Have a look at Brendan Gleeson's Donald Trump in this teaser for Showtime's The Comey Rule
Aux Features Coming Distractions
The Comey Rule, Showtime’s upcoming adaptation of former FBI head James Comey’s 2018 memoir, will be the first non-satirical depiction of our current president, though it certainly won’t be the last. Regardless, writer and director Billy Ray (Richard Jewell) knows he’ll soon fall in the crosshairs of the MAGA mob, provoked no doubt by a president who wouldn’t dare let this slip by without a few tweets. The release of the project’s first teaser means he’s at the beginning of a very long haul.
“I recognize that there is something for everyone to hate in this movie, and I know we’re going to be prejudged by a lot of people who think they know who Comey is, who think they know who Trump is, and who think they know exactly what happened in 2016,” Ray said in an interview with Vanity Fair. “And I understand how polarized the public is out there. And that’s fair.”
Of course, it’s probably Irish actor Brendan Gleeson who will bear the brunt of the blowback. Gleeson reportedly turned down the role for that very reason before finally coming around to it. And, as you might imagine with an actor as seasoned as Gleeson playing the president, Ray isn’t aiming to depict Trump as “a cartoon.”
“[E]verywhere that we could, we dialed it down,” he said. “We made the contrast between the bags under his eyes and the orange skin softer than it actually is. We made the hair a little less cartoonish than it actually is. We made the suits fit a little bit better. We went out of our way to play fair because we felt we owed that to the public.” Did they also have him run down the last 10 feet of a ramp? Because that’d be one way to endear him to your project.
The story, as you might have guessed, tracks Comey’s journey throughout the 2016 presidential campaign and its many scandals—specifically, Hillary Clinton’s emails and Trump’s ties to Russia—as well as the FBI director’s swift firing following Trump’s ascension to office. Jeff Daniels leads the cast alongside Gleeson as Comey.
Watch the first teaser below.
You can also check out some photos, including a clearer look at Gleeson’s Donald, below. You’ll also see Kingsley Ben-Adir as Obama, Michael Kelly as Andrew McCabe, Comey’s replacement, and Holly Hunter as Attorney General Sally Yates.
The Comey Rule comes to Showtime on September 27.
139 Comments
Stamper from House of Cards can’t stay away from hypercorrupt politics, huh?
I’m reminded of that line ‘If they made a movie out of this nobody would believe it.’ I expect that in their quest to make a film adaptation that the public will ‘believe’ they’re going to soft-sell the pure evil of that wretched horrible man so as not to offend conservative viewers.
Adam McKay is burning with envy. Also JFC this just happened I don’t care to watch it again, but dramatically.
I’ve been trying, but I can’t imagine who the audience for this is. I love Brendan Gleeson and I’m not going to watch it. Conservatives aren’t going to watch something that tears down their golden god. For everyone else, I can’t think of anything more infuriating and demoralizing than watching a dramatized adaptation of Comey’s memoir. Everyone involved is horrible including, to a degree, Comey himself. The miniseries is either going to tell the truth, and be maddening, or obfuscate/go gently on certain people, and be maddening. They’re all horrible. They all were part of the problem, and Comey enabled it before he got run over by the Trump machine. He sucks, too.But beyond that, people are exhausted. We’ve been inundated with Trump for three and a half years now. It’s all-Trump, all the time. We bounce from one corrupt scandal to the next. One racist, jingoist, nationalist outrage to the next. I can’t imagine who these people are who want to willingly subject themselves to more Trump in their leisure time.
I don’t even give a shit about the comedy shows mocking him. Recaps addressing current events are fine, doing a bit as him is unnecessary.
I am so with you on this. I watch Colbert and Seth Meyers a few times a week, and I agree that their Trump impressions are the weakest parts of their material. Trump impressions in general don’t have a lot of comedic value. It’s hard to caricature a caricature. At this point, hearing their Trump impressions is almost as grating as hearing Trump himself. They’re much better off sticking to scripted jokes rather than impersonations.
just commenting to agree with that. colbert’s trump impression ruined colbert’s monologues for me. just speak in your own voice, we all know what he sounds like. we know.
