Trivia / The Comey Rule

• Ability over Appearance: Jeff Daniels doesn't really look much like the real Comey and is a bit shorter (Inevitable as the real Comey is a whopping 6'8) but his performance has been unanimously acclaimed all the same for capturing Comey's personality perfectly.
• Approval of God: The real James Comey commented positively on the miniseries, saying that it was accurate and conveyed the emotions he felt during the events. His only (joking) complaint was that Jeff Daniels should have "acted taller".
• Distanced from Current Events: Averted. Showtime initially planned to air the miniseries in late November 2020, after the 2020 U.S. presidential election, but after public backlash from Billy Ray and several cast members, decided instead to air it in late September.
• Fake American:
  • Irishman Brendan Gleeson as Donald Trump.
  • Englishman Kingsley Ben-Adir as Barack Obama.
• Scully Box: The already tall Jeff Daniels wore two-inch lifts in his shoes to try and get close to Comey's 6'8" height, but found that the real Comey was still significantly taller when they met on set.
• Those Two Actors: Holly Hunter and Scoot McNairy in a politically charged affair, where have we seen this before?
• Underage Casting:
  • Brendan Gleeson is 65 years old, about a decade younger than Trump at the time of the events depicted.
  • Kingsley Ben-Adir was 34 years old when cast as Obama, who was in his 50s during the time of the events depicted.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: As the details of Trump's campaign and the various investigations into it were ongoing and being uncovered while the show was in production, Billy Ray has admitted that he was sometimes rewriting dialogue and plot elements on the fly to keep it consistent with the facts.

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