Over the last few months, we’ve seen some pictures sprout up here and there of Russell Crowe under pounds of makeup as Roger Ailes for the new limited series THE LOUDEST VOICE, which chronicles the rise of fall of the former Fox News CEO. Now the first teaser trailer is here to show Crowe's Ailes in action, as he fights to bring a new network designed to give a certain slice of the population the only kind of news they want to hear, and in doing so does, in fact, raise his voice to somewhat loud levels.
“Here in America, television news is king,” Crowe’s Ailes says. “We’re gonna give them a vision of the world the way they want it to be…We’re way past politics, it’s war.”
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The teaser is certainly brief, running at under 30 seconds, but it certainly tries to encapsulate the highlights of the show, including Ailes’ views on what the network should be like. As well, there’s also a glimpse at the sexual assault allegations that eventually led to his ousting from the network, and we see Crowe’s Ailes inappropriately touching Naomi Watts’ Gretchen Carlson. This is all done with a twisted, somewhat unsettling piece of music of playing over, which certainly does the job of painting Ailes and his actions as a bit shady.
There's not a ton of footage to go one, but one of the highlights to tuning into the show will be to watch the performances from the cast, especially Crowe's, who seems to be turning in some of his best work in years. The man is caked in makeup, and you can see from the trailer, in only flashes, that he's really digging into varies elements of his personality, like his rage, charm, showmanship and sleaziness.
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The series is based on the book “The Loudest Voice in the Room” by Gabriel Sherman, who also acts as an executive producer on the series. Also on the EP end is SPOTLIGHT’s Tom McCarthy and Blumhouse’s Jason Blum, whose past work is plastered throughout the trailer. Along with Watts and Crowe, the series stars Seth MacFarlane as Brian Lewis, Sienna Miller as Elizabeth Ailes, Simon McBurney as Rupert Murdoch and Annabelle Wallis as Laurie Luhn, and the series premieres on Showtime on June 30.