee: I think that most of the changes were the combining of characters and reducing the amount of participants from 100 to 50. And it was just so much to work with, and it was just a matter of willing it down. So, I believe J.T. said his first draft of the script was 180 pages, which ended up being 95 pages. So it's like taking it and just condensing, condensing, and just working with Francis and like, what was important to keep and to keep the balance in the movie. And so it felt like it was constantly building.
The full, spoiler-free conversation with both J.T. Mollner and Roy Lee can be seen below:
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