Inside The Comey Rule: Anthony Hopkins could've played Trump, why the Showtime miniseries isn't airing on CBS

The Hollywood Reporter

Brendan Gleeson initially turned down the President Trump role, which led to Hopkins being attached before dropping out, according to The Hollywood Reporter. A few others also said no before director Billy Ray "wore Gleeson down." "I told him, 'I’m not going to ask you to do something that makes you a target,'" says Ray, who himself was ordered to dial back his anti-Trump tweets. "I said, 'Our makeup is going to be more real-life than his, our hair is going to be more real-life than his and our suits are going to fit you better than his (fit him).'" Gleeson said yes on the condition that he wouldn’t need to do any press. While James Comey was easy to cast, The Comey Rule struggled to find an actor to play Barack Obama, going through about 80 people before casting British High Fidelity star Kingsley Ben-Adir. Why isn't The Comey Rule airing on CBS? "Not lost on anyone involved was the vindictiveness of the president, who not only touted a cozy relationship with the company’s chairman, Shari Redstone, but also was actively trying to interfere with the Time Warner/AT&T merger at the time and could just as easily have done the same with CBS and Viacom," reports The Hollywood Reporter's Lacey Rose. "Too many times, there would be meetings or conversations about the project that would come on the heels of Trump behavior so ghastly, it left many involved wondering, 'Is this what we’re in for?'" Rose also details Showtime's decision to reverse course and move The Comey Rule from after the election to this weekend. Showtime's David Nevins says that The Comey Rule could have easily aired in January, though it might have been "not as relevant."