The Fall Of The House Of Usher Adds Willa Fitzgerald To The Cast
Mike Flanagan's latest creepy Netflix project is "The Fall of the House of Usher," his third "scary houses" series following "The Haunting of Hill House" and "The Haunting of Bly Manor." Flanagan has teased that "Usher" is going to be tonally different from his previous efforts. During a recent appearance on the wonderful, most perfect podcast ever made by God or man known as "The Kingcast" (which I just so happen to co-host), Flanagan and his frequent collaborator Carla Gugino recorded a commentary track for "Gerald's Game," and during that chat, Flanagan revealed that if "Hill House" and "Bly Manor" were carefully constructed symphonies then "Usher" is hard rock.
Based on the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, "Usher" starts shooting on Monday, January 31, 2022, with a mighty impressive cast, including the just-announced Willa Fitzgerald. You know her work from the surprisingly good "Scream" MTV series, "Dare Me," and "Beach House."
She joins an all-star cast of Flanagan regulars and impressive newcomers, including (deep breath) Carla Gugino, Frank Langella, Mark Hamill, Kate Siegel, Rahul Kohli, Samantha Sloyan, Henry Thomas, Zach Gilford, Annabeth Gish, Mary McDonnell, Kyliegh Curran, Carl Lumbly, T'Nia Miller, Katie Parker, Igby Rigney, Matt Biedel, Malcolm Goodwin, Michael Trucco, Paola Núñez, and the great Robert Longstreet.
Stacked cast, right?
The Personal Touch
You'll recognize most of those names from previous Flanagan projects, including "Bly Manor," "Hill House," "Doctor Sleep," and "Midnight Mass," which rules by the way and you should totally watch it if you somehow missed it when it came out.
Flanagan announced the casting of Fitzgerald himself via his Twitter account, which is how he went about announcing each member of that amazing cast. The writer/director/producer genuinely loves making stuff with his favorite people and it shows in every single social media post he made announcing each cast member. He could have easily just left it up to Netflix's PR department to break via Deadline or something, but he decided to add that personal touch.
But that's how the folks at Flanagan's company, Intrepid Pictures, roll. They're obviously in this for the love of the game and that shows through in his work.
While they're in production on "Usher," they'll also be putting in the finishing touches on "The Midnight Club," a YA horror series also for Netflix based on the influential tween horror books by Christopher Pike.
Oh, and on that aforementioned Kingcast appearance, Flanagan also said he has another Stephen King project brewing, but was tight-lipped on what that would be. The man is busy as hell is my point and that's nothing but good news for us horror fans.