As if the idea of a zombie comedy from director Jim Jarmusch isn’t enough to attract film fans to “The Dead Don’t Die,” then the added bonus of one of the best casts you’ll see all year is probably plenty to make it worth the price of admission. The film, which stars (deep breath…) Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Tilda Swinton, Chloë Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, Danny Glover, Caleb Landry Jones, Rosie Perez, Iggy Pop, Sara Driver, RZA, Selena Gomez, Carol Kane, Austin Butler, Luka Sabbat, and Tom Waits, has no shortage of star power. And in a new interview, Jim Jarmusch and the cast explain how they all came together for this admittedly odd horror film.
The New York Times gathered the main cast, as well as Jarmusch, together to talk about “The Dead Don’t Die.” During the discussion, it was revealed that the primary way that the director was able to land the actors for his film was through letters. No, not emails. Actual written letters sent through the postal service.
But for some of the actors, it was more personal. Especially for Swinton, who previously worked with Jarmusch on the film “Only Lovers Left Alive.”
“I asked Tilda before I even wrote the script — I said, ‘If you were in a small town in America as a foreign person, in a zombie thing, what kind of profession would you like to have?’” Jarmusch said. “And she said, ‘Oh, a mortician.’ I said, ‘Bingo! You got it!’”
He added, “I wish she was the queen of the world, because I would do whatever she said. We’d live in an incredible world.”
Even though every bit of marketing materials for “The Dead Don’t Die” tout the “greatest cast ever disassembled” for a film, believe it or not, the cast could have been better. The filmmaker admits that there was one actor that he wanted but couldn’t land. However, it wasn’t because the snail mail letter or meeting didn’t work. It came down to the good ol’ fashioned scheduling conflicts.
“I wrote a part for Daniel Craig, who I love,” admitted Jarmusch. “And he said, ‘Jim, I got 10 days, and they are yours, but that’s the only thing I have all summer.’ Those were the only days when I had Adam, who I had to shoot every day. So I just took [Craig’s] character out of the script, because I didn’t want to do it at all . I probably had too many characters anyway. But that was my only disappointment.”
As much as Daniel Craig would have been great in the film (if you don’t believe he can do “weird,” then check out his performance in “Logan Lucky”), Jarmusch is probably correct. At some point, there’s just too many stars and only so many roles. And do you really want to waste Craig as a cameo? The man is fucking James Bond, for crying out loud.
Perhaps, the promise of Craig and Jarmusch will come to fruition in a future project. For the time being, folks can check out “The Dead Don’t Die,” when it arrives in theaters on June 14.