You know, because Dick Cheney told Patrick Leahy to go fuck himself on the floor of the Senate, and then that guy threw it back at Cheney when he toured the aftermath of Katrina, and… oh, never mind.
Robert Duvall has played lots of assholes in his time, so he’s kind of a no-brainer for Vice President Dick Cheney in Oliver Stone’s W. But before we start doing cartwheels over this casting, let’s wait and see if the mercurial thespian accepts the offer, which, according to his agency (via Entertainment Weekly), hasn’t been officially presented. Obviously, Duvall isn’t exactly a dead ringer for Cheney, but we’re talking about the director who cast Anthony Hopkins as Richard Nixon; Stone’s after spiritual verisimilitude.
EW is also reporting that Jeffrey Wright is in talks to play former Secretary of State Colin Powell, while James Cromwell is circling the role of George H.W. Bush. Wright’s a chameleon and Cromwell’s aces at playing a stiff patriarch, so you’ll get no kvetching from me on these choices. They’ll fit in well with Josh Brolin as the title bungler and Elizabeth Banks as the eerily pleasant Laura Bush; actually, Banks may have too much personality for Laura, but it’ll be fun to see how she handles the challenge.
W (which has yet to land a domestic distributor) will begin shooting on April 21st.