Stephen Merchant Joins Jojo Rabbit

Stephen Merchant

by James White |
Published on

Though he's been shooting the film for a couple of weeks now, Taika Waititi is still adding to the cast of his latest, Jojo Rabbit. Via Stephen Merchant's Instagram page, we know he's playing a Nazi Captain.

This new effort, based on Waititi's own script (adapted from Christine Leunens' novel Caging Skies ) is set during World War II and follows a young German boy (Roman Griffith), raised by a single mother (Scarlett Johansson), and whose only ally is his imaginary friend Hitler (Waititi himself). As he's schooled by Nazi youth camps to hate Jews, his naive patriotism is tested when he meets a Jewish girl (Thomasin McKenzie) that his mother is sheltering from the authorities.

Merchant's Captain Deertz is a Gestapo agent in the film, and he joins like likes of Sam Rockwell, Alfie Allen and Rebel Wilson. There's no word on a release date for this one yet.

As for Merchant's own writing and directing career, he has wrestling comedy semi-biopic Fighting With My Family due out on 28 September this year.

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