Nearly three years after he was ousted from the network he helped make a cable news behemoth and two years after his passing, Roger Ailes is still an unmistakably influential figure in American politics. The mastermind behind Fox News is the subject of the upcoming series “The Loudest Voice,” which network Showtime took one more step towards unveiling on Tuesday.
In the series’ first trailer, Russell Crowe stars as Ailes, playing the TV exec from the inception of the cable news channel. “The Loudest Voice” is built around Fox News’ on-screen breakthrough into shaping the mainstream conservative agenda and showing Ailes’ behind-the-scenes behavior, which eventually led to a series of lawsuits, including one filed by former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson (played here by Naomi Watts).
“The Loudest Voice” supporting cast is bolstered by a number of performers playing Ailes’ real-life counterparts in the building of the Fox News empire. Sienna Miller co-stars as Elizabeth Tilson, Ailes’ wife, while Seth MacFarlane plays Brian Lewis, one of the network’s top PR specialists and whose eventual departure from the company paved the way for one of the biggest windows into the toxicity of Ailes’ tenure.
One of two upcoming Ailes-centric projects, “The Loudest Voice” joins Jay Roach’s still-untitled biopic, which will see Lithgow assume the Ailes role alongside Nicole Kidman as Carlson and Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly.
This Showtime project, though, is an adaptation of Gabriel Sherman’s “The Loudest Voice in the Room.” Sherman, who has become one of the media’s go-to insiders for insights on the current culture at Fox News, co-wrote the series’ first episode with director and Oscar-winning screenwriter Tom McCarthy (“Spotlight”). TV vet Kari Skogland, who worked on the most recent season of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” directed multiple of the series’ seven episodes.
Watch the full teaser (including a haunting wall of TV screens) below:
“The Loudest Voice” premieres June 30 on Showtime.
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