Day Shift Cast and Character Guide: Who's Who in the Jamie Foxx Film

Since the advent of silent movies, vampire movies have been a mainstay of international cinema. As a result, the way vampires are portrayed in pop culture is heavily influenced by these movies. For decades, Hollywood has looked to these blood-sucking monsters for filmmaking inspiration.

One of the most well-known subgenres of horror, vampire movies have explored the supernatural undead in fresh and intriguing ways over the years. This genre has a lengthy history in film and has occasionally ventured into the campy, gruesome, humorous, frightening, dramatic, or even sensuous style. With more than 170 versions produced to date, Dracula by Bram Stoker (1897) has been the most widely shown vampire novel in film. So much was the popularity that the Dracula character had appeared in more movies by 2005 than any other fictitious character outside Sherlock Holmes. These innovative retellings of the traditional vampire legend have contributed to redefining the horror film subgenre in a variety of ways, from action-packed book adaptations to humorous mockumentary-style inquests into ancient vampires living in a contemporary setting. Every iteration of these classic characters has a distinctive interpretation of the well-known story. Day Shift on Netflix is one of the most recent vampire films.

Day Shift will be released on Friday, August 12, 2022, and will be available to stream exclusively on Netflix. Keep reading below to find out who is who in the upcoming action horror comedy.

Jamie Foxx as Bud Jablonski

day shift jamie foxx — Image via Netflix

Jamie Foxx is taking on the role of Bud Jablonski, a diligent, blue-collar father who wants to provide his quick-witted, 8-year-old daughter (Zion Broadnax) with a happy life. In an effort to prevent his estranged wife Jocelyn (Meagan Good) and daughter from selling their house and moving somewhere less expensive, Jablonski is making every attempt to help them. His ordinary pool cleaning work in the San Fernando Valley is just a front for his true source of money, which comes from hunting and killing vampires, with the payment received on the delivery of the fangs of the murdered vampires. The trailer establishes that Jablonski is no longer a part of the mysterious society the movie is establishing, and only works as a freelancer to support his family because of the ever-rising cost of living in LA.

Jamie Foxx is a renowned actor, comedian, and singer who has won numerous honors, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Grammy Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. He joined the In Living Color cast in 1991 and played a prominent role therein through its end in 1994. Foxx's own television sitcom, The Jamie Foxx Show, which he co-created, starred in, and produced, was presented to him after this success. It ran from 1996 to 2001 for five well-acclaimed seasons. After that, he gained notoriety for his performance as Ray Charles in the biopic Ray, for which he received numerous awards as well as his role as Max in the Michael Mann film Collateral. Some of his acting roles include Staff Sergeant Sykes in Jarhead, Dean "MF" Jones in Horrible Bosses and its sequel, Django Freeman in Django Unchained, William Stacks in Annie, Leon “Bats” Jefferson III in Baby Driver, and the super-villain Electro in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man: No Way Home. Foxx lent his voice to the lead role of Joe Gardner in Soul, and voiced the rapping bird Nico in Rio. He is also a Grammy Award-winning artist with four studio albums to his credit, all of which have peaked in the top ten on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart. Foxx has plenty of films on the horizon including the sci-fi comedy They Cloned Tyrone, the real-life drama The Burial, the raunchy talking dog comedy Strays, and the action-comedy Back in Action co-starring Cameron Diaz in her comeback role, and Blumhouse's reboot of Spawn.

Dave Franco as Seth

dave-franco-day-shift — Image via Netflix

Dave Franco plays Seth, a young faint-hearted union representative who is keeping a close eye on Bud and his methods to determine whether he can rejoin the organization after a string of infractions. Where Bud is a skilled hunter, Seth is all new to the horrors of the hunting gig and pees his pants on his first day of work out in the field. But the two make for an interesting duo, with the odd partners driving around the San Fernando Valley pretending to be pool cleaners in search of bloodsuckers to kill and defang, in hopes of obtaining a sizable payout from the vampire hunting union.

Dave Franco is an American actor who made his acting debut in 2006 on The CW drama television series 7th Heaven. What started as small roles in movies like Superbad and Charlie St. Cloud, turned into prominent ones with 21 Jump Street, Warm Bodies, The Shortcut, Now You See Me, and its sequel. For the ninth season of the ABC sitcom Scrubs, Franco was cast in a regular role to play Cole Aaronson, a medical student whose family had paid Sacred Heart Hospital a significant quantity of money so that he could participate in an internship. The ninth season was the series' final one, however, Franco continued to appear in all thirteen of the episodes and garnered positive reviews for his work. In 2014, he starred in the comedy film Neighbors, alongside Seth Rogen and Zac Efron and reprised his role in the sequel. Franco has also appeared in Oscar-nominated and winning films such as The Disaster Artist and If Beale Street Could Talk. 2020 was the year he made his directorial debut with The Rental, starring his wife Alison Brie. He most recently played the role of the arrogant popstar Xavier in the hit Apple TV+ series The Afterparty. Next up for Franco includes his second directorial vehicle the romantic comedy Somebody I Used to Know, and he'll be a part of the ensemble of Rose Glass' romantic thriller Love Lies Bleeding.

