Sam Rockwell, coming off his Academy Award-winning performance in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, will be joining Scarlett Johansson in Jojo Rabbit. Taika Waititi, director of last year’s Thor: Ragnarok, is helming the Fox Searchlight satire of Nazi Germany satire.
The story follows Jojo, a young boy who longs to be part of the Hitler Youth and whose imaginary friend is Adolf Hitler. He discovers a Jewish girl living in his attic and, after initially trying to find ways to get rid of her, begins to see her as human.
Rockwell will play a Nazi captain at the camp and Johansson is set to play Jojo’s mother, secretly working for the Resistance. Waititi will write and star along with directing; he is playing the imaginary Hitler. Waititi will also be producing alsongside Carthew Neal and Chelsea Winstanley.
Rockwell just wrapped filming on a Dick Cheney biopic in which he plays President George W. Bush. Rockwell is also set to voice the titular character in Disney’s The One and Only Ivan.
Production is set to begin later this Spring.
