William "Billy" Nolan is a supporting antagonist of the Stephen King multiverse.
Serving as a major antagonist of the novel Carrie, and its three film adaptations.
He is the boyfriend of Chris Hargensen. They both humiliate Carrie White and later, together with Chris, tries to murder Carrie and therefore became a victim of her telekinetic powers, when she killed him and Christine in self-defence.
Novel[]
Billy Nolan is Chris Hargensen's boyfriend and the leader of a dangerous gang in Chamberlain, Maine.
He did not seem to really care anything about Chris and acted more as though she were his enemy rather than his girlfriend. Like Henry Bowers, Buddy Repperton and Ace Merrill, he is the leader of a group of bullies, though unlike the three, it is not confirmed how many friends total number Billy's gang, with only two being identified by name.
Billy was one of the conspirators who helped in setting up the prom night prank against fellow classmate Carrie White, with whom Christine had harbored a bitter grudge after losing her prom privileges. Chris had approached Billy and "convinced" him to help her get even with Carrie, so he and several other friends and perhaps some fellow gang members raided a pig farm one night and mercilessly butchered two pigs in cold blood for their blood. Billy then broke into the Ewen High School gymnasium and poured the pig's blood into two buckets, which he then placed high upon a rafter and tied with a rope. When prom night arrived, Christine and Billy waited for Carrie and her date, Tommy Ross, to arrive onstage and be crowned, then pull the rope, drenching the pair with the blood. For a while, this scheme worked without a hitch with the addition, that one of the buckets fell onto Tommy's head, probably even killing him a few minutes later and cracks his skull. After a while, however, Carrie ran from outside the gym, crying and sobbing over his death. The next moment, faculty and students were dying left and right, and no one could figure out what was going on. Of course, Billy and Christine weren't bothering themselves with figuring out the mystery, for right after Christine pulled the rope, both made their way back to a local bar to an upstairs room, where Billy was rearing to have sex in celebration of submitting Carrie to the "ultimate humiliation." But he got no farther than undoing Christine's blouse. Later, Billy's fellow classmate Jackie Talbot banged on the door to the room where Christine and Billy were sleeping and told them, that most of the town was set on fire and that Carrie caused it all. Billy and Christine hurriedly put their clothes on and left the roadhouse, not before Billy saying that if the police found out about what happened at school, he was going to California. Although he guessed that he would take Christine if he went, it was revealed that he honestly would not. So, as he and Christine left the bar, he said, "This place sucks anyway." The pair got into Billy's car, engine stared, high beam blaring, Christine let out a scream, that seemed to send mental signals to Billy, and that's when they saw the battered Carrie right in front of the car. Wasting no time, Billy put the car into full throttle towards Carrie.
Before the car could make contact, Carrie mentally took control of it away from Billy and sent it hurdling right into the roadhouse, killing them both in vengeance.
1976 Film[]
John Travolta began his motion picture career by playing as the apathetic Billy Nolan in the 1976 film of Carrie.
He is the boyfriend of Chris Hargensen. He is prepared to do everything for her and she uses it to her advantage to convince him to do an evil prank on Carrie White. He obliges and goes for that with Christine and his friends to a farm and slaughters a pig, whose blood was then used for the corresponding, evil prank against Carrie. He then puts the blood on a bucket and places it over the place, where the Prom Queen is elected the night before, knowing that Carrie would be elected through a manipulated election, that Chris would arrange. At the Prom they both are hidden. Billy has second thoughts about doing this, but relents to Christine's insistence. After having arranged the election of Carrie and Tommy Ross, Christine later lets the bucket fall as planned on Carrie after having manipulated the elections through Norma Watson and their common friends and manages to throw the pig's blood on Carrie with success (while also knocking Tommy out on the way, maybe even killing him in the process). After that, they both go away happily and later observe the results of their prank from an outside window with the purpose of seeing the aftermath. However, they soon witness how Carrie kills everyone inside the prom in revenge, including their friends and Miss Collins, and look shocked and horrified. Feeling that they have failed with their plan, Billy and especially Christine vow revenge for what has happened and try to run over Carrie, when they meet her on her way home in the hopes of finishing what they had started. Chris drives the car during this event because of Billy being drunk. Carrie, however, senses their presence and destroys their car with them inside.
1988 Episode[]
2002 Remake[]
Actor Jesse Cadotte portrayed Billy Nolan in this version.
In this version, like in the previous ones, Billy is Christine "Chris" Hargensen's boyfriend. However he is also portrayed as a mentally unstable, malicious delinquent with a very dark sense of humor and he shows more signs of malevolence than Chris as he slaughtered a pig without a second thought and even pressured Chris to go along with the plot drench Carrie with pig's blood as she was thinking of redeeming herself when she saw how happy Carrie was.
Billy's insanity and malice ultimately proved to be his downfall when he attempted to run over the now telekinetic-crazed Carrie with his truck as Christine pleads for him to stop. However, Carrie sends the truck crashing to a tree, crushing both Billy and Chris to death like a pancake.
2012 Musical[]
2013 Remake[]
Billy Nolan is portrayed by Alex Russell. In this newer adaptation of Carrie, Billy is first seen making out with his girlfriend Chris and watching the video she posted later online.
Billy is very similar to the 2002 version, because he has a darker and evil side. He is seen to be very aggressive.
When Christine wants revenge on Carrie, they go to a farm and and there he slams the pig to death with a sledgehammer. He then lets Christine slit the pig's throat and seems proud of her when she did it.
Billy's dark image is also shown when he is forcing Christine to pull the rope, much like the 2002 version of Billy. He then pulls the rope with Chris causing the blood to fall out. He then grabs Chris as they run downstairs silently, but when Chris sees Tommy "Thomas" Ross' death, Billy quickly runs with her to the nearest exit.
Billy's death in this version of the movie was instant. He attempts to kill Carrie by running her over at the insistence of Christine, who tells him, "Kill her, Billy! Kill her!" He tells her, "Shut up, I got this."
After Carrie makes their car crash, Billy goes head-first into the steering wheel which breaks his nose, killing him instantly. His corpse was burned along with the corpse of Chris after Carrie explodes the gas station.
2013 Seattle Musical[]
2013 Sydney Musical[]
2015 Los Angeles Musical[]
2015 London Musical[]
Trivia[]
- In the 2002 T.V. film and 2013 remake of Carrie, Billy is much darker than in John Travolta's portrayal.
- In the novel, Billy is very evil and dark.
- He seems to love Chris, but later on shows his darker side to her, by saying that he will kill her if she tells anybody about the prank because of the legal consequences of committing criminal assault.
- Since the original novel is canon, he began Stephen King's line of Greaser-type bullies in his novels.
- Earlier that same year, Robert Lawson was one himself, but was accurately recreated in the movie version of his story. This makes Billy the second overall.
- He mostly served as the secondary antagonist for the majority of the novel, and films, while Chris served as the main antagonist.
Gallery[]
Billy Nolan (1976)[]
