The 2020 miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s epic The Stand was plagued with various problems, and casting Amber Heard as the villainous Nadine Cross was one of its biggest. Released in 1978, The Stand is one of legendary horror author Stephen King’s most ambitious works. A sprawling epic, the novel's lengthy plot follows two sets of survivors attempting to establish a new civilization after a deadly pandemic kills off the vast majority of Americans.
The subject of deadly pandemics was not one ripe for exploration in late 2020 when the COVID-19 crisis was still at its height. As such, The Stand arrived to understandably frosty critical reception, but it soon became clear that the miniseries had bigger issues than its unfortunate timing. The Stand’s divisive subplots, bizarre out-of-order storytelling, glacial pacing, and lack of scares all made the miniseries a critical disaster even without the issue of COVID-19 casting a dark shadow over its release.
Miscasting was a major problem for The Stand, which fumbled many major characters. In particular, Amber Heard’s role as Nadine Cross was a crucial mistake. Famous as a femme fatale since her breakout role in The Stand ruined one of Stephen King’s best villains by simplifying her character and removing her redemption arc in the process.
In the original novel and the 1994 miniseries, Nadine is introduced as a foil to Frannie, and her gradual seduction by Randall Flagg—and eventual subsequent seduction of Harold—is paralleled with Stu and Frannie’s comparatively chaste romance. Although the character is not King’s most complex antiheroine, Cross does have a naïveté that makes her seduction by Flagg both sad and believable, and her eventual redemption—killing herself to ensure Flagg’s demonic offspring is never born—is tragic as a result. However, with Heard playing the character as a villain not only does this make Nadine’s dark turn unsurprising, but the non-linear storytelling also means The Stand takes a long time for her petty villainy to turn into anything compelling.
One of The Stand should have done a lot differently but mes Nadine with miscasting and a nonexistent character arc was one of the biggest mistakes made by the Stephen King miniseries.