Sarah Cooper is just about the only person who should be allowed to portray him comedically.
That’s my issue with this whole thing – it’s a little weird to make a fictional movie about a sitting president. For one thing the story doesn’t have an ending, but more importantly it takes a few years of hindsight to really get a sense of a president’s legacy. I mean, the short answer is that they’re hoping people will stream it when there’s nothing else to do. If we’re really lucky this will end up like The Late Shift – an instantly dated direct-to-cable trivia item that people can watch in 10 or 15 years to get a sense of how we interpreted history in the moment.
People SAY they’re exhausted. But each week, Tell All Memoir From Person Who Met Trump Once And Totally Has All The Dirt On Him Honestly (Or At Least Some Cringeworthy Anecdotes) shoots to the top of the bestseller charts. So it should be no surprise when film and TV want to get in on the act…
No I don’t want to
I have no opinion about this series, but this seems like a fair place to share an idea. With the right script, I think Michael McKean could do a pretty great job as Trump. He has the build and I think his last season on Better Call Saul shows that he has the lack of vanity required to artfully depict the grotesqueness of a narcissist brought down by his self destructing brain.
“I’m gonna go home and sleep with my wife.”
I could definitely see McKean in a Dick-style movie as Trump.When I saw Gleeson in that makeup it occurred to me that Timothy Simons could pull off a good Trump in a comedy, maybe in the The Death of Stalin vein.They’d have to work with the camera angles, though, since Simons is listed at 6’4 and thus 4” or so taller than Trump.
There’s nothing Lenny can’t do.
I’ve always thought Thomas F. Wilson would be a fun pick for the role (especially since BTTF 2 Biff was modeled on Trump), but McKean would be good too
How dare they make me choose between sticking to my “I will watch anything with Brendan Gleeson in it” rule and my “If sweet death will not come, at least put me in a coma for a year” prayer.
Ha! I had the same thought. Gleeson is one of my favorite actors. I’ll watch him in anything…but not this. Nope. I can’t do it. Nothing about reliving our national nightmare through a dramatization seems enjoyable or even good for my mental health. Hard pass.
The actor playing Obama looks like he’s in his 20s. What, Denzel wasn’t available? Kidding. I’m sure this guy will do fine.Brendan Gleeson isn’t the first person you think of to play Trump. I would have to hear more of the voice which doesn’t exactly sound like the short-fingered vulgarian’s. It took me a second to remember who Sally Yates was: it’s been 100 years between scandals.
Wikipedia says he’s 34. Not only enough to BE president, but old enough to portray one? (Being British would also be a barrier. No Black Americans were available?)
Or just one long, exhausting scandal that never ends.
Not all historic casting can be home runs. Did you James Cromwell as Bush 41 in “W.”? He didn’t really play the part, he kinda just “represented” it.
I liked Cromwell’s portrayal because I think he was revealing an aspect of the man that had to be there but was never bared to the public: the stern, distant, near perfect patrician whose unyielding disappointment had a huge impact on George W.
For what it’s worth, I really like his performance in that movie. It doesn’t sound anything like HW Bush but he’s gripping for every minute he’s on Screen.
A wheelbarrow full of pudding and diarrhea was already working on another project, so Brendan Gleeson got the opportunity.
NO.
“Hail Hydra”
“Slip into something more comfortable, meet me in 5 minutes”
Thanks, I hate it
He’s just down for some good ole fashion waddle flopping.
Why are you doing this
That one was a bit much.
Take your star, you utter monster.
“Wattle”. If you’re going to induce vomiting, at least spell it right.
Is that what Bill Murray whispered at the end of Lost in Translation? Took his damn sweet time to say 2 words.
“After this want to go to the titty bar down the street?”
“You into watersports?”
He sounds more like Christian Bale’s Batman he says, “Let’s take a picture.”
