We'll admit it: It's been a very Aaron Sorkin-heavy news day here at Movieline HQ. However, the news that Sorkin will be making a movie about the John Edwards scandal is just too delicious to ignore. Here is our attempt to fantasy-cast The Politician.
John Edwards: Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise basically played John Edwards in the little-seen 2007 flop Lions for Lambs, so we know it's well within his wheelhouse. In fact, this is exactly the powerful dramatic role Cruise needs to make a comeback, and it toys irresistibly with the current public image of him. Can Tom Cruise play a well-coiffed permasmile who inappropriately falls for a younger woman and starts icking people out? Is Xenu an alien? Of course he can.
Rielle Hunter: Amy Ryan
Since her breakthrough, Oscar-nominated role in Gone Baby Gone, Amy Ryan has done political drama (Green Zone) and airheaded comedy (The Office). Why not conflate the two as wackadoodle new-age mistress Rielle Hunter, a reformed party girl who walked up to Edwards in a bar, said, "You're hot!" and threatened to jeopardize the entire Democratic primary?
Elizabeth Edwards: Cherry Jones
We know that Cherry Jones can do "long-suffering politician," as she had to put up with 24's frustrating plots while essaying the show's President Allison Taylor over the last two seasons. As a reward, let's have her do "long-suffering politician's wife" as Elizabeth Edwards. Whether you believe the cancer-stricken Elizabeth is a saint or a tarmac-terrorizing tyrant, is there any doubt Jones could pull either off?
Andrew Young: Will Arnett
Will Arnett usually plays characters who are deluded about their own self-importance, but it's not a far cry to imagine him as Andrew Young, the political aide whose delusion about the importance of John Edwards led other staffers to nickname him Edwards's "butt boy." Young so idolized Edwards that he was willing to take the fall for the Rielle Hunter affair, claiming paternity of Edwards's love child. Yes, Young wrote the book that Sorkin optioned, and that may mean that the film will be sympathetic to him, but the role is crying out for someone who can make this web of delusion as absurd as it must have been in real life. Who better than Arnett?