Where You've Seen The Cast Of Netflix's White Noise Before
For anyone feeling like the world has seemed more than a little bit sideways for the past few years, between the often terrifying state of global affairs, the absurdity of U.S. politics, the surrealness of the pandemic, and the panic-inducing sense that social media and human technology are rapidly dragging humanity to hell in a handbasket, it can be hard to make sense of one's own life, let alone the world around us. This lack of control has been a prominent theme for storytellers in recent years, but sometimes, it's nice to have a reminder that we've been in this situation before and somehow the world has kept on turning.
Published in 1985, Don DeLillo's postmodern novel "White Noise" struggles to make sense of the world, satirizing consumerism, pseudo-intellectualism, and mainstream culture in a way that feels hauntingly relevant in the world of Twitter wars and TikTok. Recounting an Airborne Toxic Event that forces refugees to take shelter in a summer camp, the book finds the protagonist obsessing over his own mortality as its inhabitants gradually fall victim to a bizarre side effect of the chemical they've been exposed to. Thanks to screenwriter and director Noah Baumbach, this strange and challenging source material has been adapted into a 2022 Netflix comedy-drama. Here's where you may have seen the cast of "White Noise" before.
Adam Driver as Jack Gladney
Adam Driver plays College-on-the-Hill professor of Hitler Studies Jack Gladney in "White Noise." The acclaimed Driver has developed a reputation for playing an eclectic range of characters over his career. According to Newsweek, Driver applied to New York City's Juilliard School after graduating from high school but didn't make the cut. He was inspired to enlist in the Marines after the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center (per the U.S. Department of Defense). After he was medically discharged, he gave Juilliard another go, earning his BFA from the school in 2009. He was soon acting both on and off-Broadway, and began landing roles in television and films, appearing in TV dramas "Law and Order," "The Unusuals," and "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit" before landing his breakout 2012 role as Hannah's perennially disappointing on-again, off-again boyfriend Adam Sackler on "Girls."
Beginning in 2015, Driver took on the role of Kylo Ren in the "Star Wars" sequel trilogy, beginning with his initial appearance in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens." He's recently played half of a troubled couple going through a divorce in 2019's "Marriage Story," 14th-century historical figure Jacques le Gris in "The Last Duel," and the late fashion house head Maurizio Gucci alongside Lady Gaga in "House of Gucci."
Greta Gerwig as Babette Gladney
Greta Gerwig is an actor, director, and screenwriter known mainly for her work in independent films and in a genre called "mumblecore" — think naturalistic acting and stripped-down, dialogue-heavy storytelling as seen in "Tiny Furniture" and "Euphoria." According to The New York Times, Gerwig initially set out to pursue a career in playwriting but did not make it into the programs she applied to, so she went into acting instead. In 2009, she appeared in Ti West's horror film "The House of the Devil," which io9 praised as "awesome 1980s retro Satanism."
The following year, she joined Ben Stiller, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Brie Larson in the comedy-drama "Greenberg." From 2011 through 2015, Gerwig voiced teaching assistant Pony Merks in the Adult Swim animated series "China, IL." She also appeared in an episode of "Portlandia" in 2015. In addition to her acting work, Gerwig has written a number of films, including the 2012 black-and-white comedy-drama "Frances Ha," the critically acclaimed 2017 film "Lady Bird," and the 2019 adaptation of "Little Women," the latter two of which she also directed. "Lady Bird" would garner a number of accolades, including two Golden Globe awards and five Oscar nominations.
Don Cheadle as Murray Jay Siskind
Starring as Jack's colleague, Professor Murray Jay Siskind, Don Cheadle is an actor whose outstanding career has been punctuated by numerous accolades, including a Tony Award, two Golden Globes, two Grammys, and two SAG Awards. He's also among the elite group of Black individuals whose nominations nearly landed them in EGOT status with his Academy Award nomination, 11 Primetime Emmy nods, and two BAFTA nominations. Like most actors, Cheadle first broke into the field as an extra. Some early appearances in the mid-1980s include a spot as a fast food worker in the Jennifer Tilly-starring traffic school film "Moving Violations" and a 1986 appearance on "L.A. Law." Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, Cheadle continued to take smaller roles, often outshining his co-stars. He starred in the short-lived 1992 "Golden Girls' spin-off "Golden Palace" and went on to play D.A. John Littleton in "Picket Fences," beginning in 1993.
