Johnny Depp’s Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol Adds Ian McKellen & Tramell Tillman
Ti West, best known for his numerous contributions to the horror genre, will offer more family-friendly fare next holiday season with “Ebenezer.” This film will be the umpteenth adaptation of Charles Dickens’s heartwarming 1843 fable “A Christmas Carol,” and it will star Johnny Depp in its titular role. Now, we know that Depp will be joined in the cast by one of this year’s Emmy Award winners, and by a very venerable British actor best known for his role in an iconic adaptation of a very different classic work of English literature.
Ti West’s “Ebenezer:” Prior Announcements
West’s adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” was first announced late in this past October, and it was revealed via Deadline that Johnny Depp had been cast as Ebenezer Scrooge – the heartless and parsimonious businessman who scorns Christmas and the poor until he is visited by a series of ghosts who show him how his miserliness may irrevocably harm others and himself. Depp, who has played the leading roles in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise and numerous Tim Burton films, is no stranger to fantastical period pieces. He’s an actor whose performances are so frequently and extravagantly eccentric that he might be best described as one of the most commonly top-billed character actors.
“Ebenezer” will also star Andrea Riseborough, who is known for her performances in such drama films as “The Silent Storm” (2014), “Shepherds and Butchers” (2016), “Battle of the Sexes” (2017), and “To Leslie” (2022), for which she received a Best Actress Oscar nomination. As yet, her role in West’s “Christmas Carol” adaptation has not been publicly disclosed.
Two Newly Announced Cast Members
On November 4, the names of two more actors were announced for “Ebenezer” (also via Deadline): Tramell Tillman and Ian McKellen. Tillman, whose career began in 2015, has acted in several stage productions, including the 2019 Broadway play “The Great Society.” This year, he had a supporting role as a Navy submarine Captain in “Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning,” and he is slated to appear in the forthcoming “Spider-Man: Brand-New Day.” His most acclaimed role thus far has been in the TV show “Severance,” a psychological thriller series in which he plays the Deputy Manager of a biotech company. It’s this role that has won him 2025’s Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.
Ian McKellen is 86 years old and has been acting onstage and onscreen since the 1960s. His most iconic role of all is in Peter Jackson’s adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit.” In these two trilogies, he plays Gandalf, the benevolent and extremely sagacious Wizard who guides and counsels courageous Hobbits (and other Free Peoples) during the most trying periods of Middle-earth’s Third Age. This was an Oscar-nominated performance (for one of the films, at least), and quite possibly the best performance in the entire fantasy genre; it’s also one that he may be reprising in 2027.
Final Thoughts
At this time, neither Tillman’s nor McKellen’s role in this adaptation is known with any certainty, though Deadline’s November 4 article did mention an unconfirmed rumor from “sources” that have said Tillman will be playing the Ghost of Christmas Present. McKellen’s character is still anyone’s guess, but since few actors can pull off ethereal gravitas quite like Sir Ian, it’s hard to imagine that he hasn’t been cast as one of the other ghosts (Jacob Marley, or the respective Ghosts of Christmases Past and Future). In any case, “Ebenezer” is shaping up to be the most star-studded “Christmas Carol” adaptation since Robert Zemeckis’s 2009 film.
