Jeff Daniels To Play James Comey, Brendon Gleeson As Evil Trump In 4 Hour Miniseries

Hot (or at least lukewarm) off his stint as leader of the woke media, in which he portrayed a lead liberal network anchor in Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom, Jeff Daniels is set to play another iconic “resistance” figure, the “embattled” FBI Director James Comey in a four-part series, who infamously leaked his Trump meeting notes in hopes of launching the Russia collusion probe (which failed to find actual evidence of collusion), while Brendan Gleeson will portray President Donald Trump, who fired Comey in May 2017.

The four-part story will be based on Comey’s April 2018 book, “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership,” which documents his two decades of government work, including the 2013-2017 period when he was FBI director under presidents Barrack Obama and Trump (it has much less to say about his stint as general counsel at the world’s biggest hedge fund, Bridgewater).

Since his dismissal, Comey has become one of Trump’s most vocal critics, voicing his constant displeasure over how the President runs the country; unfortunately for Comey, his attempts to weasel his way into the resistance are met with, well, resistance as Democrats still blame him for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential election loss after the FBI reopened its probe into Clinton’s email server just days before the November 2016 election after it had found thousands of her emails in Huma Abedin’s server as part of its probe into Anthony Weiner’s pedophilia.

The project, which is being produced by Alex Kurtzman’s production company Secret Hideout and Shane Salerno’s The Story Factory, will begin filming next month and may find a home on either CBS All Access or Showtime, according to The Wrap.

According to the NY Post, the series is written by Billy Ray (Shattered Glass, Breach, Captain Phillips), who called Daniels “perfect” for the role.

“Great actor, instant integrity, loads of warmth, intelligence, complexity and gravitas,” Ray told TV Line. “We talked backstage after I saw him in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ on Broadway, and I knew I was looking at the only person who could play Jim Comey. Lucky for me, he said yes.”

Gleeson, aka Trump, is best known for his work in films such as “Into the Storm,” “In Bruges,” “Calvary,” and the recently released “Frankie.” He’s also the star of the Stephen King series “Mr. Mercedes.”

“It’s hard to imagine a bigger acting challenge than playing Donald Trump,” Ray said. “You have to have presence, and a singular kind of dynamism. You also have to have the courage and the will to play Trump’s psychology from the inside out. Oh, and you have to be spectacularly talented and watchable. Not many actors check all those boxes. Brendan does. I’m ecstatic about this.”

According to Deadline, CBS has yet to determine if “A Higher Loyalty” will debut on network TV or if it’ll be another CBS All Access exclusive. A release date has yet to be announced.