David Thibodeau

David Thibodeau is a drummer drifting through life in California when he's drawn into David Koresh's orbit, dazzled by the man's charisma and the promise of belonging. He's young, searching, a little lost — the kind of person who wants to believe he's found something real, and follows that feeling to Waco.

He's the audience's way in: an ordinary, unremarkable guy whose openness makes Koresh's pull believable rather than cartoonish. Rory Culkin plays him with a wide-eyed, uncertain softness — not naive exactly, just hungry for meaning — so his slow immersion into the compound feels like something that could happen to anyone.