(KRT) — Bad-boy movie star James Woods has played a hippie lawyer, a white supremacist and a cop killer. Now he’s taking on a really tough role — Rudy Giuliani.
The Emmy-winning actor, who generates as much drama off-camera as onscreen, has signed to star as the ex-mayor in a two-hour movie to air on USA Network later this year.
The movie is based on “Rudy! An Investigative Biography of Rudolph Giuliani” by Village Voice senior editor Wayne Barrett, whose bio dished up details of Giuliani’s first marriage and his father’s mob links.
Barrett had some advice for Woods. “I understand he is a tremendous Rudy fan, so all I can suggest to him is: Don’t read the book. We don’t want him to be disillusioned,” he said.
Woods has spoken publicly about his admiration for Giuliani, even praising him after he split with his wife, Donna Hanover, during the U.S. Senate race.
“It really takes guts to announce a separation in the middle of a campaign,” he told the New York Daily News at the time.
The 55-year-old actor — who played a radical lawyer in “True Believer,” racist Byron De La Beckwith in “Ghosts of Mississippi” and a murderer in “The Onion Field” — has some romantic baggage of his own.
He once charged that actress Sean Young stalked him and his liaisons with starlets have been fodder for the gossip columns.
Woods — who won his Emmys for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Special or Miniseries for two episodes of the “Hallmark Hall of Fame,” “Promise” and “My Name is Bill W.” — is known as one of Hollywood’s most outspoken stars. He’s railed against feminists and the Clinton White House, while praising the First Amendment and his own sexual prowess. He describes himself as a “disillusioned Democrat.”
Recently, he said he told the FBI about suspicious-looking Middle Eastern men he encountered on flights to Boston.
“I’ve spent a great deal of time lately talking to the FBI and have learned some startling things. I’m convinced, as they are, that there will be more horrific acts of terrorism,” he said.
A spokeswoman for Giuliani declined to comment on the casting choice.