“[E]verywhere that we could, we dialed it down,” he said. “We made the contrast between the bags under his eyes and the orange skin softer than it actually is. We made the hair a little less cartoonish than it actually is. We made the suits fit a little bit better. We went out of our way to play fair because we felt we owed that to the public.”Go to hell you smarmy vomit eater. Stop trying to humanize sociopaths. You owe the public the truth, no matter how harsh it may be. Instead, you chose the coward’s path even though you have enough privilege to shield yourself.
Are all works of fiction based on a true story obligated to be 100% faithful to real life?
It matters in the context of political propaganda.
How is this propaganda?
How is “making the current president of America more appealing and likable then he really is” propaganda?I feel like we can trust you to figure out that one on your own.
If they were seriously trying to argue he’s not that bad, then I think that would be propaganda, but from the article it didn’t seem that way to me.
It doesn’t matter if it is intentional. If you have somebody who pulls down their pants and takes a shit in front of everybody once a day and you don’t have them do that in your movie, you are being dishonest. If you don’t have them do that because you think it makes them look bad then you are not doing it to make them look better. If the consequence of that is that people see the picture of that person in their heads instead of as they truly are and they keep voting for them then congratulations you have normalized fascism and perpetuated it in order to be…polite? So cast Joe Mangianello as Putin, right? Make him as jacked as he thinks he is but isn’t. That’s propaganda, bro. The more you know!
Do you think that, after 5 years of the real Trump being in the news 24/7, a miniseries is somehow gonna change people’s opinions of him?
What does that have to do with anything?However, I’ll indulge your diversion: if you have 9 shows where Hitler is played by Justin Theroux and he’s ripped and sexy, and then you have another where Hitler is played by Justin Theroux and he’s ripped and sexy, are all of the people involved with all 10 of those terrible? Yes. What if one of those came out when Hitler was Chancellor right before he was elected president also, is that additionally culpable? Yes. And then imagine there were people like you then. Oh wait. I don’t have to imagine.
I’m not sure what you’re getting at with that analogy. As the article said, this is the first non-satirical depiction of him, not the 10th. Also, they’re making him slightly less cartoonish than in real life, not “ripped and sexy”(if they did that I think people would assume they were being ironic). If Trump gets re-elected, I seriously doubt this miniseries will have anything to do with that.
I think you should think about both of those analogies a whole lot more. I’m glad you’re only dabbing your tongue on the boot at this point, think about spitting on it (and then not shining it). Showing Trump with real hair is like showing Phyllis Schlafly make a decision based upon her conscience. That never happened. Saying it did is being a toady for fascism. Saying it did in order to be “nice” or “fair” is even more warped and fucked up, like saying Stalin really wanted those people not to starve real bad. Don’t be an equivocating bootlicker. Show this person for who he is or you are complicit.
It sounds to me like you think the creators of this miniseries have an obligation to treat viewers like they have no ability to distinguish fiction from reality and must be told exactly what to think.
It sounds to me like the creators of this miniseries are telling viewers of this to believe the lie Donald Trump has been telling that Donald Trump has a full head of real hair.And your comment makes even less sense, because they acknowledge they are making him look better than he does in real life. They are telling viewers what to think.But I have done. You’ve been clowned by everyone who has responded to you on this thread. Just because you don’t know you’ve been beaten doesn’t mean you haven’t lost. But that is kind of in line with what you are arguing, no? That you can just…be dumb…and the world around you doesn’t matter.
I think the fact that they acknowledged they were taking liberties with real life means they DON’T expect people to believe it. I think they expect viewers to understand the idea of artistic license.Seems to me like you’re basically trying to win the argument by declaring you’ve won. Also, I’d really like to know where you got your idea of what I’m arguing.
stop deep-throating the boot, champ, you were already doing a great job
What boot do you imagine I’m doing something to?
I think what your troll comments presuppose is: you’re really smart and mysterious.But from another perspective, one would say the perspective that is all but other than your own: you are not.