In 1998, the actor earned an Emmy nomination and Golden Globe Award for his portrayal of Sammy Davis Jr. in the made-for-TV film "The Rat Pack." His appearance in the 2004 film "Hotel Rwanda" racked up a number of awards as well. A few standouts among Cheadle's many other film appearances through the years include "Hamburger Hill," "Boogie Nights," and "Crash," which he also served as a producer on. He's also played Basher Tarr in the "Ocean's Eleven" film series and continues to appear as James Rhodes/War Machine in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Raffey Cassidy as Denise
English actor Raffey Cassidy has been on the job from a young age, landing her first role almost accidentally while accompanying her brother to an audition at the BBC, according to Interview magazine. In 2012, she appeared as the younger version of the witch Angelique in the Tim Burton film "Dark Shadows," which re-imagined the 1960s Gothic soap opera in Burton's darkly whimsical style. That same year, Cassidy also appeared as a younger version of Kristen Stewart's Snow White in "Snow White and the Huntsman."
In 2015, Cassidy played the lead role in "Molly Moon and the Incredible Book of Hypnotism," alongside Dominic Monaghan, Lesley Manville, and Emily Watson. She also starred as Athena, with George Clooney, Hugh Laurie, and Tim McGraw, in the Disney film "Tomorrowland" around the same time. Cassidy's other film credits include the 2016 World War II romance "Allied," the 2017 Euripides-inspired psychological horror film "The Killing of a Sacred Deer," and the 2018 musical drama "Vox Lux." Cassidy also starred as a teenage polygamist cult victim named Selah in the 2019 horror film "The Other Lamb." Her TV credits include the 2009 BBC film "Spanish Flu: The Forgotten Fallen," the CBBC drama "Stepping Up," and a recurring role as Beatrice Selfridge in the Jeremy Piven-led period drama "Mr. Selfridge."
André 3000 (André Benjamin) as Elliot Lasher
Known to most of his fans by his stage name André 3000, André Benjamin is an Atlanta native who kicked off his music career while in high school. Around that time, he met and formed the experimental southern hip-hop group Outkast with Antwan "Big Boi" Patton, which produced several critically and commercially acclaimed albums including "ATLiens," "Aquemini," "Stankonia," and the double album "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below." Benjamin has been acting since his 2003 appearance in the action comedy "Hollywood Homicide," which starred Harrison Ford.
In 2006, Benjamin and Patton starred in the Depression-era musical "Idlewild," for which the pair wrote and performed most of the music. That same year, Benjamin played Elwyn in the live-action/CGI adaptation of "Charlotte's Web" and appeared in "Scary Movie 4" in an uncredited role as Jack. His 2013 starring role as Jimi Hendrix in "Jimi: All Is by My Side" earned him an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Male Lead. The musician and actor has also appeared in several TV roles, including a spot on "Martin" and a two-episode appearance as Robert Huggins on "The Shield." He also created and starred in the 2006-2008 Cartoon Network animated musical series "Class of 3000" and voiced several characters for the 2004 Midway Games driving game "L.A. Rush."
Jodie Turner-Smith as Winnie Richards
Jodie Turner-Smith appears as Jack's neurochemist colleague Winnie Richards in "White Noise." The British-born child of Jamaican immigrants, Turner-Smith eventually moved to the U.S. before marrying her actor husband Joshua Jackson (via People). According to an archived interview in Paper, Turner-Smith got started on the road to acting when Pharrell Williams convinced her to try out modeling after a N.E.R.D. show. The lovely actor's first onscreen appearance was, fittingly, as a siren in the HBO supernatural series "True Blood" in 2013. In 2015 and 2016, she appeared in two episodes of the Prime Video series "Mad Dogs," followed by a minor role in the Jeremy Sisto-starring diamond trade series "Ice" in 2016.
