(Warning: This post contains spoilers for Part 1 of “The Comey Rule”)
Showtime spent the entire first half of its two-part miniseries “The Comey Rule” replaying (and probably causing PTSD for some Hillary Clinton supporters) Donald Trump’s shocking victory in the 2016 presidential election. There was just one thing missing from the 90-minute episode Sunday night…
Donald Trump himself.
Outside of a blew shots of the back of his head, Brendan Gleeson’s Trump is nowhere to be found despite the FBI spending considerable time looking into whether or not his campaign colluded with Russia to get him elected. Billy Ray, who wrote and directed both parts of “The Comey Rule,” told TheWrap he preferred Trump to remain in the periphery of the first half. “Let’s just make him the shark in the water.”
Ray then compared Trump to one, very specific shark.
“You know, Steven Spielberg’s movie ‘Jaws,’ which is top 20 all the time for me, you don’t see the shark until you’re well into the story. I thought that was a pretty good model for us,” Ray explained. “So the idea was to hold him off until he actually came in contact with our hero, Jim Comey. That’s the time you need to meet him. You want to see him through Comey’s eyes.”
Much of the first part is also dedicated to the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was Secretary of State, including Comey’s (Jeff Daniels) own decision to notify Congress they were reopening the probe two weeks before the election, after previously recommending no criminal charges should be filed.
“This is a series about how heartbreaking it can be to be a public servant,” Ray said. “Donald Trump is not a part of the first part of that story. He has very little to do with it. He has a lot to do with the second half of that story.”
“The Comey Rule” concludes with Part 2 on Monday night at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT
9 Famous People Who Hated the Biopics About Them, From Mark Zuckerberg to Jada Pinkett Smith (Photos)
Not everyone is happy to see their life portrayed on the big screen. From Mark Zuckerberg to David Letterman to Jada Pinkett Smith, some famous people have serious reservations about the films about them.
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Hunter S. Thompson, "Where the Buffalo Roam" (1980)
Hunter S. Thompson wasn't happy about the movie that was a semi-biography of his life.
“Horrible pile of crap. [Bill] Murray did a good job. But it was a bad script," he said in an interview. "You can't beat a bad script. It was just a horrible movie. A cartoon. But Bill Murray did a good job. We actually wrote and shot several different endings and beginnings and they all got cut out in the end. It was disappointing. Not to mention that I have to live with it. It's like go into a bar somewhere and people start to giggle and you don't know why, and they're all watching that f---ing movie.”
Universal
Michael Oher, "The Blind Side" (2009)
"The Blind Side" won an Oscar for Sandra Bullock as a white suburban mom who took in a troubled Black youth and supported him during his rise to college and the NFL, but Michael Oher -- the young Black linebacker at the center of the story -- has long voiced reservations about the film. Back in 2011, he complained that the film "portrayed me as dumb instead of as a kid who never had consistent academic instruction and ended up thriving once he got it" -- and falsely suggested he was a football novice before the Tuohy family took him. He later said the film has "taken away from my football" by raising false expectations and higher scrutiny.
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Lil' Kim, "Notorious" (2009)
According to MTV, Lil' Kim blasted the 2009 movie about the life and death of Notorious B.I.G., saying, "most of the story is bullsh--." She also expressed her disappointment over the decision to cast Naturi Naughton to play her.
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Mark Zuckerberg, "The Social Network" (2010)
Zuckerberg said that the producers of 2010's "The Social Network" "made it seem like my whole motivation for building Facebook was so I could get girls, right? And they completely left out the fact that my girlfriend, I've been dating since before I started Facebook.”
The South African civil-rights icon voiced strong objections to the 2011 biopic about her struggle to end apartheid -- and even tried to stop production. "I think it is an insult," she told CNN, carefully adding that she felt no ill will toward American actress Jennifer Hudson, who portrayed her. "It is a total disrespect to come to South Africa, make a movie about my struggle, and call that movie some translation of a romantic life of Winnie Mandela.”
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Marc Schiller, "Pain & Gain" (2013)
Marc Schiller, one of the victims of the Sun Gym Gang, wasn't happy that Michael Bay turned his book into a comedy.
“Obviously at the end they tried to kill me — and it wasn’t that funny when they tried to kill me,” Schiller told the Huffington Post. “They did run me over with a car twice after trying to blow me up in the car. I was in a coma and somehow I got out. … It wasn’t that funny because I had substantial injuries. … The way they tell it made it look like a comedy. You also gotta remember that not only I went through this, but certain people were killed, so making these guys look like nice guys is atrocious.”
Paramount
Julian Assange, "The Fifth Estate" (2013)
According to Express, Julian Assange begged Benedict Cumberbatch to turn down the role in the biopic, calling it "toxic, deceitful" and "wretched."
“I believe you are a good person, but I do not believe that this film is a good film,” Assange wrote. “You will be used, as a hired gun, to assume the appearance of the truth in order to assassinate it. To present me as someone morally compromised and to place me in a falsified history. To create a work, not of fiction, but of debased truth.”
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David Letterman, "The Late Shift" (2014)
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Letterman talked about the movie that recounted his battle with Jay Leno to fill "The Tonight Show" chair after Johnny Carson retired. John Michael Higgins played him in the movie.
"The guy who's playing me — and I'm sure he's a fine actor — but his interpretation seems to be that I'm, well, a circus chimp. He looks like he's insane, like he's a budding psychopath. And afterward I thought, ‘Well, maybe this is how I strike people as being.’”
Late Show With David Letterman
Jada Pinkett Smith, "All Eyez on Me" (2017)
Jada Pinkett Smith took to Twitter to share her discontent with how her relationship with Tupac Shakur was portrayed, saying it was "deeply hurtful."
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These stars are less than happy with the movies that depicted their life stories
Not everyone is happy to see their life portrayed on the big screen. From Mark Zuckerberg to David Letterman to Jada Pinkett Smith, some famous people have serious reservations about the films about them.
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Universal