What do you think “troll” means? Does it mean the same thing as “sealioning” or “gaslighting” or all those other words that have been beaten into meaninglessness?
that one deserves a classic internet phrase: lol
Another thing: do you think of yourself as really humble? Just asking since you were all “You think you’re so smart!”
…
If you really don’t wanna continue this discussion you can just not reply.
…
If this was “propaganda” they would have just done it, they wouldn’t talk about the efforts they made to tone him down, and they certainly wouldn’t have that conversation by directly talking about Trump’s racoon eyes, orange skin, and cartoonish hair. I have a hard time seeing how anyone can read a director describing Trump in those terms and come away with “oh so this guy is obviously in the bag for Trump.” Also, given that this is an adaptation of Comey’s memoir, the idea that this film’s goal is going to be to make Trump’s actions or behavior look good feels equally off base.
The key here will be if they also dial down what he says and does. I would much prefer they mute the visual look of Trump so that we can spend more attention on the horror of his words and actions.
Did you know a thing isn’t propaganda just because it triggers you?
All communication has a point-of-view and a agenda. It’s all propaganda.
When the specific ways that they differ from real life is to make a currently-in-power fascist look better then he is, then it can be a problem, yes.Did you think his complaint was just generally about accuracy in docu-dramas?
I don’t see how this will affect people’s opinions on Trump.
You can’t do a “softer Donald Trump” while in the middle of a goddamn dumpster fire because of how obviously not soft he is and everyone knows it.Shit, his own fans shouldn’t be pissed because one of the things they love most is that “he tells it like it is.”You don’t need to “soften him” so he “doesn’t look like a cartoon” because he looks and acts like a fucking cartoon.
Sociopaths happen to be human beings, and that is neither to their credit nor a demerit. I think it’s actually a strategically sound decision to avoid producing a caricature and in fact to do the exact opposite. Trump’s lickspittle defenders, by which I mean Fox News of course, will always shine a spotlight on the rhetorically weakest aspect of any liberal polemic. Even if they reproduce Trump’s appearance with exact fidelity, his cartoonishness is such that the stark orange/pale contrast, the hairsprayed, gilded comb-over (comb-forward?), and Freudian neckties would just look starkly clownish on anyone other than the person we’ve grown so accustomed to seeing with those ridiculous features.Basically, I think they’re doing the opposite of what Michael Moore tends to do, which is hand over ammunition on a platter to his right-wing critics with which to blast away at the credibility of his projects. In his case, he uses false and misleading statements to enhance the impact of arguments that, while factually and logically sound on their own, fall under a cloud of suspicion when his relatively minor fibs are exposed. Granted, a crude caricature (or the appearance thereof) is much different from a falsehood, but it might be wise to avoid alienating viewers who are inclined to sympathize with complaints that Trump is treated unfairly by his critics. Of course, I’m speculating about the filmmakers’ motives, but I think it’s plausible they would want to maximize their chances of reaching tentatively pro-Trump people who might be inclined to reexamine their candidate. Especially when you consider that Jeff Daniels has been outspoken about the dangers of Trump’s potential reelection.
Fair point. But this specific strategy of bending over backwards to be “fair” to conservatives so they won’t complain has caused a lot of harm generally.
There’s “not giving your enemy any ammo” and then there’s “getting tricked by your enemy into making him look better than he is”.
Well put. I had a similar feeling about Oliver Stone’s W.. I had a very liberal friend who was excited to see it until he found out he was played essentially as a non-serious goofball.* I hate Trump as a person, but still applaud their restraint for the same reasons you mentioned.
*Not a stretch, of course, but there’s obviously far more to it than that.
It’s also an important discipline for critics of any kind. Whatever your piece is – an article, a book, a film, whatever – you have a limited time and space, and a limited claim on the attention of your audience. You have to make decisions about what your focus is, and what you want your audience to focus on.
It’s very easy to mock Trump’s physical appearance – his weight, his ugliness, his hairstyle, his fake tan, his fashion sense, his cheesy I’m-being-photographed smile, etc etc. You can totally go there, and you can get a lot of people to laugh along with you.
