Russell Crowe to Play Roger Ailes in Showtime’s The Loudest Voice in the Room Series

Russell Crowe is set to star as the late Fox News founder Roger Ailes in Showtime’s limited series based on The Loudest Voice in the Room. Showtime announced the news on Monday that Crowe will play Ailes in the eight-episode series, which is adapted from the bestselling book by Gabriel Sherman.

The series is set around Ailes and will focus on the last decade of his life, while also flashing back to key moments in his career, including his meeting with Richard Nixon on The Mike Douglas Show that both put him on the political path he became known for, as well as the sexual harassment accusations that would lead to his downfall. The series will be told through multiple viewpoints and aims to shed light on the psychology of Ailes and how the political process influenced him so much in his career.

The first episode was co-written by McCarthy and Sherman, who conducted over 600 reviews for his book.

“In many ways, the collision between the media and politics has come to define the world we live in today,” David Nevins, President and CEO of Showtime Networks, said. “We’ve seen this phenomenon depicted on screen as far back as the story of Charles Foster Kane, and it finds contemporary embodiment in the rise and fall of Roger Ailes. With Russell Crowe in the lead role, this limited series promises to be a defining story for this era.”