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AN INTERVIEW WITH STEPHEN KING 

Tell us, what is Rose Red about?
Rose Red is a haunted house story, and I'd like it to be a sort of Moby Dick haunted house story, if you will. Something that's big and scary � that sticks in people's minds as "the haunted house movie." So in that sense I'm like Joyce Reardon. I'm after the White Whale. I probably won't catch it, but unless you try, you don't get any chance at all. I'd like it to be a haunted house story that people remember as one of the great ones.

How did this idea come about?
Actually Steven Spielberg came to me and said he would like to make a very scary haunted house movie and asked if I would be up to writing it. For a long time I'd been playing with an idea of writing a haunted house story. It would take off from the point of the Winchester house in San Jose, in which supposedly the widow of the Winchester Rifle magnates was told by a psychic, "As long as you're not done building the house, you'll stay alive." And so she decided she would never be done building the house and would therefore never die. What I liked about it was the idea of a house that starts to build itself.

Did this set capture everything that was in your imagination?
It captured everything in my imagination and more. I had the idea that we could do some really freaky things � where the house would have staircases that would go nowhere, or a perspective hall in which people walking down it would look big at one end and small at the other. There would even be a room or corridor that was upside down, like the ship in "The Poseidon Adventure." I had the tremendous fun in my imagination of building all this stuff. Set designer Craig Stearns worked with us to realize the actual sets, and they're fabulous.
 

How does creating a six-hour television miniseries differ from a two-hour movie?
I love the miniseries format because it gives you more room to stretch. Movies always make me feel like I'm stealing all the towels in the hotel room and then sitting on the suitcase to get everything in. When you do a miniseries, you've really got a much bigger space. It's the difference between a suitcase and a steamer trunk. You've got the room for a whole narrative wardrobe. 

ACTOR Nancy Travis Matt Keeslar Kimberly J. Brown David Dukes Judith Ivey Melanie Lynskey Matt Ross Julian Sands Kevin Tighe Julia Campbell Emily Deschanel Laura Kenny Tsidii Leloka     CHARACTER Joyce Reardon Steven Rimbauer Annie Wheaton Professor Miller Cathy Kramer Rachel "Sister" Wheaton Emery Waterman Nick Hardaway Victor Kandinsky Ellen Rimbauer Pam Asbury Kay Waterman Sukeena