Gloria Reuben warned HollywoodLife Podcast listeners that they would see the Canadian-American actress in a way they have never before in any another role she’s played! The star tapped into her spicy and fierce alter-ego as Captain Jane Hollister in Firestarter, alongside Zac Efron. “As I was watching the movie, I just remember thinking how much fun it really was to do this kind of role. It’s different than anything I’ve ever done,” Gloria told HL. “I tapped into that multi-layered place where I haven’t had the joy of going before.”
In the film, Gloria’s Capt. Hollister is the head of a facility known as DSI, which tracks humans with supernatural powers and hires others to destroy them. In this case, Hollister is monitoring the thermal signatures caused by a young girl named Charlene “Charlie” McGee, who has pyrokinesis powers. In the original adaptation of the Stephen King thriller, the captain is played by Martin Sheen, but in this remake, director Keith Thomas was looking to switch things up.
“I shared my perspective with Keith on the role and how I saw all the possibilities for Captain Hollister, the different levels of psychological and emotional complexities, that could work. There’s so much unwritten about her,” Gloria detailed. “It left open the opportunity to fill in the blanks creatively, and he and I saw eye to eye on that.”
Something else that the actress noted she loved about the film was the idea that things are “so simple” as “good and evil.” “That’s the great thing about Stephen’s work. There’s more complexity to it, which makes it much more interesting,” Gloria said. “There’s this space for humanity, which is, when it comes down to it, we all have a part of ourselves that maybe, given a certain circumstance, we might not do things that aren’t necessarily the best thing, but that doesn’t make us evil, does it?”
Firestarter is currently in theaters, and is also available to stream on Peacock. Listen to our full interview with Gloria Reuben on the HollywoodLife Podcast.