Kyle Hausmann-Stokes On Bringing My Dead Friend Zoe To Life

Kyle Hausmann-Stokes has always been a storyteller. From making videos for his high school tennis team in Wisconsin to filming his time as a U.S. Army paratrooper in Iraq, his love for capturing moments on camera has remained constant. Now, with his feature directorial debut, My Dead Friend Zoe, he’s bringing a unique perspective to the big screen — one that blends the humor, trauma and camaraderie of military life into a deeply personal story.

“I’m here because of a mission that I was put on by my colonel in the army,” Hausmann-Stokes says. After joining the U.S. Army just two months before 9/11, Hausmann-Stokes spent five years in active military service — with a camera in hand at most times, a fact that was not lost on his commanding officer.  “He kind of saw something in me,” Hausmann-Stokes says. “So he tasked me, so to speak, with honing my craft, going to film school and then telling the soldiers’ story.” After earning a Bronze Star in Iraq, he used the G.I. Bill to study film at the University of Southern California, later directing commercials for brands like Google and IBM. Still feeling driven to heed his colonel’s words, Haussman-Stokes co-founded Veterans in Media & Entertainment and launched Blue Three Productions, through which he has created numerous campaigns focused on military and mental health issues. “I will be telling military and veteran stories my whole life,”  Hausmann-Stokes says. “I’m still a soldier, just in a director’s uniform.”  

“I met so many incredible women veterans and heard their stories, and I just didn’t have that experience when I was in the military.”

My Dead Friend Zoe is Hausmann-Stokes’ first feature, an expansion of his 2022 short Merit x Zoe. The film follows Merit (Sonequa Martin-Green, Star Trek: Discovery), a veteran of the war in Afghanistan who is struggling to reconnect with her family while still holding onto her dead best friend, Zoe (Natalie Morales), whom she imagines as a constant companion visible only to her. With a cast that includes Morgan Freeman (The Shawshank Redemption, Million Dollar Baby), Gloria Reuben (ER, Lincoln) and Ed Harris (Apollo 13, The Truman Show), the film is a darkly comedic exploration of grief, healing and the bonds that refuse to break — even after death. The film is semi-autobiographical in that it is based on the writer-director’s own experiences with PTSD and losing his best friend to suicide after military service. 

But instead of making the lead character a carbon copy of himself, Hausmann-Stokes chose to focus the film on women in uniform because he felt that they were underrepresented on film. “When I was in the military, I didn’t serve alongside women because I was in the infantry in combat arms,” Hausmann-Stokes says. While women weren’t serving in that capacity at that time, years later, while directing a mental health campaign for the Veterans Administration for maketheconnection.net, Hausmann-Stokes was struck by their experiences, and the fact that their stories had yet to be brought to the screen. “I interviewed close to 500 veterans over the course of five years,” he says. “I met so many incredible women veterans and heard their stories, and I just didn’t have that experience when I was in the military. So I was so educated by that. I kind of decided that when I got the opportunity to tell my story, that it would be … half my story and half other people’s stories. I wanted to create space for them as well.” 

“I will be telling military and veteran stories my whole life. I’m still a soldier, just in a director’s uniform.”  

A crucial part of Hausmann-Stokes’ approach to the story was humor, and the groundbreaking television series M*A*S*H, which followed an army hospital during the Korean War, was a major influence. “There have been very few shows and films that have gotten the humor of the military right,” Hausmann-Stokes says. “Especially recently, we’re just always portrayed as either broken and very self-serious or some action superheroes, and that’s just not the case for most veterans.” Hausmann-Stokes even stuck in references to Merit and Zoe being fans of the series, a trait that he believes many veterans will relate to, as it has resonated with so many military personnel over the years. “They always say, ‘Make the movie that you want to see.’ And I didn’t like the way that I saw us being portrayed,” Hausmann-Stokes says. “I knew that I had a very serious and personal story to tell but also one that was going to have levity and humor, just like life doesn’t just like, we do in the military.”

My Dead Friend Zoe won the Narrative Spotlight Audience Award at South by Southwest 2024, and is now making its way to a wide theatrical release. While Hausmann-Stokes remains committed to telling the stories of veterans for the rest of his life, he also has other stories he wants to tell, including two new feature films in active development. Whatever stories he chooses to tell, Kyle Hausmann-Stokes has proven himself to be a filmmaker with a distinct voice — one that honors his past while carving out a bold new future in Hollywood.

Read more film interviews here:
Sam and David Cutler-Kreutz on The Oscar Nominated Short Film A Lien
Alan Ritchson and Co-Stars Take Action in Reacher Season Three