Awkwafina has joined the cast of “Renfield,” a Dracula spinoff film that stars Nicholas Hoult and Nicolas Cage, an individual with knowledge of the project told TheWrap on Wednesday.
Cage is playing the iconic vampire in the film, while Hoult is portraying Dracula’s sidekick, whom the film is centered around.
Awkwafina’s role was not specified, but she’s said to be playing the role of a cop in the film. Story details are being kept under wraps.
Chris McKay (“The Tomorrow War”) is directing. McKay is also producing, and he’s basing the film off an original story outline by Robert Kirkman. Ryan Ridley wrote the script.
In Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula,” Renfield was a patient in an insane asylum who ate vermin to absorb their life force — and whom Count Dracula used to enter the asylum and attack Jonathan Harker’s school mistress fiancée Mina.
McKay’s producing partner Samantha Nisenboim will executive produce “Renfield.” The film will be produced by Skybound Entertainment’s film team, including Kirkman, David Alpert, Bryan Furst and Sean Furst.
Awkwafina was last seen in Marvel’s “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” and she’ll next be seen opposite Mahershala Ali in “Swan Song” and an untitled Netflix comedy with Sandra Oh. Her Comedy Central series “Nora From Queens” also had its second season over the summer.
“Renfield” is the latest in its line of films such as “The Invisible Man” that are inspired by its iconic monster movie characters, all of which are filmmaker driven projects with unique stories rather than be set in a shared universe.
Awkwafina is represented by UTA, Artists First and Isaac Dunham; Cage is represented by WME, Stride Management, and attorney Patrick Knapp at GGSSC; Hoult is represented by UTA, 42 and Felker Toczek Suddleson Abramson LLP; McKay is represented by UTA, Rise Management and Morris Yorn Barnes Levine Krintzman Rubenstein Kohner Endlich & Gellman.
Deadline first reported the news.