Miley Cyrus' 'phallic room' of sex toys made her a perfect choice for 'Drive-Away Dolls'

Spoiler alert! This story contains plot details from “Drive-Away Dolls” (now in theaters).

Last year, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” became the first Oscar-winning film to feature an epic battle over butt plugs.

Today, “Drive-Away Dolls” innovates with a detective film centered on dildos. In this offbeat comedy, lesbians Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) and Jamie (Margaret Qualley) embark on a road trip to the South. Along the way, they are pursued by gangsters looking for a top-secret briefcase of sex toys molded from the genitals of blackmailed politicians and tycoons. This steamy road trip is directed by Oscar winner Ethan Coen (“No Country for Old Men”), who co-wrote the film with his wife Tricia Cooke, who is gay.

The star-studded film stars Beanie Feldstein and Colman Domingo, along with a trio of A-list scene-stealers. Coen and Cooke tell us how the cameos came to be:

How a golf caddy was cast as young Matt Damon

For Ethan Coen, it was a no-brainer to make Matt Damon a desperate senator looking for dildos: "Wouldn't that occur to everyone?" — For Ethan Coen, it was a no-brainer to cast Matt Damon as a desperate senator looking for dildos: “Wouldn’t that occur to everyone?”

Damon plays a small but pivotal role as Senator Gary Channel, a Florida conservative whose career may be ruined after a custom dildo of his penis falls into the wrong hands. Damon starred in the Coen brothers’ “True Grit,” but it was his performance in “The Informant!” by Steven Soderbergh! this convinced Cooke that he should be Channel.

“He plays a really good idiot in it,” Cooke says. “We thought, ‘This is perfect. He’d probably love to play an idiot Republican senator.'”

Matt Damon at the Berlin International Film Festival in Germany earlier this month.

A young Channel appears in a psychedelic flashback with Tiffany (Miley Cyrus), a hippie who makes plaster casts of her lovers’ private parts and turns them into dildos. Coen was adamantly against the use of rejuvenation technology, so producer Robert Graf looked for someone who looked like a young Damon. He eventually found Jordan Zatawski, a beginning actor.

“Bob was playing golf and the caddie said, ‘You know, a lot of people have told me I look like Matt Damon. If you need someone who looks like him, let me know,’” Cooke says. “And Bob said, ‘Well, actually, we do.’”

Coen adds: “With the lava lamps and the lighting (in that scene), he’s just a great Matt Damon. He looks exactly like him!”

Miley Cyrus brought her true passion for sex toys to ‘Drive-Away Dolls’

"Flowers" Singer Miley Cyrus at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles earlier this month. — “Flowers” singer Miley Cyrus at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles earlier this month.

The two-time Grammy winner makes a cameo appearance in two trippy sequences in the film: dancing like Tiffany in a flower child outfit before climbing to the top of a chain in wonder and beauty. Because of her Happy Hippie Foundation, which supports LGBTQ+ youth, the filmmakers thought Cyrus might be interested in a queer film.

“We sent her the script cold and she saw herself having fun in it,” Coen says. “And then when we met her, she said, ‘You asked me to do this because you know I love Cynthia Plaster Caster, right?’ The real Cynthia Plaster Caster was an American artist who cast rock star (penises).

Playing a dildo enthusiast was a perfect fit for Cyrus, who has spoken in interviews about her home’s unique decor. “Apparently, she has a whole room in her house dedicated to penises,” Cooke says. “She has a phallic room in her house. We didn’t know that at the time.”

“She said to me, ‘Didn’t you see him on Town & Country?'” Coen recalls.

Pedro Pascal loved his gruesome cameo as a dildo collector

"He liked to make faces for his decapitated head," Tricia Cooke says about Pedro Pascal. — “He liked to make faces at his decapitated head,” Tricia Cooke says of Pedro Pascal.

"He liked to make faces at his decapitated head," Tricia Cooke says of Pedro Pascal. — “He liked to make faces at his decapitated head,” Tricia Cooke says of Pedro Pascal.

Pascal appears in the film’s opening scene as Santos, a dildo collector who is brutally murdered with a corkscrew and pen by gangsters. Later in the film, Jamie and Marian discover that their rental car contains not only Santos’ valuable case of dildos, but also his decapitated head.

The producers approached Pascal about making a cameo appearance, and “he was totally up for it,” Coen says. “He’s only there briefly, but his head shows up in a lot of scenes after he leaves. I sent him a picture of[actor]Dirk Bogarde: perfectly groomed, except for the little strand of hair bouncing on his forehead. I told Pedro he was[playing]the affable guy, and he said, ‘OK, I get it.’”

Pascal’s disembodied dome is often used for comedic effect. (At one point, it’s thrown across a street.) The “Last of Us” actor was already away shooting another movie when his head was created, meaning “he had to have his head cast remotely,” Coen recalls. “He zoomed in and auditioned the faces this guy might have made when his head was cut off.”

This article was originally published on USA TODAY: ‘Drive-Away Dolls’ Movie: Appearance by Matt Damon, Miley Cyrus and Pedro Pascal