Turner-Smith landed her first major role in 2017 when she joined the cast of the post-apocalyptic military series "The Last Ship," as the polyglot Kenyan Navy Sergeant Azima Kandie. She went on to play crew member Melantha Jhirl in Syfy's space horror series "Nightflyers," Detective Josie Lambert in the short-lived crime series "Jett," and the eponymous ill-fated queen in the Channel 5 mini-series "Anne Boleyn." Turner-Smith has also appeared in several movies, including the acclaimed drama "Queen and Slim," the Michael B. Jordan-led action thriller "Without Remorse," and the sci-fi indie film "After Yang," as well as a handful of music videos, including Noah Cyrus's "Make Me (Cry)." She recently joined the cast (via Deadline) of the Disney+ "Star Wars" series "The Acolyte."
Lars Eidinger as Arlo Shell
German actor Lars Eidinger appears in "White Noise" as drug researcher Arlo Shell, a character based on the novel's Mr. Gray, aka Willie Mink. Eidinger explained to Movieweb that he was cast for the film when several people, including co-star Greta Gerwig, recommended him to screenwriter and director Noah Baumbach after seeing Eidinger in "Richard III" and "Hamlet."
Eidinger started acting onstage in the late '90s and has been appearing in television since the early aughts. For years, Eidinger appeared mainly in German programs, including the popular police series "Großstadtrevier" and the award-winning "Berlin, Berlin," which was given a Netflix sequel in 2020. In 2013, he appeared in the British detective period drama "Foyle's War," and was cast in 2018 as Berlin crime boss and club owner Sebastian Fuchs in the Netflix sci-fi series "Sense8." He went on to play steel manufacturer and Kaiser Wilhelm II stan Alfred Nyssen in the Sky-1 neo-noir detective drama "Babylon Berlin" from 2017 through 2020. In 2022, he appeared as actor Gottfried in the HBO comedy-drama series "Irma Vep."
Eidinger has also appeared in a number of American, German, French, Swiss, Russian, and other international films through the years. He appeared with Kristen Stewart in the Olivier Assayas films "Clouds of Sils Maria" and "Personal Shopper," and in the Robert Pattinson-starring science fiction horror film "High Life" in 2018. A year later, he played the original owner of Dumbo's mom, Mrs. Jumbo, in the live-action remake of "Dumbo."
Logan Fry as Professor Helmet Dackel
Ohio-born actor Logan Fry has an extensive list of acting credits and a focus in the cinematic subgenre of trashfilm, which deals with DIY, low- or no-budget productions that prioritize quality storytelling over polished production or any adherence to traditional film conventions. According to an IMDb biography penned by Fry's Ohio-based production company Lone Buzzard Filmworks, Fry's many jobs through the years include a stint in the U.S. Army Reserves, a rubber research lab janitorial assistant, a landscaping assistant, a bellhop, a light fixture company shipping clerk, an extra set of hands at his family's Christmas tree farm, a U.S. DOJ antitrust attorney, a food runner, an artist, and a weaver.
Fry didn't get into acting until 2007, when a job as an armored truck driver on the Ohio-filmed "Spider-Man 3" awakened a passion for the cinematic arts. Since then, he has appeared mainly as an extra in many productions, in addition to running his own trashfilm production company, and values the opportunity to work on large-scale productions even in a very minor role. Some of his background appearances are in films or shows including "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," "Billions," "Succession," and "Mr. Robot," just to name a few. Fry has even played a zombie on several occasions, appearing in "Santa Claus Versus the Zombies," "Zombie Apocalypse: Redemption," and "Everyone Wants Her Dead."
Sam and May Nivola as Heinrich Gerhardt and Steffie Gladney
Sam Nivola stars as Jack's bright but frustrating son Heinrich in "White Noise," appearing along with his real-world sister May. The Nivolas are the children of SAG Award-winning Alessandro Nivola (Dickie Moltisanti in "The Many Saints of Newark") and British-American actor Emily Mortimer, who played Mackenzie McHale in "The Newsroom."
