Rian Johnson on miracles, mystery and his own faith story in 'Wake Up Dead Man'

The first two films of Rian Johnson’s Benoit Blanc mystery trilogy, “Knives Out” and “Glass Onion,” are masterfully twisty, broadly comic whodunits populated by tech billionaires, venal politicians, fashionistas and spoiled old-money family members. The latest, “Wake Up Dead Man,” examines the spiritual battle in contemporary American Christianity as well as one man’s personal struggle on the essence of faith itself.

That man, the personality at the movie’s core, is Johnson himself.

Before he was nominated for an Oscar for each of the first two movies in the trilogy, before directing acclaimed episodes of “Breaking Bad” and writing and directing “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” Johnson was a practicing Christian.

“I was very deeply, personally Christian,” said Johnson, who was raised in churches in Denver before moving to California when he was 11. “My relationship with Christ was the lens I frame the world through, through my childhood, my teenage years, into my early 20s.”

Religion & Politics

Photos of the Week: Pre-Advent feast, Nepalese festival

A bishop carries the Tabernacle during the feast of Christ the King on the last Sunday before the season of Advent at St. Joseph Church in Prayagraj, India, Sunday, Nov. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)

In Opinion

And finally, How one conservative Christian family is pushing back against ICE

At 7:30 a.m. on a chilly November morning, every member of the Luhmann family was already awake. Their cozy home, tucked into a bucolic corner of the Chicago suburbs, was bustling with activity.

Six of the eight children, almost all of them homeschooled, were mostly settled in the dining room. A large, colorful quilt — hand-stitched by Audrey, their mother, to represent various names for Jesus — hung on the wall. Andrew, their father, readied to go to work at Wheaton College, the evangelical Christian school nearby, where he serves as an associate professor of geology.

But Ben, 17, and Sam, 16, donned warm hoodies, said goodbye to their parents and piled into a well-loved sedan. Cranking the engine, they skirted a wild turkey that stalks their yard and headed out to find U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

“I don’t think Jesus would ever ignore people being hurt, especially by the federal government,” said Ben, at the wheel, to a reporter in the back seat. Sam, pounding an energy drink with one hand, scrolled through a lengthy list of group chats with the other, scouring for reports of ICE and other federal immigration agents in their area.

Mornings like this have been typical in recent weeks for the Luhmann family, which has drawn on its conservative Christian faith and a shared compulsion to counter “Operation Midway Blitz,” the mass deportation push in Chicago launched in September. They have joined a coalition of activists, everyday citizens and people of faith — including theologically conservative Christians — who have pooled resources and learned new technologies to mount an effort they say is designed to protect immigrants in their neighborhoods and around the city.

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