Three actors with very different registers have joined the voice cast of Lincoln in the Bardo, the stop-motion hybrid from Starburns Industries adapting George Saunders' 2017 Man Booker Prize-winning novel. Willem Dafoe, Jonathan Bailey, and Peter Dinklage will voice three of the ghosts haunting a Civil War-era graveyard while Tom Hanks plays Abraham Lincoln in the live-action sequences.
The project centers on a single night in 1862 following the death of Lincoln's 11-year-old son, Willie. In Saunders' novel, the president visits the crypt and the story unfolds through a chorus of spirits, each carrying their own unfinished life. Saunders adapted the screenplay himself.
Dafoe takes the role of Reverend Everly Thomas, a minister who died convinced he was bound for heaven and found something else waiting. Bailey plays Roger Bevins, a young man who took his own life over a failed love and immediately regretted it. Dinklage voices Hans Vollman, consumed by the dream of reunion with his much-younger wife.
Duke Johnson directs. Johnson co-directed Anomalisa with Charlie Kaufman in 2015, which was also produced by Starburns Industries and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature. Hanks produces via his Playtone banner alongside Gary Goetzman. Saunders serves as executive producer alongside Steven Shareshian and Aaron Mitchell. Production is set in London. No release date has been announced.