But (leaving aside the fact that it’s actually pretty ugly the way some soi dissant liberals happily equate worth with physical attractiveness in the case of Trump) if you go for the low-hanging fruit, you’re not going for the more difficult stuff, which is usually what really matters. The point here is, I presume, that Trump is corrupt and/or incompetent – not that he looks kind of funny. Every moment that the audience is mentally thinking “haha, he’s so ugly!” is a moment that they’re NOT fully paying attention to what he’s actually doing.
Indeed, ‘progressives’ who insist we focus on how gauche and ugly and ridiculous Trump is are effectively signing on to his own campaign strategy, which is exactly that… over here, in our politics we have the expression that when you’re losing the argument, throw a dead cat on the table. Trump has made himself the cat. (just look at that masterful ‘what bad economic numbers? Delay and/or bring forward the election!’ deadcat he just did!)[BJ’s description of the strategy: “There is one thing that is absolutely certain about throwing a dead cat
on the dining room table – and I don’t mean that people will be
outraged, alarmed, disgusted. That is true, but irrelevant. The key
point, says my Australian friend, is that everyone will shout, ‘Jeez,
mate, there’s a dead cat on the table!’ In other words, they will be
talking about the dead cat and
they will not be talking about the issue that has been causing you so
much grief.” The filmmakers are saying that they’re not actually going to focus their camera on the maggots in the dead cat, and commenters are angry that the disgustingness of the cat is being understated…]
After reading the whole Vanity Fair article, I think they’re only talking about toning down the cosmetic aspects of Trump, not the rest, which seems like a reasonable decision. I think when you’re doing closeups on a high definition big screen TV, a 100% realistic depiction of the physical aspects of Trump would be too distracting. A little bit will go a long way on TV.
That doesn’t mean they’ll pull this off. Comey as the source seems like a problem, although the article tries to make the case they’re not sanctifying the guy. It’s going to be tricky to make it work.
I’m with you. Not depicting Trump at his full ridiculous self is not a mercy. It is an assault on the truth. Trump is not a sympathetic character by any measure. His cowardice, greed, ignorance and malice are a threat to humanity. People need to see that lump of evil in all of its repulsive horror.
I get where you are coming from. I definitely get the anger and frustration. But I think this might be the best way to do what they are trying to. From what I can tell, they are centering this on Comey’s story of his time working with Trump. And it seems like it’s actually going to get the meat of the matter, what he said and what he did, as reported by Comey. The mannerisms, the dumb speech patterns, his train-wreck appearance—that is all surface. Playing up that stuff, unless your goal is straight farce, will just end up making Trump appear to be a cartoon buffoon, not a serious threat to our democracy and country. Downplaying those surface elements means the audience can actually see what Comey saw and what he felt needed to be documented.Whether this will work or not, I have a feeling that trying to play Trump is akin to playing Nixon, these idiosyncratic personas that seem too weird in affect and speech to be real. Frank Langella probably came the closest on Nixon, but I think everyone doing Trump so far has just gone straight to over-the-top comedy impersonations.
Could you imagine them doing the same for other historical figures? Yeah, so, we wanted to be fair to both sides of the matter, and we didn’t want neo-nazis thinking we were making fun of him. So when we did the casting call for Adolf, we wanted someone a little taller, with a more muscular build, a better chin line, a better hair line. We were afraid that if we were accurate in our portrayal of Hitler, that the people that worship him might think we were being mean. So we wanted to create something that came closer to their idealized version they dream about.
They should have just said. “Look, we hired Hollywood makeup people. They make people pretty, it’s their job. In hindsight we should have hired some of George Romero’s people. When we get around to doing the film about Giuliani, we’ll correct this mistake so we can really nail that ghoulish vibe.”
Yes. YES. Preach. FUUUUUUCK the cavemen and cultists who might have their feelings hurt by showing how much foundation President Fucking J. Moron actually wore. I don’t feel like tip-toeing around the feelings of these apes because they might get offended. The concept of “playing fair” is a punchline to a bad joke to those assholes, so rub their fucking noses in it.
