Richard Dreyfuss Set to Play Bernie Madoff on ABC Drama

Network’s multiple-episode financial series is inspired by ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross’ book

Richard Dreyfuss
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Oscar-winning actor Richard Dreyfuss is headed to TV.

The “Jaws” actor is set to star on “Madoff,” a multi-episode ABC drama centered around the rise and fall of the now-jailed financier Bernie Madoff, a spokesperson for the network told TheWrap.

The actor will portray the infamous former stockbroker, who was convicted of fraud for his part in what became one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in U.S. history and sentenced to 150 years in prison in 2009. Lincoln Square Productions has teamed with ABC on the drama, which doesn’t yet have a premiere date, firm episode count, or an actress cast to play Madoff’s wife, Ruth.

Linda Berman and Joe Pichirallo are executive producing the series, inspired by ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross’ book “The Madoff Chronicles: Inside the Secret World of Bernie and Ruth.” Ben Robbins (“Strays”) will pen the script.

Dreyfuss won an Oscar for “The Goodbye Girl” in 1977  and was nominated again, nearly two decades later, for “Mr. Holland’s Opus.” However, he’s best known for his big screen action roles, including starring in back-to-back Steven Spielberg blockbusters “Jaws” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

He has also starred on CBS’s short-lived 2001 teacher drama “The Education of Max Bickford” and had a four-episode run as Warren Schiff on Showtime’s “Weeds.” More recently, Dreyfuss starred alongside Danny Masterson and Danny Glover in the comedy “Killing Winston Jones,” slated to hit theaters in June.

APA represents Dreyfuss.

The Hollywood Reporter first reported the casting,

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