A total of four cats came together to bring Church back to the big screen in Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kolsch’s Pet Sematary, but unlike Mary Lambert’s 1989 adaptation and its iconic grey cat, this year’s adaptation employed Maine Coon cats in a nice little nod to the original cover artwork for Stephen King’s novel. Their names? Leo, Tonic, Jaeger and JD.
While four cats were used throughout the film, it was primarily Leo and Tonic who played Church in the key moments, with Tonic playing the role of a living Church and Leo taking over whenever Church was required to be undead. As trainer Melissa Millett explained to AV Club:
“We did end up using Leo for almost all of the undead stuff. Tonic did some action for him, and Tonic was the family pet, because their looks went together so perfectly. We also trained cats as backups for the two main cats: Tonic was an action cat, and Jaeger was an action cat. JD excels at quiet staring, and Leo excels at quiet staring.”
Fellow trainer Kirk Jarrett added in the same must-read interview, “Leo is a confident sit-stay cat. His role is as the undead Church; that was his whole purpose, to be the poster child. The cat you see all across the different platforms, and in the trailer, almost any time he’s in in the undead makeup—that was Leo.”
After filming wrapped, Jarrett adopted Leo and Millett adopted Tonic, and both trainers are having a little fun with their newly adopted stars by giving them their own Instagram accounts. Yes, both Leo and Tonic are now on Instagram, where you’ll find adorable images and video clips that show off the scene-stealing stars of the new Pet Sematary.
Check out some photos below and be sure to follow both Leo and Tonic for more!
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