Seems reasonable to mention that we are all reacting to one quote in an interview about a movie we’ve only seen thirty seconds of, none of which includes a full depiction of Trump.
true, but (1) we live in hyper-hyper-polarized times, and (2) most of the people who comment here have spent the last 3+ years watching the Cult 45 yahoos pour gas on the dumpster fire that this country has become lately and then mock everyone who is outraged by it, primarily because they feel like they were the ones who were most egregiously wronged by having a black president for 8 years. You won’t find much rational behavior on either side but some additional context helps.
Your anger seems entirely misdirected
These people are putting money in Jim Comey’s pocket. They can already go fuck themselves.
They wanted to avoid people viewing it as a caricature, which allows people to dismiss it as a caricature. Going the opposite way with it, just a little bit, shuts down that inevitable refrain.
Or maybe the wanted to tone it down so that people actually pay attention rather than laugh at another garish Alec Baldwin impression? The truth falls on deaf ears if people dismiss this as a joke.
Humanizing people like Trump does have its uses. Namely, by reminding people that this could be them and warning them not to become like him.
It sounds less like they were “humanizing” him and more like the real Trump looks so cartoonish that they had to tone it down for the audience to be able to take him serious. And Gleeson still looks absolutely absurd.
I seriously dislike this administration as much as the next sane person. But this is a fictional representation, not a documentary. So the creators have the right to do it however they want to. Full stop.
“Go to hell you smarmy vomit eater.” for an innocuous actor press quote? The misplaced vitriol is mind boggling. Downplaying the cartoonish aspects of Trumps looks in order to better highlight and focus on his monstrous personality makes sense. You may not agree but Jesus, the hate directed at a man who almost definitely feels the same way about Trump as you do is childish.
“[E]verywhere that we could, we dialed it down,” he said. “We made the contrast between the bags under his eyes and the orange skin softer than it actually is. We made the hair a little less cartoonish than it actually is. We made the suits fit a little bit better. We went out of our way to play fair because we felt we owed that to the public.” This, and the casting of Gleeson, explains at once why Trump became President and why it’s difficult to make an accurate portrayal of him: there is a temptation for many people to paint him as more complex than he actually is. He is very dumb and very mean but it’s easier to portray him as a mastermind than to admit that he won the hand while showing his cards the whole time.
WE GOT A DANG CHEETO IN THE WHITE HOUSE
Need to get Stephen Colbert to dub his “Trump” voice for the actor. He ain’t got the proper whininess.
i gotta compliment him for not being as bad as Alec Baldwin’s Trump voice, but in a bizarre twist of fate it seems like he’s doing Trump’s Alec Baldwin voice
Every time I try to sing a Neil Diamond song like Neil Diamond, I end up sounding like Will Ferrell doing a Neil Diamond impression.
No thank you.
“[E]verywhere that we could, we dialed it down,” he said. “We made the contrast between the bags under his eyes and the orange skin softer than it actually is. We made the hair a little less cartoonish than it actually is. We made the suits fit a little bit better. We went out of our way to play fair because we felt we owed that to the public.”You felt you owed it to the public to hide how BAD this was? Really, that’s what you did? How can ANYONE think this helping ANYONE but the MOB BOSS building a wall around the people’s house? George Clooney used actual footage of Joseph McCarthy in his film “Good Night, and Good Luck” for a REASON. He did it because he knew people wouldn’t believe how ridiculous McCarthy was, and they didn’t, they complained “the actor for McCarthy” was “overdoing it.”This movie’s not worth seeing, and the top quote explains why.
Lying to make Trump look better. That’s what’s considered “fair” now, apparently.
