‘Salem’s Lot’ Star Lewis Pullman Says ‘Thunderbolts’ Audition Was Like Joining the FBI: ‘There Were Shredders Everywhere’

Lewis Pullman stars in Max’s new film adaptation of Stephen King’s second horror novel, “Salem’s Lot.” He plays Ben Mears, a writer who finds his quaint New England hometown has been invaded by vampires. During an appearance on the “Just for Variety” podcast , the actor recalls his friend and “Top Gun: Maverick” co-star Danny Ramirez helping him develop his character’s story, especially his facial expressions when reacting to the blood-sucking creatures.

“He taught me this great thing, a way to break down the arc of a character with all these note cards,” Pullman says. “So I did it on this because I wanted to really track basically how Ben’s journey into believing in something crazy like vampires. I was like, ‘OK, I really want of do this right,’ where he’s like, ‘There’s no way vampires are actually [real]’ and then it’s like he sees this, he hears this, he witnesses that and compiling that arc.

I tried to map it out with some sort of architecture, and so I hope that the extreme nature of my reactions has some sort of an elegant bell curve going on.” Pullman says he didn’t expect the movie to include so much stunt work. “I got very battered over time, I would say.

There was, yes, a combination of things that definitely weakened my body,” he says. “It’s one of those things where you read the script and you’re like, ‘OK, so this is awesome, you’re fighting the vampires.’ And then you really sit down and you start wa.