One of the most inventive film projects currently in development just added three extraordinary names to its voice cast. Willem Dafoe, Jonathan Bailey and Peter Dinklage have all joined Lincoln in the Bardo, the hybrid stop-motion animation and live-action adaptation of George Saunders’ Booker Prize-winning novel, directed by Duke Johnson and starring Tom Hanks as Abraham Lincoln. The announcement was confirmed by Deadline on August 28.
Lincoln in the Bardo is based on Saunders’ 2017 debut novel, which won the Man Booker Prize and spent weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Rather than focusing on the moments in Lincoln’s life that are most commonly dramatised—the Civil War, the abolition of slavery, his assassination—the story centres on one of the most private and painful episodes of his presidency.
In February 1862, Lincoln’s 11-year-old son Willie died of typhoid fever at the White House. Lincoln was said to have visited the crypt where the boy was laid out on multiple occasions, unable to let go. Saunders took that documented history and built around it an extraordinary novel that unfolds largely in the “bardo”, a Tibetan concept describing the transitional state between death and rebirth, where a collection of lingering spirits observe the grieving president. The film mixes history and imagination through an ensemble of characters, living and dead, historical and invented, to explore themes of love, empathy and the human capacity for connection in the face of unimaginable grief.
Each of the three new additions has been confirmed in specific ghost roles from the novel. Willem Dafoe will voice Reverend Everly Thomas, the ghost of a minister who died fully expecting to go to heaven, only to discover a far more complicated reality awaiting him. Jonathan Bailey will voice Roger Bevins, the spirit of a young gay man who took his own life after a failed love affair and immediately, desperately regretted the decision. Peter Dinklage will voice Hans Vollman, a ghost entirely consumed by his unfulfilled dream of being reunited with his significantly younger wife. All three characters are among the novel’s most vivid and emotionally compelling figures, and all three actors are extraordinarily well-suited to bringing them to life.
Duke Johnson is directing the film, making him the ideal choice for a project that blends stop-motion animation with live-action in a story that exists simultaneously in the real world and in a fantastical transitional afterlife. Johnson previously co-directed Anomalisa in 2015 alongside Charlie Kaufman, the stop-motion animated film that earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature and remains one of the most formally inventive films of the decade. More recently, he directed The Actor in 2025. His ability to find genuine emotional depth in the stop-motion format is precisely what Lincoln in the Bardo requires.
George Saunders himself adapted his novel for the screen, a significant creative choice that keeps the story’s original voice fully intact. Saunders also serves as executive producer on the film, alongside Steven Shareshian and Aaron Mitchell. The decision to hand the adaptation entirely to the source author is a strong signal of how seriously the production is treating the material.
The film is produced by Duke Johnson, Paul Young and Devon Young Rabinowitz for Starburns Industries, the studio behind Anomalisa and the Emmy-winning Rick and Morty animated segments. Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman produce for their long-running banner Playtone, the same company behind Cast Away, Philadelphia, Captain Phillips and many other Hanks collaborations. Sales are being handled by CAA Media Finance and WME Independent.
Tom Hanks plays Abraham Lincoln in the live-action portions of the film, a casting that has generated significant discussion since it was first announced. Lincoln is one of the most portrayed figures in American cinema history, and the choice to frame his story through the lens of grief rather than political achievement gives Hanks a very different version of the president to inhabit.
At 70, Hanks brings a gravity and emotional depth to the role that feels entirely appropriate for a story about a man sitting alone with loss in the middle of a nation tearing itself apart.
No release date has been confirmed yet. Production is expected to take place in London.