“George Clooney used actual footage of Joseph McCarthy in his film “Good Night, and Good Luck” for a REASON. He did it because he knew people wouldn’t believe how ridiculous McCarthy was, and they didn’t, they complained “the actor for McCarthy” was “overdoing it.”Doesn’t that make the filmmakers point? Verisimilitude would, in his view, be a distraction to the story he’s telling, so in order to keep the film being overshadowed by what could feel like a walking cartoon or parody, they toned down some of the more cartoonish cosmetic aspects so audiences could focus on their story rather than be distracted by something like Gleeson’s wardrobe. Honestly its a non-issue, if he hadn’t of mentioned doing this no one would have noticed. Jeff Daniels looks nothing like Comey, nor does the actor playing Obama, that fact that they caked a little less makeup on Gleeson than SNL does for Baldwin won’t be the thing that makes or breaks this film; and I have a hard time seeing how anyone could watch that trailer or see the picture of Gleeson as Trump and think they’re going out of their way to help Trump.
they toned down some of the more cartoonish cosmetic aspects so
audiences could focus on their story rather than be distracted by
something like Gleeson’s wardrobe.
But that contributes to normalizing Trump. Part of how you can tell he was not fit for the job is because he never bothered to even look the part. His wardrobe, his deameanor…all of it screamed “NO!”
It’s not a “non-issue” and TRT-X pointed out why better than I could. “Toning him down” normalizes Trump, and downplays the signs he was never fit for office to begin with. Sometimes history is cartoonish, sometimes reality is just unrealistic. That still doesn’t make it ok to “downplay” things that really happened.
There’s no easy way through this. His historical legacy is shaping up to be a fucking doozy, and as much as we all hate to acknowledge it, we’re going to be grappling with that legacy for the rest of our lives. Right now things like his fitness for office (he’s not fit, obviously) and his overall normalcy (he’s also not normal, obviously) aren’t terribly relevant. Honestly, I have no idea what interesting perspective a work of fiction about the guy could possibly have right now. Adapting a fictional movie from a single, highly interested account of a single, increasingly remote part of the presidency seems like pointless opportunism. But it doesn’t sound like they’re making him likeable or even normal-looking. Every piece of fiction uses dramatic license – we process fiction differently than reality, and fiction that hews too close to reality can paradoxically seem less “real.”
That’s a great point. If you don’t want to risk the argument that he looks to cartoonish, just put the real footage up there.
No, Showtime, we do know the whole story. It’s out in the open. They’re not even bothering to hide anymore.
Say what you will about this adaptation, but I thought it was particularly brave of them to make it a musical.
i would watch that!
That would actually be a genuinely good idea…[no, seriously. Verismo realism is all very well for making a distant time and place come to life. But sometimes absurdity is a better lens for viewing a time and place that is already oppressively real. The same way that, for example, The Big Short was a better take on the financial crises than all the po-faced serious drama versions that came out.]
Every time I see Jeff Daniels I’m pleasantly reminded of that time he appeared, Christ-like, in a fish stick
I mean, if they’re worried about blowback, they shouldn’t have even bothered. The vocal parts of Trump’s base have been whittled down to pizza-obsessed pedophile hunters who believe in demon sperm. Do they really think picking Burnt Ochre over Bright Pumpkin at the Home Depot spraypaint aisle is going to appeal to these people?
We don’t owe an incompetent, psychotic, white supremacist dictator ‘fairness’ in depicting how he looks. Fuck his fucking feelings, he’s a goddamned demon.
I’ve been waiting for you Billy Ray.I’ve not been waiting for this film.
The physical resemblance is good, but why can’t anyone get the voice right? That is awful and it will be distracting. Everyone thinks that Trump is a hard bass, but his voice is more often in the tenor range, especially when he is ranting.
ugh. So the president of the United States is so cartoonish that an actual, fair portrayal of him will be seen as too cartoonish. If Ray wanted to be realistic, he would depict Trump as a cartoon.Fuck all involved in this. And the jackass cartoon that is our president. And this year in general. I always like Brendan Gleeson and I’m sad he didn’t go with his instincts and turn down the role.
Billy Ray? The OxyClean, OrangeGlo, Kaboom! guy??
Oh, sorry, that’s Billy Mays.
lol this shit sucks man.
Can we please get out of the twisted hellscape that is The Trump Years before we start making movies about it?
