Judith Light on Roles in ’The Terror: Devil in Silver,’ ‘The Punisher’
Judith Light as Dorry in ‘The Terror: Devil in Silver.’
Emily V. Aragones/AMC
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Judith Light never selects a project at random. The actress feels passionately about tackling projects and storylines that matter, such as her role as Dorry in The Terror: Devil in Silver, the third season of the anthology series.
In the series, streaming on AMC+ and Shudder, Light plays a “lifer” at New Hyde Psychiatric Hospital. The actress hopes the show sparks conversations about mental health and the way we as a society deal with those struggling.
“[I hope the show makes us] pay attention and take care, and that we find the facilities that are there for people that really nurture them and care for them in really important ways [through] compassion [and] empathy,” Light tells The Hollywood Reporter on a recent Zoom.
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Light also stars in the recently released special, The Punisher: One Last Kill, which dropped on Disney+ last week. The special was co-written by the show’s star, Jon Bernthal, and director Reinaldo Marcus Green. Light has no shortage of wonderful things to say about her co-star.
“Jon Bernthal is simply extraordinary,” she says. “We were talking before about compassion and empathy, that’s Jon Bernthal.”
Below, Light speaks with THR about The Terror: Devil in Silver, how the television landscape has changed throughout her career and some recent theater pieces that have inspired her.
What drew you in with The Terror?
It was the character. It was the writing. It was [lead actor] Dan Stevens. It was [co-showrunners] Christopher Cantwell and Victor LaValle. It was [director] Karyn Kusama, [actors] Chinaza Uche, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Stephen Root, Hampton Fluker. All my buddies who I’d done theater with or who are in the theater. Everybody really had a similar language. Everybody was on the same page from the very beginning. It’s just a very powerful story. It gives us an opportunity to talk about mental health institutions and the way people who have mental challenges are treated in this country and around the world. It’s also about how homelessness ties in with all of that, and what we’re really doing as a society to have compassion and empathy and kindness for each other.
When you see a show like this and look at what happens to these people, how they are just thrown into this facility. In particular, I was really interested in the aspect of a woman who is being thrown into a place like this by her husband. After 30-some years, he never comes back to get her. What does it mean to have resilience even though you’re incredibly fragile? I had known about Victor LaValle, but I had not read the novel. He’s a New York Times bestselling author, and I thought it was a striking story. It’s a psychological thriller. It’s not just about horror. It’s funny and it’s entertaining at the same time.
Light as Dorry in ‘The Terror: Devil in Silver.’
Emily V. Aragones/AMC
The idea that someone could be in this for life is such an interesting idea. What kind of headspace do you go into portraying someone like that? I don’t think anyone is ever considering it’s happening, but it’s certainly someone’s reality.
All the time. I talk to people now, since this is in the process of coming out and they’ve been looking at some of the interviews. Somebody yesterday told me that they knew someone who had been put in a mental institution because basically the husband didn’t like the wife’s mood swings. That’s the kind of stuff that we’re talking about. Instead of getting help and getting support, you’re put into a facility like this. To answer your question about the headspace, when you have great writing like this, and you have great people doing showrunning, and a best-selling author on the set with you, and great directors, what ends up happening is you can move into that headspace very easily. I knew I had ideas about Dorry and how I wanted to portray her, because I’m always interested in what someone’s psychology is. What makes someone tick? What makes someone survive this kind of abuse? And I’m always interested in that.
You’re no stranger to the thriller genre, I think that’s fair to say. What do you find about this genre that lends itself so well to touching upon these real problems?
Because I it lives all around us, and just li