<Li> Samara Weaving as Penelope </Li> <Li> Clarke Peters as Chief Abercrombie </Li> <P> While traveling through the Southern United States in around 1998, Martin McDonagh came across a couple of accusatory billboards about an unsolved crime, which he described as "raging and painful and tragic (sic)". The billboards highlighted the incompetence of police work and deeply affected McDonagh; he said that the image "stayed in my mind (...) kept gnawing at me" and presumed that they were put up by the victim's mother . This incident, combined with his desire to create strong female characters, inspired him to write the story for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri . McDonagh discussed the creative process, saying that it took him about ten years to "(decide) that it was a mother who had taken these things out . It all became fiction (...) based on a couple of actual billboards". </P> <P> The character of Mildred was written with Frances McDormand in mind, and likewise the character of Dixon was written specifically for Rockwell . McDormand initially felt that she was older than the character as it was written, and suggested that Mildred instead be Angela's grandmother; McDonagh disagreed, feeling that it would change the story too much . McDormand's husband Joel Coen persuaded her to take the part regardless . McDormand took inspiration for her character from John Wayne; and Rockwell, wanting to make his character "the exact opposite" of Mildred, took inspiration for his character in part from Wayne's co-star in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Lee Marvin . </P>

Three billboards outside ebbing missouri is a real story