Kyliegh Curran to face cultists in The Shining sequel Doctor Sleep

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

GERALD'S GAME director Mike Flanagan has just cast an important role in his upcoming adaptation of Stephen King's DOCTOR SLEEP, a sequel to THE SHINING that catches up with Danny Torrance decades after the terrifying events at the Overlook Hotel.

Ewan McGregor will be playing the adult Danny in the film, and previously announced co-stars include Carl Lumbly as Dick Halloran, Alex Essoe as Wendy Torrance, Rebecca Ferguson as cult leader Rose the Hat, and Zahn McClarnon as her right hand man Crow Daddy. 

King's DOCTOR SLEEP novel has the following synopsis: 

On highways across America, a tribe of people called The True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmless—mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and tween Abra Stone learns, The True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the “steam” that children with the “shining” produce when they are slowly tortured to death.

Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father’s legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant “shining” power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes “Doctor Sleep.”

Then Dan meets the evanescent Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dan’s own demons and summons him to a battle for Abra’s soul and survival. This is an epic war between good and evil, a gory, glorious story that will thrill the millions of hyper-devoted readers of The Shining and wildly satisfy anyone new to the territory of this icon in the King canon.

As that description indicates, a young girl named Abra Stone plays a major role in the story, and that role has just been filled. After a nationwide search that saw 800 girls audition for the part, the actress who earned the role with "her knack for authenticity" is Kyliegh Curran.

Curran previously played young Nala in the Broadway version of The Lion King and appeared in the film I CAN I WILL I DID.

We'll get to see McGregor's Danny and Curran's Abra face off with Ferguson and her cult when DOCTOR SLEEP reaches theatres on January 24, 2020.

Very excited about our Abra… shine on, Kyliegh. https://t.co/6JkcKzyhJ6

— Mike Flanagan (@flanaganfilm) August 30, 2018