Every Star in Netflix’s ‘In the Hand of Dante’ and Why This Cast Is Unlike Anything Streaming Right Now

Netflix has a habit of assembling impressive rosters, but ‘In the Hand of Dante’ operates on an entirely different level of audacity. The film, directed by Julian Schnabel and arriving on the streaming platform, brings together a lineup so staggering that it reads less like a cast list and more like a fever dream conceived by someone who genuinely had no ceiling.

Based on the 2002 novel by Nick Tosches, the story follows a handwritten manuscript of Dante Alighieri’s ‘The Divine Comedy’ found in the Vatican library, which makes its way to a mob boss in New York City before landing in the hands of author Nick Tosches. The dual-timeline premise demanded an ensemble capable of straddling centuries, and Schnabel delivered something that has set the entertainment world buzzing since its festival debut.

Oscar Isaac’s Dual Role at the Heart of It All

The anchor of the entire production is Oscar Isaac, and the weight he carries here is considerable. Isaac plays dual roles, taking on New York author Tosches in the 21st century and Dante Alighieri himself in the 14th century. Very few actors working today could plausibly inhabit both a streetwise modern-day writer and a medieval Italian poet within the same film, which is precisely why Isaac’s casting feels less like a choice and more like a necessity.

The 21st-century Tosches is presented as a streetwise tough cookie, first glimpsed as a teenager receiving a life lesson from his uncle after stabbing another boy.

That uncle is played by Al Pacino, in a cameo described as ripe and raspy, which is essentially the only kind of Al Pacino appearance anyone wants in a crime-adjacent drama.

The film is structured so that the two parallel stories weave in and out, with the 21st century rendered in black and white and the 14th century shot in color. It is also a film built around the idea of dual roles more broadly, with several members of the cast appearing across both timelines, echoing one another and possibly embodying reincarnations of earlier characters.

Gerard Butler, Jason Momoa, and the Film’s Gangster Energy

If Oscar Isaac provides the film’s intellectual and emotional spine, the action-fuelled muscle comes from elsewhere in the cast. Gerard Butler appears in dual roles as Louie and Pope Bonifacio VIII, while Martin Scorsese takes on a rare acting role as Dante’s mentor. Butler plays an unpredictable assassin accompanying Tosches on his violent quest to steal and authenticate the manuscript, and by all accounts he leans into the role with considerable relish.

Toward the end of the film, Jason Momoa arrives in the 21st-century storyline as the new mob boss, a slick figure in a white suit determined to get the manuscript back, and his presence leads to torture, gunfire, and an ending that veers into the surreal.

Momoa’s casting brings a very specific brand of physical menace to a film already rich with performers swinging for the fences.

John Malkovich plays the mafia don who pulls Nick Tosches out of exile and tasks him with helping authenticate and ultimately steal the manuscript. Malkovich in a mob patriarch role is the kind of casting that requires absolutely no further justification, and the film leans on his presence as a gravitational anchor in the contemporary storyline.

Gal Gadot, Martin Scorsese, and the Film’s Deeper Layers

Beyond the headline names lies a layer of casting choices that reveal just how seriously Schnabel was taking the project’s thematic ambitions. Gal Gadot plays both Dante’s wife Gemma and present-day Giulietta, Tosches’s stand-in secretary and eventual love interest. Critics noted that she found more traction in the contemporary role, where the film’s energy shifts toward something resembling an international action thriller.

Martin Scorsese plays a character named Isaiah and appears only in the 14th-century segments of the story, with the character meant to represent the highest form of wisdom.

Scorsese had originally been announced as executive producer before it emerged he would also step in front of the camera, making his appearance one of the more genuinely surprising elements of the whole production.

Sabrina Impacciatore, known internationally from ‘The White Lotus’, plays an academic who will do anything to ensure the manuscript’s fate aligns with her own agenda. Alongside her, Benjamin Clementine appears as a pianist living in a grand villa who is called Mephistopheles, and he also composed the film’s score. It is the kind of casting decision that only makes sense once you understand the kind of film Schnabel was trying to make.

The Road to Netflix and the Critical Conversation

Getting ‘In the Hand of Dante’ to a streaming audience was itself a journey worth noting. The project had originally been developed with Johnny Depp’s production company in December 2008, with Depp eyeing the lead role, before Oscar Isaac ultimately joined in September 2023. Principal photography commenced in October 2023 in Italy.

The film had its world premiere out of competition at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival, followed by a theatrical release in the United States, before Netflix acquired distribution rights and brought it to the platform.

Critical reception has been divided, with Pete Hammond for Deadline describing a screenplay that is “all over the map” while also crediting Schnabel for taking a big swing. Peter Bradshaw writing for The Guardian singled out Butler for praise and found the first portion of the film genuinely enjoyable.

The film moves between the 21st and 14th centuries, weaving together the lives of Nick and Dante in what the official synopsis describes as their obsessive search for love, beauty, and the divine. Whatever the critical consensus ultimately settles on, the sheer density of the ensemble makes ‘In the Hand of Dante’ one of the most conversation-generating releases Netflix has put out in recent memory.

With a cast this stacked operating across two timelines, the question worth debating is not whether the film is perfect but which of these remarkable performers you think walked away with it.