The cast of Lincoln in the Bardo has grown even more remarkable, with Meryl Streep, Colman Domingo, Bill Hader and Tom Waits officially joining the hybrid stop-motion animation and live-action film. They join an already impressive ensemble that includes Tom Hanks, Willem Dafoe, Jonathan Bailey and Peter Dinklage. The Hollywood Reporter confirmed the latest casting on September 3.
The distinctive characters in George Saunders’ novel make each casting choice particularly significant. Meryl Streep will voice four separate characters in the film. She plays Abigail Blass, the ghost of a frugal widow who died destitute and alone, as well as Elizabeth Crawford, a disoriented country woman whose spirit is continually harassed by another ghost. Streep also voices an Angel who attempts to lure lost souls out of the bardo and a Demon determined to trap young Willie Lincoln in the cemetery.
Colman Domingo voices Thomas Havens, the ghost of a formerly enslaved man who, after a lifetime of passivity, seeks to compensate by pursuing an extraordinary and history-altering connection with President Abraham Lincoln.
Bill Hader will voice two characters: Eddie Baron, a rough working-class drinker who is killed alongside his wife in a carriage accident, and one of the Three Rakes, young men who died before experiencing love and remain trapped in shallow, restless behaviour. Tom Waits voices Jaspar Randall, a former dancehall performer who is also among the Demons attempting to capture Willie Lincoln and keep him in the bardo.
With the four new additions, Tom Hanks will play Abraham Lincoln in the film’s live-action sections, while the animated world of the bardo features Streep, Domingo, Hader, Waits, Willem Dafoe as Reverend Everly Thomas, Jonathan Bailey as Roger Bevins and Peter Dinklage as Hans Vollman.
Lincoln in the Bardo is adapted by Saunders from his own 2017 Booker Prize-winning debut novel. The story centres on one of the most private moments of Lincoln’s presidency: the February 1862 death of his 11-year-old son, Willie, from typhoid fever. Lincoln was reportedly seen visiting the crypt where Willie had been laid out on multiple occasions as he struggled to come to terms with his son’s death.
Saunders builds the story around that documented historical event by placing much of the narrative in the bardo, a Tibetan concept describing a transitional state between death and rebirth. There, a community of lingering spirits observes the grieving president while becoming caught up in the question of whether Willie will move on or remain among them. The film will translate this unusual setting through stop-motion animation, while Lincoln’s world will be presented in live action.
The film is directed by Duke Johnson, whose previous feature Anomalisa, co-directed with Charlie Kaufman in 2015, received an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature. Johnson’s experience with stop-motion animation makes him a natural fit for a story that moves between historical reality and an imagined world populated by the dead.
The film is produced by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman for Playtone, alongside Duke Johnson, Paul Young and Devon Young Rabinowitz for Starburns Industries. George Saunders, Steven Shareshian and Aaron Mitchell serve as executive producers, with production expected to take place in London.
No release date has been confirmed for Lincoln in the Bardo. However, with its increasingly prestigious ensemble and Saunders adapting his own acclaimed novel, the film is shaping up as one of the more ambitious stop-motion projects currently in development.
