‘The Stand’ Cast on Using Stephen King’s Novel as Character ‘Layers’ for CBS All Access Series

Stephen King’s 1978 novel “The Stand” is a 1300-page epic that starts with the outbreak of a fatal virus monikered Captain Trips that manages to take out 99.4% of the population — and not just humans, either; it also ravages certain animal species, including dogs.

The heart of the novel is in the journey of the survivors — those rare individuals who are immune for some special reason — as they journey across the country to find each other and build two distinct and seemingly polar opposite communities: Those who follow their dreams of Mother Abagail and Hemingford Home eventually end up in Boulder, Colo., while those who give into the temptations of the Dark Man aka Randall Flagg end up in Vegas. But simply settling there is only the middle of this story, which then requires another physical journey as select members of the Boulder community road trip to Vegas to try to put an end to the Dark Man’s evil ways.

“‘The Stand’ isn’t about the pandemic, it’s about what happens when you hit that reset button, what’s left over and you have all this handful of people in Boulder and a handful of people in Vegas, and it’s about the choices that you make — what do you decide to do, how do you move on from here?” says actor James Marsden.

CBS All Access’ adaptation of “The Stand” is a nine-part limited series, with that final episode featuring new material from King. Therefore, a significant amount of these beloved characters’ backstories and journeys had to be condensed or left out of the scripts entirely.

Here, the cast of “The Stand” previews what to expect from their characters.