I Woke Up Early the Day I Died is a 1998 American camp black comedy film, based on a unproduced screenplay written by Edward D. Wood Jr. in 1974. Wood originally wrote the script in 1961 as Silent Night, then rewrote it in 1974 as I Awoke Early the Day I Died, but he died before he could get it filmed.

William George Zane Jr. is an American actor. His breakthrough role was in the 1989 Australian film Dead Calm, a performance that earned him a nomination for the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Most Promising Actor. He has since appeared in numerous films and television series, notably playing the main antagonist Caledon Hockley in the epic romance disaster film Titanic (1997), for which he was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award.