Why ‘My Dead Friend Zoe’ Filmmaker Chose Two Women of Color to Tell His Own Army Veteran Story
variety.comJennifer Maas TV Business Writer When “My Dead Friend Zoe” filmmaker Kyle Hausmann-Stokes set out to adapt his own experiences as an Army vet onto the big screen, he made two very big changes: gender-flipping the main characters and two women of color in the roles.
Starring Sonequa Martin-Green and Natalie Morales, “My Dead Friend Zoe” is a dark dramedy that follows Merit (Martin-Green), a U.S.
Army Afghanistan veteran who is at odds with her family thanks to the presence of Zoe (Morales), her dead best friend from the Army.
Director Hausmann-Stokes co-wrote the film with AJ Bermudez inspired by Hausmann-Stokes’s time serving five years in the Army as a paratrooper, during which he received the Bronze Star in Iraq, and the suicide of his good friend and platoon mate. “My Dead Friend Zoe” marks Hausmann-Stokes’s feature film debut after attending USC film school. “One of the first few ideas, when I finally mustered the courage to finally start putting this down, was that I knew that I wanted this to be funny, and I knew that I wanted the two main characters to be women,” Hausmann-Stokes said during a Q&A after “My Dead Friend Zoe’s” premiere at SXSW Saturday. “For starters, it’s so personal, I just needed some separation from the main characters.
Read more on variety.com