It’s like being on an airplane hurtling toward the ground and the guy in the seat next to you says “you wanna watch my TikTok about the crash we’re in?”
At least with the plane crash it would be over quickly.
I can’t imagine anything worse than a whole anthology of Showtime movies adapting all of this administration’s exposees, one at a time.
The horror of that idea would itself make a good episode of an anthology show like Twilight Zone.
Fortunately, both of the most appropriate titles for such an anthology (American Horror Story and American Crime Story) are already taken.
Whom is this for, other than James Comey?
I don’t know who this entertainment is meant to entertain, but they’re going to have to strap me in Clockwork Orange style to get me to watch this bit of helluloid.
I don’t want to see anyone portraying Donald Trump. I barely want him mentioned from here on out. If you’re doing a movie set in this era, you can briefly show the characters glancing at file footage of him and saying “oh jesus, this asshole? what a fucking moron” before never referring to him again.
I wonder if a “Garfield without Garfield” approach might work– like, they make the entire movie / series / whatever, and then just digitally edit Trump out physically and verbally. It might be tricky, but on the upside, it would piss him off like nobody’s business.
is lasagna involved? how about mondays?
Nope, just another Nermal Tuesday.
They may have toned down the physical and sartorial absurdity, but Gleeson’s take on Trump’s not-yelling voice is appropriately creepy.
Showtime’s upcoming adaptation of former FBI head James Comey’s 2018 memoir
No. Fuck Comey. He’s part of the reason we’re in this mess. Between this and that Hulu alternate history Clinton project it’s too goddamn soon for any of this.
I agree 100% Fuck Trump, obviously, but the last thing we need is some hagiographic Comey bullshit that paints him as a hero in all this. The people who praise Comey are the same kind of people who say they miss the Bush presidency these days, as if he isn’t responsible for laying a lot of the groundwork that led to Trump.
I’m fine with the Lincoln Project types attacking Republicans…but Democrats sending them money are idiots and they’re going to find out the hard way when that money gets spent attacking swing Dems in 2022.And it’s going to make 2024 especially scary when they’re backing some buffoon like Justin Amash while Democrats are trying to hold the White House against a GOP that wants to bomb China.
This makes me want to FUCKING DIE.
I was wondering if the guy who did Richard Jewell, that sought to portray him as the victim of an amoral journalist (i.e. “fake news”), was the right guy for this sort of thing, and from his sensitivity towards the cult members who might have their feefees hurt from how much foundation Dipshit wears, my suspicions have not been allayed.
as with ANY of the 194 books that have been published about this nuclear dumpster fire of a presidency, what difference will any of it make (regardless of how much foundation Dipshit is shown wearing)? He will deny any negative aspect of it. The cult members will ignore it or rant and rave about its “unfairness” despite all the trouble Billy Ray went to to appear unbiased in portraying the world’s most biased dipshit. The rational majority of Americans who watch won’t be surprised in the slightest. I just don’t understand the value of these exercises any more.
Christ, it’s starting already. We’re never going to be rid of his goddamn face. The History Channel will be 50% Hitler, 50% Trump in 10 years.
I’m pretty sure I had never seen Brendan Gleeson in any film before The General, and he killed in that role (yeah, yeah, stop laughing). I was highly skeptical of him pulling off Trump when this was announced several months back, but…it’s uncanny. Fairly certain I’ll never, ever watch this (I have a hard enough time keeping up with the news because it makes me want to throw my laptop through the sliding door), but the trailer convinced me again that Gleeson is an amazing actor.
Why the fuck are we still allowing J.K. Rowling to write Mad-Eye Moody bullshit?
Man raised by rich, unscrupulous dick becomes rich, unscrupulous dick himself, continues to spread his unscrupulous dickery to the world.Do we really need to explore this (man’s) life in any perceived depth or context?I’d rather watch Back to the Future 2.
Anyone else read it too fast and thought Ben Kingsley was playing Obama?
I don’t think that the “being fair” is going to work how they think. Making the Orangina One less cartoonish is only going to make him more menacing.