Fox News honcho Roger Ailes was a divisive figure in the media industry for decades, and his life will be the subject of the new Showtime series THE LOUDEST VOICE with Russell Crowe playing the man himself. While we have seen photos of him in costume and heavy amounts of makeup in the past, a new slew of photos from The Hollywood Reporter give the best look yet at the Oscar winner’s transformative work as the controversial figure.
As part of THR’s large profile on the new series, they debuted several new looks at Crowe as Ailes, who had to wear a tremendous amount of makeup in order to become the man, which includes adding weight to the face and taking away his head of hair. Crowe did the math himself, adding up all those hours to determine he’s spent a tremendous amount of time stuck in that makeup chair.
"By the time we reach the end, I'll have spent over 12 days of my life in this chair," says Crowe. "Twelve. Fucking. Days."
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Based on the book “The Loudest Voice in the Room” by Gabriel Sherman, THE LOUDEST VOICE will start in the mid-90s at the start of Fox News, and follow Ailes through to his ousting from the network after numerous women accused him of sexual assault – starting with Fox News star Gretchen Carlson, played by Naomi Watts in the series and pictured in black and white below.
For his prep, Crowe didn’t spend much time talking with Sherman about the man, wanting to get inside his mind from other perspectives.
"[Gabe's] got a perspective. He's put that perspective down on paper. I've already taken it in. I don't need more of [Roger's] peccadilloes, I've got fucking 600 pages of it. And, in a certain way, I've got to start being on Roger's side a little bit — and even that's a journey to totally expose him and bring him down."
He continued, saying that meant talking with people who interacted with Ailes before his death in 2017, which led him to bring out a side of him many probably won’t be expecting.
"They don't give you any of the 'I communed with the devil' — that's not their experience. It was, Roger's the funniest person they knew, or he had this incredible perspective; and they all took great pains to tell me how entertaining he was."
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As it seems par for the course nowadays, what with two different documentaries about the Fyre Festival airing one right after the other on Netflix and Hulu, another Ailes project is in the works from Jay Roach, starring Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman and John Lithgow as Ailes. While that show will focus more on the other women who brought Ailes down with their confessions, this series will focus more on how Carlson spearheaded much of his eventual downfall.
Executive produced by Jason Blum and Blumhose Television and overseen by SPOTLIGHT’s Tom McCarthy, THE LOUDEST VOICE also stars Annabelle Wallis, Sienna Miller, Seth MacFarlane, Simon McBurney, Josh Charles and more.