Who Will Play Madoff?

A Bernard Madoff movie is inevitable, so let’s just ask the question now: Who will play him? James Wolcott floats and dismisses a few possibilities (“Robert Deniro? Too menacing. Richard Gere? Hmmm, maybe…”) before settling on Harris Yulin, the recognizable character actor who does certainly bear a resemblance to the Ponzi schemer. Yulin may be unusual, but “no actor in the Madoff age range would pique Hollywood interest apart from those deities who are decidedly all wrong (Nicholson, Eastwood).” Should they do an “early years” film, then Wolcott suggests Ben Stiller, who can establish his “dramatic chops.”