Isbell and Simpson join cast of new Scorsese movie

Jason Isbell and Sturgill Simpson have joined the cast of Martin Scorsese’s upcoming movie ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ according to the website Osage News. The movie, an Apple Original Film, is an adaptation of David Grann’s nonfiction book about a string of murders in Oklahoma’s Osage Nation but does not have a release date yet.

Rolling Stone reports that the storyline is “set in the 1920s, the story looks into the brutal killings of several Osage natives who amassed considerable wealth after oil was discovered on their land. White residents of the area were allowed to become custodians of the Osage people’s money, denying them the full extent of their profits. Osage people with claims to the wealth began to die and an early incarnation of the FBI got involved, untangling a large, multi-person conspiracy to steal the profits. This period of violence became known as the Reign of Terror.”

Isbell will play Bill Smith, the white husband of an Osage woman who is killed, while Simpson will play rodeo champion and bootlegger Henry Grammer. They join previously announced cast members including Leonardo DiCaprio as Ernest Burkhart, Robert De Niro as William Hale, and Jesse Plemons as Tom White. Actors with Native American and indigenous heritage have been cast to play Osage people, including Lily Gladstone (as Mollie Burkhart), William Belleau, Tantoo Cardinal, Cara Jade Myers, JaNae Collins, and Jillian Dion.