CBS Television Studios is assembling a powerhouse cast for a miniseries based on former FBI director James Comey’s memoir A Higher Loyalty.
Jeff Daniels has signed on to play Comey in the production, and Brendan Gleeson will also star as President Donald Trump.
Jennifer Ehle will play Comey’s wife of 32 years Patrice.
Published in April 2018, A Higher Loyalty was an instant best-seller, moving more than 600,000 copies in its first week.
The book covers Comey’s 2013-17 tenure as FBI director, his role in the 2016 election — both in the investigation of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state and in Russian interference with the election — and his relationship with Trump, who fired Comey in May 2017.
Billy Ray (Shattered Glass, Captain Phillips) adapted the book and will direct the miniseries, which is scheduled to go into production in November.
A premiere date hasn’t been set; CBS executives also have yet to decide whether the project will air on Showtime, CBS All Access or potentially both.
Ray, who spent a year researching the Comey miniseries, executive produces with Alex Kurtzman, Shane Salerno and Heather Kadin.
The project comes from Kurtzman’s Secret Hideout, The Story Factory and Home Run Productions in association with CBS TV Studios.
Below is the cast to date and their real-life counterparts.
Jeff Daniels as James Comey
Two-time Emmy winner Daniels (The Newsroom, Godless) will play the former FBI director. Ray says Daniels’ “instant integrity, loads of warmth, intelligence, complexity and gravitas” made him the right actor to take on the role of Comey, who has taken heat from both ends of the political spectrum, first for his handling of the Clinton email investigation and later for his testimony that President Trump asked him to back off a probe of former national security advisor Michael Flynn’s ties to Russia. Daniels is repped by ICM and Martino Management.
Brendan Gleeson as Donald Trump
Mr. Mercedes star and Harry Potter alum Gleeson is playing the 45th president of the United States, a major figure in Comey’s memoir: The book’s title comes from what Comey says Trump demanded of him during the investigation of Flynn. “It’s hard to imagine a bigger acting challenge than playing Donald Trump,” said Ray of Gleeson. “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. … Not many actors check all those boxes. Brendan does.” Gleeson is repped by The Agency in Ireland and Principal Entertainment.
Michael Kelly as Andrew McCabe
Kelly is best known for starring on a fictional Washington-set drama, House of Cards. In the Comey miniseries, he will play McCabe, who became acting director of the FBI after Comey was fired (and who was fired himself by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in March 2018 over authorizing the release of information about an investigation). Kelly’s credits also include The Sopranos, Generation Kill and the upcoming second season of Amazon’s Jack Ryan. He is repped by WME, Liebman Entertainment and Schreck Rose.