Cooper Hoffman Walked ‘Close to 400 Miles’ in ‘Long Walk’
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NEED TO KNOW
- Cooper Hoffman stars in the new dystopian movie The Long Walk, which follows a group of young men entered into a deadly walking contest
- The actor said that he and his costars walked “15 miles a day in 100 degree heat on concrete [and with] no shade,” totaling almost 400 miles
- Despite the strenuously long takes, the cast all “wanted to be a part of” the Stephen King adaptation
Cooper Hoffman’s new movie, The Long Walk, lives up to its name.
“We’re actually walking,” the actor, 22, said of the Stephen King adaptation, which is in theaters on Sept. 12, during an appearance on the Today Show on Friday, Sept. 5. Hoffman plays Raymond Garraty, contestant #47 in an annual walking contest designed to end with only one survivor.
“We ended up walking close to 400 miles in total,” explained the Licorice Pizza star. “We’re walking, like, 15 miles a day in 100 degree heat on concrete, no shade.”
Helmed by Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence and adapted by JT Mollner from King’s 1979 dystopian horror novel, The Long Walk costars Mark Hamill as the Major, enforcing the totalitarian regime’s cruel rituals. Walkers participating in the deadly competition are played by David Jonsson, Ben Wang, Charlie Plummer, Garrett Wareing, Tut Nyuot and other young stars.
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“I think that we all got excited for this thing that will hopefully never be made again and we all wanted to be a part of it,” Hoffman told the Today anchors of the long awaited, first-ever adaptation of King’s book.
The grueling long takes in the hot Winnipeg, Canada sun, though, took a toll. “There was a real — when you got there and you started walking — anxiety of actually making it through the day,” he added.
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At the movie’s San Diego Comic-Con presentation in July, Wareing, 23, told PEOPLE that the young men of The Long Walk would visit Dairy Queen together after walking in the “hot, hot, hot” weather.
“The brotherhood that you see on screen is the brotherhood that we had in person and in between takes. We were listening to music, we were decompressing,” said the actor. “And that ice cream hit. I would sleep for those two days on the weekend, and then hit the ground running — hit the ground walking — on Monday.”
Hoffman also said on Today that he has developed a tradition before filming any new project: revisiting The Master, his “favorite” film of his late father, Philip Seymour Hoffman. “I watch it every time before I’m going to shoot a movie… because it just has everything.”
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The Long Walk marches into theaters Sept. 12.
Credit to Nypost AND Peoples