Snoop Dogg as Big John Elliott

snoop-dogg-day-shift — Image via Netflix

Snoop Dogg is playing the role of Big John Elliot, Bud's friend who is attempting to entice the Army veteran back to the slayers union. Big John is the one encouraging force behind bud, which allows Snoop Dogg to play a little outside his comfort zone. This character much like Bud is drawn from real life. With the promise of playing an action hero, JJ Perry persuaded Dogg to sign on to the project. The director recalls his conversation with Snoop Dogg in which he emphasized that he didn’t want Snoop to turn into Big John rather it was Calvin Broadus who he wanted to see play Big John, who was modeled after Perry’s platoon sergeant, similar to Calvin in appearance and personality of a wise tall man, who served as a father figure and guide. Snoop agreed because of the common link between him and Perry and their fathers having served in the army.

Snoop Dogg is an American rapper, media personality, and actor. His rise to stardom began in 1992 when he appeared on Dr. Dre's first solo single, "Deep Cover," and then on The Chronic, Dre's first solo album. Since then, Broadus has sold over 35 million albums worldwide and over 23 million albums just in the USA. Doggystyle, created by Dr. Dre and released in November 1993, was Broadus's debut solo album and entered at number one on both Billboard's Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and the Billboard 200. Some of his studio albums are Da Game Is to Be Sold, Not to Be Told, Ego Trippin', Bush, Bible of Love, I Wanna Thank Me, and BODR.

Karla Souza as Audrey San Fernando

karla-souza-day-shift — Image via Netflix

Karla Souza plays the main villain of the movie, a powerful vampire whose pleasant public persona is Audrey San Fernando, the most influential real estate agent in the valley. She is acquiring houses and inflating prices to absurd levels in order to build a kingdom for her affluent clientele of other bloodsuckers.

Karla Souza had a breakthrough role as a recurring character on the teen-focused drama Verano de Amor after making an appearance in one episode - “Espejismos” of the Mexican TV series Terminales. She appeared in supporting roles in two American films, Persons Unknown and From Prada to Nada, before landing another recurring role in Los Heroes del Norte. She was again cast as a series regular in La Clinica, a comedy from the same producer as Los Héroes del Norte in 2012. She appeared in a supporting part in the 2013 global smash hit Instructions Not Included before making her American TV debut in the widely popular How To Get Away With Murder the following year. Souza portrayed Laurel Castillo, an ambitious student of intimidating lawyer and law professor Annalise Keating (Viola Davis). In 2021, she appeared as Marina Hayworth on the ABC sitcom Home Economics.

Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Heather

Not every vampire in the movie is portrayed to be a bloodsucking monster and Natasha Liu Bordizzo plays the friendly neighbor Heather, a night nurse who was forcibly turned into a vampire in the 1970s and is one of Jablonski's friends. According to Perry, "She didn't pick that life." She forcibly got transformed into one and has no choice but to live with the fact. Heather is a nurse, so she can easily steal blood to consume to survive because she doesn't want to kill people. This establishes that Perry does not believe that humans and nonhumans can't coexist, and it will be exciting to see how this narrative plays out in the movie.

Natasha Liu Bordizzo is an Australian actress and model. In Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny on Netflix, she made her acting debut as Snow Vase. After the release of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny in February 2016, Bordizzo relocated to Los Angeles to pursue a career as an international actor. In The Greatest Showman in 2017, Bordizzo played the supporting part of Deng Yan. In the 2018 American-Australian thriller Hotel Mumbai, which is based on the 2009 documentary Surviving Mumbai, Bordizzo also has a starring role. Bordizzo played Julia in the 2021 Amazon film The Voyeurs. In the same year, she played Li Na Weng's voice in the animated comedy Wish Dragon. She was also chosen to play Sabine Wren in the Star Wars limited series Ahsoka in November 2021.

Other cast members include Tetiana Gaidar (Baywatch) as Sophia, Oliver Masucci (Dark) as Klaus, Steve Howey (Shameless), Scott Adkins (Castle Falls), Eric Lange (Unbelievable), and C.S. Lee (Dexter).