Matthew Lillard spent the Carrie prom shoot with a camera in his hands, and he has now shared what he captured. Lillard, who plays Principal Grayle in Mike Flanagan’s Prime Video series, released 15 of his own behind the scenes photographs on Friday through Bloody Disgusting, and the set amounts to a cast member’s diary of the production, from the first rehearsals in an empty gym to prom night itself.
The photographs move between the quiet work and the famous storm. On the gym floor, Summer H. Howell kneels with script pages in hand, talking through a scene with a castmate. The decorated prom gym stands ready, all starry curtains and set tables. There are black-and-white portraits between setups, one of them playful and out of character, and then prom night itself arrives: Howell in her prom dress and tiara, covered in stage blood, posing beside the smiling prom king, standing in the crowd, and pausing at one point with a pink popsicle while still in full Carrie makeup. Lillard turns up in the set as well, standing on the prom stage in front of the star backdrop.
Lillard said he does not often share his photographs, but this shoot stayed with him. Living through Carrie White’s prom, he wrote, felt like “playing in the shadow of history,” and he wanted to remember the collection of artists who built it. The prom sequence was a production in its own right, filmed across two weeks of night shoots with some 200 extras in formal wear.
All eight episodes of Carrie are now streaming on Prime Video, and the first episode is also streaming free on YouTube. Flanagan has been open about how the series was built, from bringing real teenagers into the writers room to reshaping the finale around an original song. Lillard’s photographs add the view from inside the room, taken by someone who was standing in it.