If You thought Ashton Kutcher Was Odd Casting...

Reading Variety as part of my day job five minutes ago, I was informed that Bill Murray has been cast in a movie in pre-production.
He will play Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And it's not a comedy. Quite a promotion from assistant greenskeeper.

 

Murray has proven himself to be a hell of a wide-ranging actor in the last decade or so, IMO.

 

Yes, he has. But playing a historical figure, particularly a U.S. President, is a real leap. It's not that Murray can't do it, it's the risk audiences will look at him and see Bill Murray, not FDR.

 

So Murray is playing FDR and DiCaprio is playing Teddy.

Strange Days...

 

I don't even know if audiences look at Bill Murray and see Bill Murray anymore. His appearance has changed pretty dramatically, and not for the better.

 

How is DiCaprio gonns gain the weight he needs for Teddy? Ask DeNiro how he did it for Raging Bull?

 

From what I've read on Dateline Hollywood - Murray has been pushing for the role - and it may be the carrot that gets him to do another Ghostbusters movie.

 

Murray was on Stern a few months back and they were asking him about Ghostbusters 3 and he seemed so genuinely disinterested in it that it was kind of refreshing.

I'm sure he'll do it eventually.

 

I think Aykroyd actually has a much better resemblance for FDR.

 

I wonder who will be the first former SNL cast member to win an acting Oscar. Seems funny that the In Living Color cast has one and SNL has been shut out, although Murray, Aykroyd, Joan Cusack, Downey, Murphy (I may be forgetting one...) have all been nominated.

 

Randy Quaid.

 

I'll take Robert Downey Jr.