‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ Has Some Surprising Cameos. Here’s a Guide.

Throughout his acclaimed filmography, Martin Scorsese has been identified for left-of-center casting selections. His longtime collaborator and casting director Ellen Lewis mentioned in an interview that they all the time “try to go outside the box in interesting ways.” For proof, take into account memorable appearances by Scorsese’s mom, Catherine, in “Goodfellas” and the author Fran Lebowitz as a choose in “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

The director’s epic new drama, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” isn’t any exception. The movie tells the story of a Nineteen Twenties plot by white Oklahoma males, notably an uncle and nephew performed by Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, to homicide members of the Osage Nation, together with Mollie Burkhart and her three sisters. Alongside these recognizable Scorsese regulars, quite a lot of musicians, comedians and different nonactors (some recruited by the Indigenous casting director Rene Haynes) mix in seamlessly.

Here’s a spoiler-heavy information to a few of the movie’s most attention-grabbing cameos.

Jason Isbell

The nation singer-songwriter Jason Isbell seems as Bill Smith, husband of Mollie’s ill-fated sister Rita (performed by JaNae Collins). For such a large half, “Killers” is the primary main onscreen appearing gig for the four-time Grammy winner. (He had a recurring voice function as a pastor on the Adult Swim sequence “Squidbillies.”) How did Isbell find yourself within the movie? Chalk it as much as downtime. The film was shot throughout the pandemic when musicians would have in any other case been touring across the nation. As for his essential gig, Isbell’s most up-to-date album, “Weathervanes,” with the group the 400 Unit was launched earlier this 12 months.

Pete Yorn

This indie-rock singer-songwriter (whose most up-to-date album was “Hawaii,” a 2022 collaboration with Day Wave) finally reveals up because the much-talked-about and elusive Acie Kirby, whom DiCaprio’s hapless Ernest is tasked with discovering all through the movie. While “Killers” is Pete Yorn’s first big-screen appearing function, he’s no stranger to the Scorsese sphere. His brother is Rick Yorn, an govt producer of “Killers” and different Scorsese tasks, together with “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “Gangs of New York.” Rick Yorn additionally occurs to be Scorsese and DiCaprio’s supervisor.

Sturgill Simpson

Another noteworthy nation singer-songwriter, Sturgill Simpson performs the bootlegger Henry Grammer. Though he gained the 2017 finest nation album Grammy for “A Sailor’s Guide to Earth,” the guitarist has turned Hollywood roles right into a bustling facet hustle. In addition to a recurring half on the HBO comedy sequence “The Righteous Gemstones,” he appeared within the 2019 drama “Queen & Slim” and was on the massive display final month within the sci-fi opus “The Creator.”

Tatanka Means

This busy comic and actor performs John Wren, a Native American investigator. Means boasts an eclectic filmography starting from the 2014 comedy “A Million Ways to Die in the West” to a current look on the sequence “Reservation Dogs.” The son of the Oglala Sioux activist Russell Means (a Scorsese pal who died in 2012), the youthful Means is probably finest identified for stand-up routines that mirror the Native expertise.

Jack White

The former White Stripes musician has a thriving profession as a guitarist on his personal and in teams just like the Raconteurs and the Dead Weather, however he will be seen on the finish of “Killers” offering a number of voices for a radio play that explains the eventual fates of the real-life figures dramatized within the movie. This isn’t Jack White’s first appearing gig. When he’s not on the helm of his indie label Third Man Records, he has discovered time to painting Elvis Presley within the 2007 music biopic spoof “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story,” and to seem in “Portlandia” and “The Simpsons.”

Charlie Musselwhite

This harmonica ace performs the gruff Alvin Reynolds. Charlie Musselwhite is a Chicago blues legend who is claimed to have impressed Dan Aykroyd’s Blues Brothers character Elwood. Lewis, the casting director, is a music fan who mentioned she sought out Musselwhite after being taken by his weathered look whereas researching the Chicago label Delmark Records. “Killers” is the 79-year-old’s most sizable appearing function after components in films like “Blues Brothers 2000” and “Windows on the World.”

Everett Waller

The movie options a number of distinguished members of the Osage Nation together with Waller, who serves because the tribe’s Minerals Council chairman. In the film, Waller provides an impassioned speech in regards to the plight of his individuals. Haynes, the casting director, mentioned that very like the opposite Indigenous performers, Waller was found throughout an open casting name to fill the film’s 62 Native roles. “His daughter actually came through and she knew I was looking for a gentleman with long hair,” Haynes recalled, including, “I told her that if she could get him to come in, I’ll let him skip the line because I’d love to meet him.”

Brendan Fraser

Though not strictly a cameo, the actor doesn’t seem until late within the movie. Chosen by Scorsese and Lewis effectively earlier than “The Whale” led to a profession renaissance and a finest actor Oscar win earlier this 12 months, Fraser performs W.S. Hamilton, the protection lawyer for De Niro’s William Hale. Lewis mentioned Fraser was an Eleventh-hour alternative after one other actor she didn’t title dropped out.

John Lithgow

This can also be not fairly a cameo, however John Lithgow doesn’t seem till late within the movie. The two-time Oscar nominee has loved a protracted and eclectic profession in roles that span genres, onstage and on the massive and small screens. But that is the primary time he’s labored with Scorsese. Here he performs the prosecutor Peter Leaward in a sequence of courtroom scenes.

Martin Scorsese

One of the three-and-a-half-hour movie’s most shocking moments happens throughout the radio-play coda. It’s Scorsese himself who reads from the obituary of Mollie Burkhart (Lily Gladstone). Scorsese isn’t any stranger to showing in his personal work, from his 1973 breakout “Mean Streets” (he will be seen firing a gun throughout the car-crash finale) to “Silence” (a short and bearded cameo in that 2016 drama). His flip in “Killers” serves as a becoming tribute to each the forgotten topics of the story and the director who helped remind us of them.