Knives Out 3 Adds Scandal Star Kerry Washington

The growing Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery cast already includes Josh O'Connor, Cailee Spaeny, and Andrew Scott.

By Cameron Bonomolo

Kerry Washington has another scandal on her hands.

The Emmy-winning Scandal star is joining the cast of Netflix's Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, the third Benoit Blanc murder-mystery from writer-director Rian Johnson. Washington's character is being kept under wraps, but the Little Fires Everywhere and Unprisoned actress is part of a still-growing cast that includes Daniel Craig as Detective Blanc and Josh O'Connor (Challengers), Cailee Spaeny (Civil War), and Andrew Scott (All of Us Strangers) in mystery roles. Deadline first reported Washington's involvement.

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(Photo:

Kerry Washington as Olivia Pope in ABC's Scandal.

- ABC)

Washington is best known for playing D.C. fixer Olivia Pope on seven seasons of the ABC drama Scandal. She's become a marquee name at Netflix: Washington recently starred in and executive produced an adaptation of her Broadway play, American Son, as a Netflix television event, and she starred in the Netflix Original movies The Prom and The School for Good and Evil. Her next project, the Tyler Perry-directed period drama Six Triple Eight, is also in the works at the streamer.

Filming on the recently-titled Knives Out 3 is set to begin in June. The Wake Up Dead Man title is "a little hint of where [the movie is] going," Johnson shared when announcing the title on social media. Plot details are TBA, but Blanc called Dead Man his "most dangerous case yet" in a Craig-narrated title reveal video.

"I love everything about whodunnits, but one of the things I love most is how malleable the genre is. There's a whole tonal spectrum from Carr to Christie," Johnson wrote on X/Twitter, referring to famed detective novel writers John Dickson Carr and Agatha Christie, "and getting to explore that range is one of the most exciting things about making Benoit Blanc movies."

Netflix has slotted Wake Up Dead Man to premiere sometime in 2025 as part of an upcoming slate that includes the Omar Sy-starring romantic comedy French Lover, an animated adaptation of the Roald Dahl novel The Twits, Skydance Animation's Pookoo, and Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein.

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