Although his comedy chops are well-documented and established, John Lithgow built a big part of his career off of his talent for playing villains, giving sinister life to serial killers, dance-hating ministers, alien conquerors, and even someone who was kind of mean to Bigfoot. Now, Lithgow is set to add another big-name baddie to his repertoire, with Variety reporting that the Emmy-winner is set to play former Fox News founder Roger Ailes in an upcoming film.
Lithgow will play the disgraced media mogul (who died in 2017) as part of Jay Roach’s new film about the cable network, which has managed to lure in some pretty top-tier performers to play the likes of Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) and Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman), whose accusations of sexual harassment helped kick off the process that got Ailes booted from his “fair and balanced” throne. (Margot Robbie’s reportedly in the mix, too, because a Fox News movie is obviously going to lean pretty hard on Hollywood’s supply of famous blondes.) Roach is directing, with The Big Short’s Charles Randolph handling the script.
As Variety notes, Lithgow isn’t the only actor who’ll soon be sliding his way into Ailes’ bulbous persona, either. Russell Crowe will also soon be playing the part for Showtime, and now all we want out of life is some kind of unofficial Ailes-Off, as the two men each do their best to make a career-long love and admiration for Bill O’Reilly sound human or sincere.