As we enter these final weeks of the year, Wake Up Dead Man, a.k.a. the third Knives Out movie, is one of the biggest releases still left to arrive on the 2025 Netflix schedule. This Benoit Blanc mystery sees Daniel Craig’s character investigating the death of Josh Brolin’s Monsignor Jefferson Wicks, and among the people he’ll speak to is Glenn Close’s Martha Delacroix, Wick’s right-hand woman and a devout church lady. As it turns out, Close was well equipped to tackle this kind of character given her experience with a cult-like group as a child.
Ahead of Wake Up Dead Man beginning its limited theatrical run on the 2025 movies calendar, Variety spoke with the actress about her role in the lates Rian Johnson-helmed whodunit. The toxic Christian fundamentalism on display in the next Knives Out movie struck a chord with Close, because when she was seven years old, her parents joined the Moral Re-Armament, an international moral and spiritual movement started in 1938 by Frank Buchman. She described this movement as a “cult” in the interview, saying:
When I was little, we’d be ushered into this little man named Uncle Frank’s room, and you thought you were meeting God. I don’t think people join cults like that if they’re happy or if they’re whole people. Something’s missing in their lives.
Moral Re-Armament was renamed to Initiatives of Change in 2001 and remains active in “building trust across the world’s divides.” As Glenn Close goes, her family was involved with the original movement for 15 years, and while she looks back at that time with Moral Re-Armament negatively, she was able to channel that experience into her performance as Martha Delacroix, who dedicated herself to Jefferson Hicks and helped keep the preacher’s congregation in order. Close continued:
I empathize with the side of Martha that’s been trying to be a good little soldier since she was just a young girl. She’s missed out on so much in life by taking care of Wicks.
One would think that dedication would rule out Martha Delacroix being a suspect in Wicks’ murder, but this is a Knives Out movie, so I’m not willing to rule that out entirely right now. But she’s just one of the colorful characters we’ll meet in Wake Up Dead Man, with Glenn Close’s co-stars including Josh O’Connor, Mila Kunis, Andrew Scott, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormick, Thomas Haden Church and Jeffrey Wright, among others. As with the original Knives Out and Glass Onion, Rian Johnson both directed and wrote the script.
We’ll see how Martha Delacroix fully fits into this murder mystery when Wake Up Dead Man first plays in select theaters in the United States and Canada on November 26, and then Netflix subscription holders will be able to stream it starting December 12. For those in the mood for even more Glenn Close content, check out her wild look for The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping.