Ed Harris (Westworld), Sonequa Martin-Green (Star Trek: Discovery), and Natalie Morales (No Hard Feelings) are all set to star in My Dead Friend Zoe, a dark dramedy about two generations of veterans, family, and friendship.
Kyle Hausmann-Stokes will direct in his feature debut, having also written the script alongside A.J. Bermudez.
The film tells the story of a female veteran engaged in a mysterious but comfortable friendship with her wise-cracking – but dead – best friend from the Army. When the vet is summoned to the remote lake house of her estranged Vietnam vet grandfather, she is tasked with providing the one thing he refuses: help.
The film will be based on Merit x Zoe, a short that Hausmann-Stokes co-wrote and directed last year, and both films draw inspiration from his real-life experiences during and after the military. Hausmann-Stokes served five years in the U.S. Army as a paratrooper and convoy commander, and was awarded the Bronze Star while in Iraq.
He then went on to co-found the nonprofit Veterans in Media & Entertainment, and has focused his directing career thus far on the social and human sides of the military and veteran experience. So this will be a very personal story for him. Hausmann-Stokes said in a statement:
“My fellow veterans and I often get reduced to archetypes and melodramatic tropes. We’re much more dynamic, funny, complex than that. This will be a story about veterans we haven’t seen before; one that anyone, military/veteran or not, can relate to and enjoy.”
Legion M and Radiant Media are producing the film, which is expected to begin production sometime this year.
Harris has upcoming schedule includes Long Day’s Journey Into Night with Jessica Lange and Ben Foster, A24’s Love Lies Bleeding with Kristen Stewart, and indie Downtown Owl from actor-filmmakers Hamish Linklater and Lily Rabe.
Martin-Green produces and stars in Paramount+’s Star Trek: Discovery, which returns for its fifth season next year.
Morales will next be seen in the third season of The Morning Show, as well as sci-fi romance If You Were The Last alongside Anthony Mackie, and actor Jake Johnson‘s feature directorial debut, Self Reliance.
#Peace.Love.MyDeadFriendZoe
