Starburns Industries casts Willem Dafoe, Jonathan Bailey, and Peter Dinklage in ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’

Starburns Industries has announced the expansion of the voice cast for its upcoming stop-motion and live-action hybrid adaptation of George Saunders’ Booker Prize-winning novel, ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’. Actors Willem Dafoe, Jonathan Bailey, and Peter Dinklage have joined the production to voice central spectral figures.

Willem Dafoe will portray Reverend Everly Thomas, a minister navigating the afterlife; Jonathan Bailey will voice Roger Bevins, a young man who died by suicide; and Peter Dinklage will play Hans Vollman, a ghost seeking reunion with his wife. These animated characters will interact with a live-action performance by Tom Hanks, who stars as President Abraham Lincoln.

Directed by Duke Johnson and featuring a screenplay adapted by Saunders himself, the film explores the grief surrounding the death of Lincoln’s 11-year-old son, Willie. The story utilizes the concept of the ‘bardo’—a transitional state between death and rebirth—to blend historical drama with surreal animation.