If you aren’t listening to Brian Koppelman’s excellent podcast, The Moment, let this be the reminder that you need to do that. A screenwriter, director, and current writer/showrunner, co-creator, and executive producer of Showtime’s “Billions” and the anthology show “Super Pumped,” which focuses on ‘The Battle For Uber’ in season one with his partner David Levien. A former music exec & A&R guy before he shifted focus to films, Koppelman interviews an array of guests and, many not just from the world of movies or music.
In his latest episode of the Moment, however, he has a person who expertly straddles both those worlds, superstar music supervisor Randall Poster, famous for being the music supe on the films of Wes Anderson and Martin Scorsese in particular, but also works directly with filmmakers like Todd Haynes and more. During the most recent Moment episode, Poster revealed that Jack White, formerly of The White Stripes and known for his groups The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather, will appear in Martin Scorsese’s upcoming $200 million-costing “Killers Of The Flower Moon.”
A big music fan, obviously, Koppelman asked if singer/songwriter Jason Isbell—already announced as part of the cast—would be playing music in the film as a musician. Poster said he would not, revealing that Jack White was in the movie, suggesting many other famous musicians would also appear but didn’t name any others.
“Does Jason Isbell play music in it?” Koppelman asked. “No,” Poster said. “He’s just acting only?”
“Yeah, he’s terrific in it,” Poster explained. “Jason Isbell, Jack White, uhh, oh, my god, who’s [that] famous blues harpist, older cat, it’s not Toots Thielemans… anyhow there’s like four musicians in the movie that don’t play music.”
That’s as far as any further reveals about “Killers of The Flower Moon” go, but Koppelman did add that he gave Jason Isbell a little stint on “Billions” as a warm-up so he would know what to expect once he was on the set of Scorsese’s ‘Flower Moon.’
Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time White has appeared in a film beyond music documentaries like “It Might Get Loud.” White has acted in films like Jim Jarmusch’s “Coffee & Cigarettes” (2003), Anthony Minghella‘s “Cold Mountain” (2003), and Jake Kasdan’s “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story” (2007).
“Killers Of The Flower Moon” has no release date yet, but it was once being eyed as a 2022 film, and then Scorsese delayed the film, seemingly interested in debuting it at the Cannes Film Festival in May of 2023. If that’s the case, “Killers of The Flower Moon” will probably be saved for the fall and will likely make the rounds at things like the Toronto International Film Festival and Telluride. Either way, add Jack White to a cast that stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Jesse Plemons, Lily Gladstone, and Brendan Fraser. ‘Flower Moon’ is based on the series of 1920s Oklahoma murders in the Osage Nation committed after oil was discovered on tribal land. Any other guesses on who those additional musicians might be? Well, we know American country music singer/songwriter Sturgill Simpson is definitely one of them, so one to go?