In an interview with The New Yorker, the elder sibling revealed that his actor parents had originally planned for their children to stay out of the entertainment industry. Nivola learned about "White Noise" through St. Ann's, where he was attending school at the time, and sent in the audition tape on his own, much to the chagrin of his parents. When he received a callback, he was encouraged to bring his sister in, and they both ended up getting cast in the movie. After the kids were cast, their mother helped prep her offspring for their roles by reading the novel to her daughter and practicing the book's strange dialogue while performing distracting, repetitive activities.
"White Noise" is not the first time the siblings have acted together. In 2018, the kids joined their mom in "The Pursuit of Love," a romantic BBC mini-series Mortimer wrote and directed. In 2021, the entire Nivola-Mortimer family appeared together in a segment Sam penned and directed for the anthology film "With/In." Sam has also appeared in the HBO series "Doll and Em."
Barbara Sukowa as Sister Hermann Marie
Appearing as the cynical, atheist German nun Sister Hermann Marie is veteran German actor Barbara Sukowa, whose work through the years has earned her numerous accolades including a Grammy nomination, a Cannes Film Festival Award, three Bavarian Film Awards, and three German Film Awards. Born in West Germany five years after the end of World War II, Sukowa began studying acting at Berlin's Max Reinhardt Seminar during the 1970s. In addition to her many praiseworthy Berlin stage performances, Sukowa began acting in front of the camera as part of the New German Cinema school, when Rainer Werner Fassbinder cast her in the 1980 TV mini-series "Berlin Alexanderplatz" and in the lead role in his 1981 film "Lola."
In 1985, the actor was cast in the James Garner-starring American sci-fi series "Space" as Liesel Kolff, wife of rocket scientist Dieter Kolff. Some American television audiences may also recognize Sukowa from her appearance in the 1998 "New York Undercover" episode "Pipeline." In 2015, Sukowa was cast as time travel creator Katarina Jones in the mind-bending Syfy series "12 Monkeys," which re-imagines the Terry Gilliam film. She appeared in an episode of the Prime Video series "Hunters" in 2020, and the following year, Sukowa appeared as Aunt Josephine in the M. Night Shyamalan psychological horror series "Servant." She would later join the cast of the 2023 sci-fi eco-horror series "The Swarm."
Carlos Jacott as Nicholas Grappa
Carlos Jacott, who plays Nicholas Grappa in "White Noise," is a character actor with a lengthy resume dating back to the mid-1990s, when he first appeared in Noah Baumbach's directorial debut, "Kicking and Screaming." Jacott appeared in several era-defining 1990s productions, including "Townies," "The Larry Sanders Show," "Seinfeld," "She's All That," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," and "Grosse Pointe Blank." He was cast as a series regular in the 2002 NBC action series "She Spies," appearing in 20 episodes during the show's two-season run.
From 2006 through 2011, Jacott played the recurring character Carl Martin on the HBO polygamy-themed drama "Big Love." He also appeared in several episodes of the fan-favorite series "Psych," popping up as different characters in the show and even earning a writing credit for the series. Jacott would also return for "Psych: The Movie" in 2017, where he played Gus's boss. Other shows Jacott can be found in include "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," "The West Wing," "Frasier," "CSI: Miami," "Scrubs," "Medium," "2 Broke Girls," and "Firefly," just to name a few. He has even appeared in a handful of noteworthy films through the years, including "Being John Malkovich."
Sam Gold as Alfonse Stompanato
Sam Gold appears in "White Noise" as College-on-the-Hill academic Alfonse Stompanato. The New York native is best-known for his work in the theater as both an actor and director, and has been involved in a number of Broadway productions. According to Playbill, some of the productions Gold has directed include "Fun Home" in 2015, Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie" in 2017, Lucas Hnath's "A Doll's House, Part 2" in 2017, "King Lear" in 2019, and "Macbeth" in 2022. Gold also directed Daniel Craig in a 2016 off-Broadway production of "Othello." His work on "Fun Home" earned Gold a Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical.
The director, who is married to award-winning playwright Amy Herzog, has rarely been involved with onscreen productions, although he directed the "Girls" episode "Role-Play" in 2014 and a Season 4 episode of "The Affair." Gold also voiced Bagheera in the 2010 DQ Entertainment CGI series "The Jungle Book." We can only hope his appearance in "White Noise" leads to more work in front of the camera.