Chris Chalk on playing Dick Hallorann

SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from Season 1, Episode 3 of “It: Welcome to Derry,” now streaming on HBO Max.

When Chris Chalk first appeared in Episode 2 of HBO’s “It: Welcome to Derry,” dedicated horror fans probably recognized that his character, Dick Hallorann, shares a name with the telekinetic chef of the Overlook Hotel from “The Shining.” Episode 3 confirms that this isn’t just a nod to another Stephen King classic, as the young black soldier demonstrates his unique powers in a thrilling and terrifying sequence. Chalk’s Hallorann, however, is a far cry from Scatman Crothers’ ill-fated incarnation of the character in Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film. “Everything I do will have a certain dignity,” says Chalk Varietyand he brings that dignity to Hallorann with strong purpose and intensity throughout the show.

Dick Hallorann was first introduced in 1977 as a magical character who shares Danny Torrance’s eponymous psychic abilities in Stephen King’s third novel, ‘The Shining’. He plays a prominent role in the book and appears again in the 2013 sequel, ‘Doctor Sleep’. Between the two, he is briefly seen in the 1986 novel ‘It’, albeit in a brief flashback. Even Chalk admits, “I didn’t remember any of that stuff in the book. I mean, the book has 3,000 stories. It’s okay to forget some of it.”

However, the periodic flashbacks in ‘It’ form a large part of the source material for ‘Welcome to Derry’, so Hallorann’s canonical presence in the city is naturally expanded upon in the prequel series. Accordingly, Chalk reexamined the source material and, under the guidance of writer, director and executive producer Andy Muschietti, the short-lived character came into full focus.

However, Chalk’s Hallorann is a departure from previous iterations of the character. Contemporary criticism of ‘The Shining’ will often point to Hallorann as a stereotypical, token black character. “He’s literally a magical nigga,” Chalk says. “But the problem with a magical nigga is that they’re the only damn black person in the movie.” That’s certainly the case in “The Shining,” where Crothers’ Hallorann is part of an otherwise all-white cast.

‘Welcome to Derry’, however, avoids this outdated trope. In addition to Chalk as Hallorann, Jovan Adepo plays Leroy Hanlon, a Black Army Major with a wife and son, who have their own arcs and are played by Taylour Paige and Blake Cameron James respectively. There are also Hank (Stephen Rider) and Veronica Grogan (Amanda Christine), a single black father and his daughter, who work at the town’s movie theater and become scapegoats in the disappearance of some town children. Other black soldiers populate the army base and town, as do Native American and Latino characters.

“Because we already have a huge selection of Black people in the story, not just as props, but as essential to the story, I know we’re going to avoid these tropes because the trope doesn’t exist if everyone is there to serve a purpose,” Chalk says. “I happen to be a magical black man, but in a world full of black people it doesn’t come across as rude.”

‘Welcome to Derry’ wears its racist commentary on its sleeve. Set in 1964, it builds on the setting’s history of racial violence and segregation, which are mentioned in passing in the 2017 and 2019 “It” films but unavoidable in the novel. Even Hallorann’s blinkered appearance in the book details his role as the founder of ‘The Black Spot’, a nightclub for black soldiers stationed in Derry, which was burned down by a Klu Klux Klan-like group.

When we first meet Hallorann on the show, he and some other black troops are being kicked out of a local bar at the insistence of the police chief. They then return to the army base, where they are similarly targeted until Hallorann’s name evokes some authority, the first sign that there is something special about him.

It is soon revealed that the army base is searching for an ancient weapon or power beneath Derry and Hallorann’s skills can help them pinpoint its location. These skills are on full display in Episode 3, when Hallorann is tasked with piloting a helicopter over Derry in pursuit of the target site. Using his abilities from the back of the helicopter, Hallorann falls into a trance, becoming increasingly distressed until his reality is fractured and the sequence cuts between the helicopter in the sky and a dark realm Hallorann navigates within his own psyche.

“He’s just sitting in the back of the plane, but he’s half in and half out of that reality because he’s immersing himself in another reality,” Chalk says. To play that version of Hallorann, who is physically present but psychologically absent, Chalk focused on making his breathing appear intentional and vibrate involuntarily. Instead of studying previous performances of “radiant” characters, he turned to examples of real-world people who crossed psychic barriers through herbalism and witchcraft in different cultures. “I’m not going to watch another movie because what’s the point? It’s just someone else’s guess,” says Chalk. He prefers to base his performance on real people’s attempts at mysticism.

Meanwhile, playing Hallorann in his psychic realm is a calmer experience. “He thinks he has it under control,” Chalk says. “There’s a calmness because he knows it’s in the psychic realm and nothing can hurt him.” Everything in the psychic realm is made up of Hallorann’s own memories, and he knows how to navigate them. However, as those memories are hijacked by something dark and unknown, he adds, “the world begins to give in to him and collapse.”

The audience witnesses this when Hallorann sees the tower of Pennywise’s floating victims in his psyche. Visions of war and violence from his childhood flash before he returns to reality, where he has one foot outside the back door of the helicopter and is only saved when Hanlon pulls him back.

As the actors stood safely on the ground in a sound stage throughout the sequence, Chalk recalls, “Both Jovan and I got hurt. It was early in the shoot, and when he stopped me from opening the back, he smashed my rib. That guy is strong. I studied Jiu Jitsu, so I thought, ‘It shouldn’t be that bad.’ But then I slammed him into the wall and threw his back out. So the struggle you see is really two actors who got a little carried away and were really hurt in the scene.

Fortunately, the two actors are cured, and the resulting scene is a thrilling mix of real-world action and paranormal mystery. Towards the end of the episode, Hallorann is having dinner at Hanlon’s house. After the meal, the two soldiers talk about what happened in the sky. Hallorann explains his powers as best he can. He also says that when he enters Hanlon’s mind, he cannot pinpoint any fear – a condition related to amygdala damage Hanlon suffered during the war. Given what we know about Pennywise and his thirst for fear, it looks like Hallorann and Hanlon could be the first lines of defense against the city’s terrifying clown curse.

But for courage in the real world, Chalk commends Andy Muschietti, along with showrunners Jason Fuchs and Brad Caleb Kane, for creating a daring show. “I think there’s a certain amount of bravery in it,” he says, “They could very well have told any of the other stories from ‘It’ and it would have been honorable, but I love that Andy, Jason and Brad said, ‘No, we’re going to make this version of racism that’s still very clear, and it’s still very visceral, but we’re going to do it in genre. We’re going to do it our way and add that other layer of horror.’ I believe that if we can ground an honest reality and tell this honest story, and add terror to the mix, people will respond.”